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We have the following in-house publications available to purchase by mail order. Click on the images below to see full details of each publication, including contents, sample pages and prices. We also have a farm-based publication for sale - Appledown Animals: an introduction to the farm animals for children (£1.75 inc. p&p). If you have any further enquiries or wish to place an order, please contact us.

There is an additional small charge of 50p per publication to cover Postage & Packing. For orders outside the UK please contact us for delivery details.

Contents
Preparing to Sing	2
Posture	3
Mouth and Throat	7
Breathing	9
Warming Up	15
First Skills	20
Sight Singing	25
More Advanced Skills	30
Performance Nerves	32
Vocal Health	41
Recommended Reading	44

Preparing to Sing

The best way to learn about singing is to find a good teacher who can help you to make the most of your individual voice. This volume is designed not to teach singing but to complement your lessons and the many excellent text books available to us by providing an 'aide memoire' of skills. Knowledge of singing develops over a period of time and it is well worth recording those gems of information that suddenly allow a particular aspect of the art to make sense to you. To that end this Notebook contains space for you to add your own notes in each section. A chapter on Sight Singing is included as this is an invaluable skill for singers, particularly choral singers. It is not essential to have the best voice in the world to be an extremely useful member of a choir, especially if the conductor can trust you to sing the right notes at the right time at short notice. This notebook assumes you can read music, i.e., that you understand written notation. Should this not be the case, I strongly recommend that your next step is to work towards obtaining this knowledge, as it will open up a whole world of music to you. Should you wish to join a choir it will, in most cases, be taken for granted that you are able to read music, although high standards of sight singing are not necessarily required. ..... Happy singing!

The Singers Notebook Price: £4.50 plus 50p P&P

Contents
Getting Started	2
Rhythm 1	3
Pitch 1	13
Rhythm 2	23
Pitch 2	33
Intervals	47
Signs and Terms	51
Introducing Form	57
First Steps in Harmony	59
Sight Reading	69
Further Reading	71

Rhythm 1

Each piece of music has a natural pulse or beat over which the musical sounds are grouped together into rhythmic patterns. Signs are used to represent different relative lengths of sound, or silence. Silences are called rests.

The pulse of a piece of music is more strongly accentuated at regular intervals. For example, every 3rd beat may feel stronger, or every 4th beat e.t.c. To show this in written music, the notes are separated by bar lines into bars, each bar representing an equal number of beats. The rhythmic patterns of the notes in each bar add up to this regular number of beats. The term metre is sometimes used to refer to this regular beat pattern, hence a piece of music may be said to have a metre of so many beats to a bar, the first beat of each bar being the strongest beat. The end of a piece of music is indicated by a double barline:

Music Readers Notebook A5 Loose-Leaf    Price: £7.50 plus 50p P&P A5 with Ring Binder    Price: £8.00 plus 50p P&P A5 with Ring Binder & Plastic Pockets    Price: £10.50 plus 50p P&P

A collection of contributed articles, poems and illustrations.

Compiled by Gillian Gray in aid of RABI

The Gentle Giants

We miss the Clydesdale and the Shire, Where are they now? You might enquire. Consigned alas to an age bygone With Suffolk Punch and Percheron. Bred to work upon the farms Some were no strangers under arms, One of their more unpleasant chores Was helping man to fight his wars. This heavy horse his faithful friend Gave us his horse power to the end, His harnessed might through collar went To draw farm wagon and implement. A form of speech forgotten now Like hake, and quadrant of the Plough, Were the words that left the lips with ease Linked up with chains and whipple trees. For hoeing, ploughing and harrowing Horse power used to be the thing, Nor would 'haymaking' troubles pose When cutting, tedding, or raking rows. But science has move on apace, And because the horse has lost the race To up his profits and the yield, He has been withdrawn from the field. Time was when ploughmen stamped their feet In winters cold 'gainst rain and sleet, Now instead of talking to his horse The tractor speaks to him of course. Inside a cabin warm and dry He sees the furrows slipping by, Tucked up just like an embryo Whilst listening to the radio. Some high powered tractors that you see Have computerised technology So operators need to be quite bright If they are to 'get things right'. Regrettably I must concede The iron horse meets the farmer's need, I'm not saying tractors are grotesque, But the plough horse was more picturesque. John Frew Church Cottage, Cheriton, Hampshire

The Way of Life Price: £3.50 plus 50p P&P

Gillian Gray, Appledown Centre, Scrubbs Farm, Bishops Sutton, Alresford, Hampshire, SO24 0HR. Telephone/Fax: 01962 736029 E-mail: appledown@hotmail.co.uk