Skill Development and Beyond!
Learn more about these popular books in use by bands everywhere. Get a FREE DOWNLOADABLE PREVIEW and discover how to take your band to a new level!
Mimi Zweig StringPedagogy
Thomastik-Infeld and Connolly Music are the proud sponsors of Mimi Zweig’s StringPedagogy.com Online Edition, providing free access to music teachers and aspiring violinists, violists, and cellists. Sign up now.
Mimi, Professor of Violin at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and director of its Strings Academy, is famous for her innovative violin teaching and methodology. Her basic teaching principles are rooted in how a musician’s body moves physically. She teaches violinists to play with a physical freedom that causes a violinist’s performance confidence to soar. With this muscle memory embedded in their body, the violinist is now free to play with a level of musical sensitivity they couldn’t attain before. And the subtle tonal nuances that result help create memorable and moving performances.
This is a FREE resource for musicians and music educators.
The Online Edition includes:
- Volumes 1: Starting the Beginning Violinist
- Volume 1B (Index): Teacher’s Guide to Suzuki Books One and Two
- Volume 2: Establishing a Healthy Foundation
- Volume 4: Cello Teaching with Susan Moses
- Volume 5: Setting Up for Success in the String Classroom with Brenda Brenner
- More than 6 hours of streaming video lessons
- Strings Clinic — webinar on violin strings, how they’re made, the materials used and why, how to tune them,
- Downloadable PDFs – you can print text and images from all volumes
- Powerful search capability within stringpedagogy.com, giving you easy access to specific information
Music FUNdations Now Available at JW Pepper
Music educators now have expanded access to a powerful resource for building musicianship and character in the band room. Music FUNdations, the innovative method book by Scott Lang and Robert Sheldon, is now available through JW Pepper, making it easier than ever to bring into your program. Designed for middle and high school band programs, this engaging approach weaves social-emotional learning (SEL) directly into music instruction—helping students become better musicians, better people, and have fun along the way.
Music FUNdations takes a holistic approach by aligning lessons with the five core SEL competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Each lesson invites students to reflect, connect, and grow while strengthening musical skills through creative exercises, chamber ensemble work, and flexible performance opportunities.
The book’s “layered musical demand” structure guides students from unison lines to duets, trios, quartets, and small-group challenges—providing meaningful progressions that encourage collaboration and confidence.
Excelcia Music Publishing Releases 2026-2027 Concert Band Music Catalog
The new release features a variety of works for all levels of skill and musicianship, as well as seasonal, holiday, and contest and festival performance occasions. All the pieces in this year’s catalog are available for purchase now as new time and money-saving Ready Sets options, as well as traditional sets, marking the second full Band catalog release to include Ready Sets.
Excelcia Music Publishing’s 2026-2027 Concert Band music release includes new pieces from composers and arrangers Tyler Arcari, Peter Blair, Carol Brittin Chambers, Larry Clark, Laura Estes, Christina Huss, Gene Milford, Yukiko Nishimura, Sean O’Loughlin, William Owens, and Matthew R. Putnam.
Part of this release are professional recordings and ScoreVideos of each piece, as well as digital program notes. These free-to-use resources aid Band Directors while selecting and rehearsing music and can be used to further immerse students in the works that they are learning to play. Professional recordings of the new music will be streaming on all major platforms and the publisher’s website.
Accessories
Portable PA with Pro-Grade Audio
You Won’t Believe Your Ears. Fortissimo Pro is significantly improved to include pro-grade audio.
Audio section redesigned to the same caliber as our McCormick’s Professional Active Loudspeakers and Subwoofers
New 12” woofer and titanium tweeter
400 watts RMS, 800 watts peak power
Professional crossover and DSP
Adam Hall Cables introduces the FLIPJACK
The FLIPJACK is a revolutionary and professional quality adjustable TS jack plug, designed and engineered in Germany, and fully patented. FLIPJACK is set to make the onstage lives of guitarists and bassists across the world easier, safer, and more practical.
A new guitar cable or jack plug is usually not groundbreaking news, but FLIPJACK – which allows the player to rotate their jack between straight and 90° angled operation with their thumb and forefinger in seconds – is a genuine innovation in the world of live music, allowing players to seamlessly and safely swap between instruments without having to change cables too. One small move, perhaps, but it all adds up over weeks, months and years of live shows.
