Continuous Music: Selected Works [Book]

Erased Tapes presents Continuous Music: Selected Works, the first printed collection of scores from prolific pianist and Continuous Music pioneer Lubomyr Melnyk, making his unique technique available to piano lovers all around the world. This first volume contains selections from each of Melnyk’s releases on Erased Tapes, including Corollaries (2013), Evertina (2014), Rivers and Streams (2015) and a very special handwritten score of Pockets of Light, serving as an entry point to his technique. Continuous Music: Selected Works also contains a previously unreleased score, The Moving Window, plus detailed notes from the composer himself. Every copy comes with audio recordings of all six pieces including a new version of Butterfly, specially recorded for the reader.

Melnyk’s mission with this sheet music book is for musicians and piano enthusiasts to gain a greater love and understanding of the instrument, while being inspired to delve further into the world of Continuous Music.

“This music offers you a new dimension of your own self that you did not know existed … a delightful place where you feel the total freedom of the music opening up before you, a vast open plain where you can sail and frolic freely anywhere you wish to go … Your ship is awaiting you, and the sea is endless and at peace … there are no dangers, and no reefs to shatter your journey … only the open, endless water for your discovery.”

Only Parasol and Pockets Of Light are what Melnyk calls “pure” Continuous Music. The other four works are in a standard notation format and include Evertina, Awaiting, a hybrid of Butterfly — a mixture of both regular and Continuous Piano — and The Moving Window, containing elements of both worlds. Since Continuous Music is very different to standard piano music, it has been challenging to present it in a readable and playable notation as there are simply too many notes. Instead, Melnyk developed a new method of notation that can give a clear and immediate impre