Hymn arrangements for violin

I was talking with a friend yesterday with whom I play in a string quartet and in the Idaho Falls Symphony.  We got talking about how little music there is arranged for violin and viola for playing in our Latter Day Saint Sacrament meetings on Sundays and how little she likes to arrange works for them.  She suggested I start writing arrangements of hymns for violin and viola, having played the piano for an arrangement I made of "I am a Child of God" which I played on my viola with my wife who plays the oboe.  It'll be nice to start arranging hymns for the LDS community to be able to use, and I felt like it would be a nice way to get my music out there and to consecrate my time and talents.
Some ideas for new arrangements for solo violin with accompaniment:  "Abide with Me,"  "Lead, Kindly Light," and "Joseph Smith's First Prayer."  If anyone has any thoughts for arrangements that they would like to see, just post on my blog here, and I'll see what I can do.  These hymn arrangements and others soon to come.  :)
Also soon to come, a section devoted to original, quality arrangements for solo string(s), both accompanied and unaccompanied.  Most of these will be free to download, with PDF's of the sheet music and probably computer generated mp3 files of what the arrangements sound like.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Harmony Postlude: Mary Had a Little Lamb in Minor

Image
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
Read more

We Three Kings: Free Sheet Music and Free Tutorial

Image
In order to teach some of the skills I've learned in my 16+ years of working with notation software, I've created a small arrangement for piano of the song by John Henry Hopkins Jr. "We Three Kings of Orient Are."  There are several things that I'm going to be doing with this small arrangement: 1) I'm going to be putting this arrangement for free on this blog (follow the link to find the free sheet music) for anyone who would like to download it. 2) I'll be creating stream-able music on YouTube and on SoundCloud for anyone who wants to hear the song. 3) I'll be creating a YouTube tutorial series showing how you would go about transcribing music (specifically this arrangement) into MakeMusic's music notation software "Finale." 4) I'll be taking suggestions for future things that I can create arrangements of and other videos that anyone would like to see.  :) I'm excited for this opportunity to share some music and some
Read more

Rohwer Skill Acquisition Pyramid: YouTube Video

Image
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:
Read more