Yamaha Launches Upgraded DXR/DXS mk3 and CXR/CXS mk3 Series
Yamaha’s new DXR mk3 powered loudspeakers and DXS mk3 powered subwoofers – along with their CXR/CXS mk3 unpowered counterparts – are designed to ensure audiences experience the full range of expression and passion of performance, giving users the confidence they need for those crucial moments when high quality sound makes all the difference.
The Brightest, Most Powerful, Most Complete Alto Mouthpiece We’ve Ever Made
The JodyJazz QUASAR Hard Rubber was built by harnessing advanced physics, precision aerodynamics, and innovative design. The QUASAR delivers explosive projection, effortless response, and a sound that is both brilliant and full. This is not brightness for brightness’ sake. This is power with depth. At the heart of the QUASAR is our Patent Pending Vibra Table, designed to increase reed vibration and efficiency.
Many bright mouthpieces sacrifice mids and bottom, resulting in a thin, two-dimensional sound. QUASAR solves this problem with our bullet chamber design, which adds body, warmth, and harmonic richness beneath the brilliance.
D’Addario Completes Transition to 100% Organic Cane Reeds
D’Addario announces the transition of its iconic Rico reed line to D’Addario Organics, completing the company’s multi-year commitment to making all reeds 100% USDA Certified Organic. That means no harmful chemicals, pesticides, or herbicides are involved at any stage of production, from cane cultivation to packaging the final product.
Same Unparalleled Performance
Rico reeds join Reserve, Select Jazz, and Royal reeds in the D’Addario Organics family: the first and only fully organic reed lineup. Players can expect the same dependable response, familiar feel, and elevated experience they loved about Rico reeds before the transition to Organics, now backed by a more sustainable and environmentally responsible process.
New Gretsch Explorer Hardware Series
The GRETSCH EXPLORER SERIES is the perfect fit for drummers looking for inexpensive and lightweight hardware. The Explorer Series hardware is equipped with distinctive Gretsch features such as metal memory locks, the newly developed Smooth-Connect Tube Joint, the Precision Cymbal Tilter and classic Gretsch style features like the T-Rod wing screws and Easy Glide GRETSCH Footboards.
If it’s for your first drum kit, the club stage road kit, or just to relieve your back when packing the hardware bag in the trunk: the Gretsch Explorer Hardware Series will help you to explore drumming in a comfortable way.
Roland Announces ZENOLOGY GX for iPad
ZENOLOGY GX for iPad, a fully-featured ZEN-Core software synthesizer designed for a touch-based interface. This robust musical instrument includes thousands of classic and modern tones paired with accessible sound design capabilities, making it an ideal entry point into Roland’s sonic ecosystem.
For a limited time, ZENOLOGY GX for iPad is a free experience with the full feature-set unlocked for all users. This allows musicians at all levels to go hands-on and try it for themselves on Apple’s ubiquitous iPad platform.
Instruments
PRS Guitars Introduces 30th Anniversary “Birds of a Feather” Hollowbody
This ultra limited edition celebrates three decades of Private Stock craftsmanship, representing the intersection of luthiery and artistic vision.
The model marks the 10th anniversary of the Birds of a Feather fretboard inlay, designed by Director of Manufacturing and head of Private Stock, Paul Miles. It features a reverse Birds of a Feather with stained maple birds rising from the base of the fingerboard into an ebony sky.
New Vero Series Acoustic Guitars
The Vero Series is the ideal instrument for students and beginners looking for a guitar they can truly grow with, offering craftsmanship and tone that punches well above its class.
All models within the new Vero Series feature capped headstocks with Veelah inlaid logo, mahogany bodies trimmed with a Koa ring rosette, along with mahogany necks, pau ferro bridges and fingerboards with top-edged offset fret markers.
The single cutaway Grand Auditorium and OM models are available with spruce or mahogany tops, the Dreadnought stuns with a shimmering red amber tint, and the popular spruce-topped ¾ Mini-Camper delivers surprising clarity and volume. Plus, all Vero models come complete with a Veelah branded 10mm padded carry bag.
Yamaha Launches New B Series Upright Pianos
The new B Series upright piano delivers richer sound and improved usability at an accessible price.
Featuring newly developed hammers and a redesigned soundboard, the new B Series pianos deliver a pure, clearly articulated sound and a natural, expansive resonance which captivates and inspires players, all in a compact size that fits easily in the home. Improvements such as a redesigned wide music desk and a built-in soft-close fallboard mechanism further enhance user experience and safety.