Category: Printables

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 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 Lesson Plans, Printables, Repertoire, Sheet Music

Pachelbel Canon – Study Edition

Posted on by J Melin

Is this the opening of the most overplayed piece in the violin repertoire? Probably! Does that mean that violin students should not have an opportunity to learn this Greatest Hit of Classical Music for themselves? Of course not! If piano teachers can keep teaching Für Elise, we can keep teaching The Pachelbel!

My students GET to learn The Pachelbel when they reach the equivalent of Suzuki Book 4. And most of them LOVE it. Many transferable skills can be taught using this piece: Counting in 8/8, note values from dotted-quarter-notes to thirty-second-notes, a little bit of 3rd position shifting, ensemble playing with two other partners, even Baroque performance practice if desired.

I learned this piece in high school from the Max Seiffert edition. For sentimental reasons and because it is in the public domain, this is the version I use with students. Because I teach this piece so frequently and repeat myself every time, I wrote down my usual spiel as Study Notes at the end of the piece. I also added handy section lettering every two measures, so it is easy to stop and start with a trio of intermediate students. I cleaned up some of the extraneous articulations and inconsistent bowings. The engraving is still a little scratchy, because this is the version that you can still download for free from IMSLP.org. I offer my Study Edition for a nominal charge here! This helps me maintain this site.

If you enjoyed using this resource, please check out some of my other repertoire publications for sale at SheetMusicPlus.com. Thank you!

Schradieck and Dounis Etudes – Together Forever

 

When it comes to fundamental etudes for violin, it’s hard to beat Schradieck Book 1 and Dounis Opus 23. (Leaving out Kreutzer 2 for now!) But you really only need the first few pages of each one to reap 95% of the benefits from these two works! Their finger-dropping-and-lifting patterns on a single string complement one another perfectly. Prescribe them to students who need to work on finger dexterity, velocity, intonation, dropping/lifting fingers in groups, finger-bow coordination (by playing the etudes with separate bows instead of slurs), and keeping a quiet left hand.

Download available!

I put together this 4-page PDF for my students and thought I would share it with you. Due to the popularity of this download, there’s a nominal charge to help me maintain this site. Enjoy !!?

And if you’re looking for a publication called the Dounis Daily Dozen, you can find it here from the fabulous Violin Lounge site!

Incentive Program Package #2: Out Of This World

star trophyMy second incentive program theme is literally Out Of This World! You could also call it Space, The Final Frontier; Into Space; or even Blast Off! I get ideas for my incentive programs from the variety of economy-priced awards I can purchase from Crown Awards. A star trophy like this one is perfect for a space theme. Crown Awards has dozens of insert graphics too, from generic “music” pictures to specific instruments. Some are embellished with glitter and others glow in the dark.

The downloadable Progress Chart has 23 spaces for logging student progress towards a variety of music study goals. See Package #1 for the downloadable/printable list of MusiQUEST Goals and the Practice Tracking Card.

Posted in Incentive Programs, Printables, Student Awards

Incentive Program Package #1: Knight’s Quest

Posted on by J Melin

cup trophyThe first incentive program theme I ever designed had a Knight’s Quest motif. Students mark their progress towards completing ten or more musicianship development goals on a chart designed to look like a map to find mythical beasts and medieval objects. The prize at the end of the year was a cup trophy like this one.

Printable Downloads for you include: Progress Chart (pictured at right), Practice Sticker Cards for tracking practice each week, and editable MusiQUEST goals list that you can fill with your own ideas. I print the goals list on the back of the Progress Chart, on sturdy card stock so it will last through the whole year.

Mark the students’ completion of the goals by putting a sticker or stamp on each number from 1 to 10 or beyond on the Progress Chart. It’s even more fun if you can find stickers to match the theme of the incentive program.

My favorite small stickers in lots of different theme designs are made by Trend Enterprises.

Beware the Knights who say Ni!

Posted in Printables, Student Awards

DIY S’mores Kit and Labels

Posted on by J Melin

diy smores kitA Do-It-Yourself S’mores Kit is my “teacher’s choice” award for my best practicers at the year-end recital.

practice card previewStudents who met their practice goal for 30 out of 36 weeks of the lesson year get this award. So do students who consistently practice over and above their minimum practice goal; usually, 15 to 20% above or more.

I used to order medals for this award, until I decided that what kids really want is something yummy to eat. So, now I make DIY S’mores Kits. The instructions are here; I modify the contents depending on the packaging I can find.

I top it off with a punny label like this one. Here’s a whole sheet of labels you can print out to create this. Use white address labels, 1″ x 2-5/8″, 30 per sheet (Avery template 8160). Stick the labels on black card stock and cut them out with about 1/4″ of card showing around each edge of the label. Punch a small hole in the upper left corner, and feed a piece of twine or raffia through it. Center the label on a length of twine long enough to tie the kit shut, with some left over for a nice bow.