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Posted in Technology

ZOOM Settings for Online Music Lessons – Desktop Version

Posted on by J Melin

{This post has been getting the most hits on my studio website since April of 2020. I’ve updated it a few times as Zoom settings have changed. Here is the current procedure as of March 2023.}

When using Zoom for online music lessons, both the teacher AND the student need to avoid using Zoom’s default sound settings! Zoom is primarily a verbal-communications app, so the default settings are designed to cancel out sustained background noise, high pitches etc. — the type of sounds that are generated by musical instruments! Zoom has had an “original sound” setting since 2020, which curbs their aggressive filter for these types of sounds. In the fall of 2022, Zoom specifically labeled their Original Sound feature to say “Original Sound for Musicians.” Clearly they are aware that using Zoom for music lessons is a very popular application! If you’ve never seen the “for Musicians” addition, or if you never got the audio settings just right, here is a quick guide to the desktop version of the app. The iPad settings are covered in this post.

Follow these visual steps to update the Zoom app on your desktop or laptop, and configure the Audio settings for music lessons.

Continue reading “ZOOM Settings for Online Music Lessons – Desktop Version” →

Posted in Intermediate, Repertoire, Sheet Music

New Arrangement: Warlock’s Capriol Suite for Violin and Piano

Posted on by J Melin

Ever since Peter Warlock’s “Capriol Suite” for string orchestra entered public domain in 2022, I’ve been wanting to arrange it for solo violin so my students can enjoy its catchy Renaissance melodies and quirky 20th-century harmonies. I finally completed that project, and my arrangement is now available for digital download at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. It’s also available right here, at a discount!

This engaging suite of six Renaissance dance tunes, reimagined by Warlock (pseudonym of Philip Heseltine) for string orchestra in the 1920s, has been reduced to a solo violin piece with piano accompaniment. Suitable for intermediate to advanced violin players, the required techniques involve rapid tempos, spiccato bowing, some double stops, and expressive vibrato, with minimal shifting higher than 3rd position. The piano part is advanced. Depending on the violinist’s technical level, they could choose to play one or more of the easier movements (Basse-Danse, Pavane) or all six, including the unrelenting spiccatos in Bransles or the finger-twisting double stops in the finale of Mattachins. The highly expressive Pieds-en-l’air is a lovely stand-alone elegy, but with a title that will make students giggle (“Feet-in-the-air??”).

Here’s the source tune for Bransles along with a demonstration of its dance. Students can explore how Peter Warlock originally changed and enhanced the tune.

If you purchase this arrangement, I’d welcome your feedback! Drop a comment below.

Fiddle Folio for Etude Fun

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My recently released, curated collection of fiddle tunes is currently on sale at Amazon. You can also grab a PDF copy right away via download purchase.

I put together this Fiddle Fundamentals Folio book to answer the question: “Why play etudes when you can play fiddle tunes?” Introducing fiddle tunes into students’ (or your own) etude practice builds finger dexterity, bowing agility, and sight reading skills while also being FUN! I collected 40 toe-tapping traditional fiddle tunes and arranged them by key signature and sequential difficulty, from beginning to advanced levels. First-position-only tunes can be played slow to fast while focusing on the following technical skills:

Finger Dexterity: Fiddle tunes require rapid finger action on one or two strings. Ornamentations increase the speed of finger dropping-and-lifting and can train a light, tension-free touch. Students can learn preparatory double-stop technique through the focus on “quiet fingers” that stay put as long as possible. Guidance for turning tunes into finger exercises will get fingers flying faster and more accurately in no time!

Bowing Agility: Use fiddle tunes to focus on left side/right side coordination. The characteristic rapid string changes and off-beat slurs call for a relaxed, flexible technique and mindset.

Sightreading: Fiddle tunes can be deceptively simple to play at sight. The trick is in maintaining full-speed tempos, bowings, and ornaments while always reading at least one note ahead. The 40 tunes in this book will provide lots of fresh music to play, and resources are included to find even more.

Improvisation: Traditional techniques for adding slurs and ornaments allow the musician to play a tune differently each time. Preparatory scales and arpeggios are provided for each key, with introductory chord theory and chords for every tune, to help bridge players towards harmonic and chordal improvisation.

