Music Minus One

Music Minus One

Music Minus One (commonly abbreviated as MMO) is a company that produces sheet music that comes with compact discs where the work is recorded without the soloist part (eg. Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto without piano). This can be used for practice. There is also a second version on the CD, where the tempo is 20% reduced. This company, in existence since 1950, is headed today by Irv Kratka, its founder, and a vigorous 82 year old fan of music.

With over 900 albums devoted to instrumentalists and vocalists in all genres of music, the company ushered into the world of recording the concept of 'play-along' albums and has continued to dominate the field, releasing as many as 24 new albums per year, across all segments of music, from Grand Opera, to country music, jazz,and classical repertoire.

Each of its editions today are examples of musical scholarship featuring music printed on acid-free papers designed to outlast the lives of its owners.

In the internet era, the company's website at www.musicminusone.com in 2008 achieves 4,500,000 'hits' per month, a number which continually enlarges as the web reaches into every corner of the civilized world.

Recent releases feature an eleven CD set offering the complete Beethoven 10 Sonata for Violin and Piano, a five CD set of the Beethoven 'Cello and Piano Sonatas plus recordings of the most famous sonatas for Violin and Piano, by Franck, Faure and Debussy.

Testifying to the company's unique approach to repertoire, the same period in 2008 saw the release of a Bix Beiderbecke play-along by renowned trumpeter Peter Ecklund and a set devoted to the Count Basie band and intended for beginning and intermediate brass players.

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