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Denley Shindig – String Group
What am I getting out of my String Group? I get to try out a whole heap of cool ideas on my very willing and able subjects ;D I’m also able to teach them different styles of music. But most importantly, I get to let my hair down and just have fun with my students. […]
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String Group Sight Reading
I have been surprising the students in my String Group with sight reading each Friday that they’re here. It’s not particularly difficult sight reading, but does have some techniques that they may have just learned in their lessons (for the second grade students anyway), or it’s good revision for the higher grade students. We only have […]
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Super Mario Brothers
Trying to make violin interesting for the teenage boys is tricky, so in order to balance up the new violin AMEB Technique Book boring stuff (it is absolutely boring!!) and the exam pieces (more interesting – we get to choose those!!), I have stumbled across this: http://www.mariopiano.com/mario-sheet-music-overworld-main-theme.html for piano. I have adapted it as a […]
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Jingle Bells Solo Violin
Another student requested ‘Jingle Bells’ so I made a slightly harder version. Still easy notes, but the technique is a little more involved. This piece is about First Grade standard due to the double stopping, LH pizz and a 3rd position slide down. To print out a copy, click here: JINGLE BELLS violin solo
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Jingle Bells for easy violin – teacher/student duet
It’s that time of the year. Can you believe it?! I have just started first finger with one of my littlies, so I thought I would write out a suitable arrangement of Jingle Bells that we could do together. I have kept the teacher part very simple, so as not to confuse the student with […]
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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for Beginner Violin
One of my littler students proudly informed me today that she had volunteered to play violin with their class. They were going to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in German and she was going to play the melody with them on the violin. One slight problem (only very minor)…we haven’t started fingers yet. We’re nearly […]
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Appropriate funeral songs
I was asked to play at my Grandma’s funeral today. I had two days to come up with something appropriate and something I could throw together as a violin solo. It couldn’t be religious (Grandma was an RSL Club type person, was not really church going), and due to the general age of the people attending […]
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Dinosaur Stomp – getting creative with little composers
For one of the groups of students at my Holiday Music Camp, I am going to use this simple rhythm. I do know that Paleontologists dig up dinosaur bones really, but it’s all part of the ‘Archaeology’ fun of our Studio Theme. My students need to clap this rhythm through, and work out a simple […]
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The Irish Washerwoman – easy violin trio
I’ve got some beginners getting together shortly, and because they range in level from open strings to First Grade AMEB, they needed something that would suit them all. I arranged a short version of the Irish Washerwoman for them, and thought I’d post a copy here too in case you’d like it. To print out […]
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Christmas Match-Up
I created some giant cards with well known Christmas songs on them, using only the first 4 bars of each song. You could print them out on coloured paper to make them more ‘Christmassy’ – one colour for the songs and a different one for the song titles. There are a few different ways to play with these cards:- […]
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