Here’s the table of contents.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on some tunes to play this weekend, you can purchase a PDF copy below. It doesn’t have a fancy cover like the book you can buy on Amazon, but the inside looks exactly the same! I would love to hear your comments after you’ve used the book! Sláinte!

Download “Fiddle Fundamentals Folio” PDF for $8.50

or    Purchase bound book version on Amazon

(Hey! If your taste tends more towards the classical, you might be interested in my Orchestral Excerpts for Intermediate Violinists book for a different approach to non-traditional etudes!)
Posted in Repertoire, Sheet Music, Videos

Intermediate Violin Piece Discovery – “Adoration” by Florence Price

Posted on by J Melin

It’s International Women’s Day and we just celebrated Black History Month. The perfect time to share a very special new-to-me piece that’s already been warmly received at a student’s masterclass and a recital.

While I was viewing a YouTube performance of a Gershwin piece by violinist Randall Goosby for a student’s reference, the playlist popped up this compelling interpretation of Florence Price’s “Adoration” by Goosby with pianist Zhu Wang. I got goosebumps! (no pun intended) The arranger’s name was in the YouTube description, so it was easy to verify that this very same arrangement was available on IMSLP.org.

Composed by Florence Price (1887-1953) in the 1950’s for the organ, “Adoration” was apparently discovered in 2009 in a box of her compositions that had been previously considered lost. According to IMSLP.org, the piece “failed to meet notice or renewal requirements to secure statutory copyright with no ‘restoration’ under the GATT amendments” and therefore is in the public domain. It has been arranged for violin and piano by Elaine Fine, who has generously provided it for free download and distribution under the Creative Commons license.

Get your own copy here! The arranger has also published versions for viola or cello with piano. She notes in the IMSLP description, “This piece sounds particularly nice on the viola.”

If you liked this post, you might also want to read about other Contemporary Classical Pieces for Intermediate Violin Players.

Check out my published arrangements at SheetMusicPlus.com!

Posted in Printables, Repertoire, Sheet Music, Teaching Aids, Videos

Valentine Special – Salut d’Amour Study Edition

Posted on by J Melin

Salut d’Amour, a salon piece by Edward Elgar, is a favorite for students who enjoy its unabashedly romantic vibe and mandatory expressive shifting. I place it at advanced-intermediate Level 6, where it is technically comparable to the Accolay Concerto or Haydn Concerto in G. I teach the version in the original key of E, not transposed to D which is also available. Because Salut d’Amour is in the public domain (published in 1899), early editions in both D and E are freely available on sheet music websites like IMSLP.org.

But the public domain editions have some troublesome fingering notations. Some fingerings are awkward, some are missing details (at 4 before E, is it 1st finger in 1st position or 5th position?), some suggest 4th finger when 3rd would allow a stronger vibrato. In the overall style, there seem to be more expressive shifts implied in the fingerings than are really appealing to a 21st-century ear – like, twice in Bar 11.

When I listened to recordings for guidance, it didn’t seem like the artists were shifting quite as often as indicated by the fingerings. Nor were they playing the last two lines exclusively in high positions on the G, D and A strings. (Most student instruments don’t sound their best played high on these strings either.)

Daniel Hope’s lovely modern performance here inspired some shifting choices in the study edition.

I just assigned Salut d’Amour to two students, one a young teen and the other an adult. I spent the first lessons on the piece once again transferring all my hand-written fingering suggestions to their undersized public domain PDFs. Finally the light dawned, and I decided to start again from scratch with a newly transcribed part in MuseScore, to which I could add as many of my fingerings and position clarifications as I liked.

Sample of the violin part of the Study Edition

The result still fits on one page! Along with larger finger-numbers, I added position designations in Roman numerals, and slide-marks where it’s most tasteful to add an expressive shift. I’m calling the result a “Study Edition” due to all these extra markings. Once a student has incorporated them into their playing, they can go back to reading a vintage edition. No changes were made to the piano part, and all rehearsal letters are in their traditional positions.

I’m posting this for sale at SheetMusicPlus.com for $5.99, but you can download a copy here for just $2.99. Enjoy it with the instrument you love!

