From sheet music of arrangements and original compositions to music education resources for string players and composers, this blog is a collection of resources for musicians, teachers, and students alike.
Tim Rohwer's Arrangements and Compositions on YouTube
Rohwer Skill Acquisition Pyramid: YouTube Video
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While continuing to develop the skill acquisition pyramid I developed in 2014 (read the article), I've been expanding out my knowledge while teaching students about how to learn more effectively and practice more efficiently. My goal is to take the things I've learned and turn them into a video series on YouTube to help anyone wanting to play an instrument.
The first video is now up on YouTube, and I'm so very excited to share what I've learned about becoming a better musician through effective practicing! Check out the video now:
As a precursor to an upcoming discussion on harmonies (or a "postlude," if you will pardon the musical pun), I wanted to rewrite "Mary Had a Little Lamb" again with the same melody but different harmonies, placed in such a way to put it in a minor instead of a major key. This wasn't too hard, as there are only three notes (4 notes in some versions) in the whole song. Here's the minor version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb:" While this is the same exact melody, a change in the harmonies can give the song a different feel, in this case quite sinister and very dark. Since the melody used only DO, RE, and MI in the original key, I turned these into ME, FA, and SOL for the minor version. I've utilized a similar technique for my Piano Sonata to help change the feel of different movements but to connect them together. The first movement is in A minor and starts out in the melody with a B-flat grace note going to the tonic, A. The second move...
For those who are not as familiar with violin repertoire, there is a book of etudes for beginners written by Franz Wohlfahrt. These are quite famous in the string world, although some students might consider them infamous. I had been resistant to use them when I first started teaching since most students I assigned them to wouldn't practice them anyways. I have recently started to be more insistent that they spend time with them, to the point where we may spend half a lesson on just a Wohlfahrt etude. A colleague of mine who teaches piano has a similar set of etudes that he uses, and which many students may peg in the "infamous" category: the Hanon book (etudes by Charles-Louise Hanon). As I mentioned in the discussion on acquiring new skills and my Skill Acquisition Hierarchy , technique - the "how you do it" of any skill - is the foundation you build upon before you can become a true artist or even just get better at anything. Since this is the c...
I recently took another job as an orchestra teacher. Seeing how much people have liked the harmonic exercise minor version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" from a few years back, and knowing that my beginning orchestra would have a limited playing range, I decided to take the minor version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and orchestrate it for a beginning orchestra and a more advanced orchestra. To do this, I placed the main melody in an "A" part for Violin, Viola, and Cello. I then added harmony parts, Violin Part B, Viola and Violin Part C, Cello D, and Bass E. To have this become a more "official" piece, I expanded out the structure of the piece so that it would be an ABA structure for the section. Beyond that, I added two other movements using children's songs as the overall theme for a suite of songs, which I have called "Scary Bedtime Songs." The first movement is Scary Mary, the 2nd is Zombie John (taking inspiration from Gus...
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