Download Salut d’Amour

And, here’s more violin repertoire for intermediate students.

Posted in Technology

ZOOM Settings for Online Music Lessons – iPad Version

Posted on by J Melin

Click here if you’re looking to set up the desktop version of Zoom.

{This post has been getting the most hits on my studio website since April of 2020. I’ve updated it a few times as Zoom settings have changed. Here is the current procedure as of November 2022 – unlike the desktop version, the iPad settings for the app have not changed since I last posted in January. For more detailed information on using other features of Zoom, dive into the resources available on the Zoom website.}

Zoom’s M.I.Q. (Music I.Q.) has risen quite a bit since the spring of 2020 when music teachers began to widely use the Zoom app for online lesson delivery. The sound settings for transmitting music are now explicitly built in and identified. In case it’s been a few months since you last updated Zoom, or if you never got the audio settings just right, here is a quick guide to the iPad version of the app. The desktop settings are covered here.

Follow these visual steps to configure the Zoom app’s Audio settings for music lessons on an iPad.

Install or update the app.

Go to the App Store on your iPad to set up Zoom initially. If you already have Zoom installed, you can’t update it from inside the app. You need to go to the App Store, find Zoom in the list of your installed apps, and see if it is flagged as needing an update. If so, with one touch, it will be updated to the latest version.

Access the Audio Settings.

Run the Zoom app. In the Home screen, at the bottom of the left column, touch the “More” menu item with the three dots above it.

Select the Meetings category under SETTINGS on this screen. (This screenshot is from earlier in 2022, but the categories and steps are the same.)

Adjust the Audio Settings.

Here in the Meeting Settings is the toggle to Use Original Audio. “This will allow you to enable or disable original sound in a meeting.” You should toggle this ON before you start a meeting.

Turn on “Original Sound” in-meeting.

When you’re in a live meeting, tap the screen to view the control icons. Touch the three dots that represent “More” options.

The third item in the More box is “Enable Original Sound.” Touch this to turn on Original Sound during the meeting.

If you want to turn off Original Sound, go back to the “More” menu and your option will look like this:

As you can see if you compare this post to the one on the desktop Zoom app, there are a lot fewer sound-control options in the iPad app than the desktop version. That is why I only use a desktop or laptop computer during online music lessons, and encourage my students to do the same.

Star Teacher #3: Paul Rolland

Over the holiday break from teaching, I finally completed a resolution for 2021: to rent and watch the Paul Rolland video series titled “The Teaching of Action in String Playing.” This influential pedagogue died prematurely in 1978, but we are fortunate that he preserved his teaching approach on video, and now it’s accessible to all on Vimeo.

Paul Rolland’s methods form the basis for Mimi Zweig‘s “Suzuki Synthesis,” taught at her summer workshops at Indiana University and at sister-programs around the country. Having attended her workshop, it was fantastic to watch Paul Rolland’s original teaching videos on the same topics, as demonstrated in 1974. I was about the age of the kids in the video, in my second year of playing the violin too, when these films were produced! (I even think one of the little girls in the back row is wearing a Sears Catalog dress that was one of my favorites.)

When these videos were available only on DVD, it would set you back several hundred dollars to buy the set and watch them. Now for only $49, you can have access to all the videos (3½ hours of content) on Vimeo for an entire year. While I binge-watched them over the holidays, I’m sure I will return to them at my leisure to look for specific exercises that I can use with certain students. The biggest takeaway is how to establish “freedom from tension” in beginning and remedial violin students. The short, easily-digestible videos are almost all under 10 minutes long. Beginner’s topics include Establishing the Violin Hold – Learning to Hold the Bow – Developing Finger Movements – Extending the Bow Stroke. For more advanced players, there are segments on Martelé, Staccato, Spiccato, Shifting and Vibrato.

So for a very affordable price, you can access gold-nuggets of teaching wisdom that you would otherwise spend hundreds of dollars at a workshop to acquire (not to mention the airfare and hotel). If Rolland’s videos whet your appetite, he published a companion book. There is also an annual Paul Rolland String Pedagogy workshop you can attend, and certification you can complete.

Put “Watch these videos” on your list of New Year’s Resolutions, and you will also be a better teacher by the end of this year!