Tim Rohwer: Composer

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 ...

A few updates coming up soon: The first is a new book that will soon be published for violin, viola, and cello students.  This will have exercises, rhythms, scales, practice technique, theory, etc. so that I can have a resource that I can use with students, organized in a format that I feel will be of most benefit.  More on this another time! The other big update is with the supplement songs I've been writing for students.  During the process of working with my students and helping them learn how to read music, I've been writing a bunch of little songs to help make learning note reading on the violin much quicker and easier for students.  For this process, I have been both creating packets for students and doing some recording work.  The first 3 packets of songs, both the PDF's and the MP3's, are now available online for perusal and use.  To find these resources, click on the following link: Supplement Songs With the MP3's, my hope is that students ...

Recently, I've started a project to help students' note reading skills and their fundamental technique.  My goal has been to supplement the Suzuki method books with small, easy to learn songs that-practiced on a regular basis-increase a student's ability to recognize note patterns and such thing as skips, string crossings, rhythm variation, etc.  These are all going to be free for a while as I work on increasing the number of these little songs.  My goal is to have hundreds of these songs so that students can play lots of music at a very basic level. As of a few days ago, all of the songs that I've finished are now up on the blog!  There are about 20 of these so far, and I've refined the process of how I go about putting them together, which means that they will be easier to put up in the future.  If you are a violin teacher or a parent of a violin student, feel free to download as many of the MP3s and PDFs as you'd like.  I'd only ask that you let me kno...

 A quick update to the blog:  I'm beginning to put together a bunch of little supplemental songs to help young beginning students with note reading and technique skills.  They are going to have silly titles and will address one or two technique or note reading issues at a time to help offset some of the basic problems I've been finding come up with students as they try to learn violin.  The supplemental songs page is still under development, but we be available through my education page  (currently just for Violin , but eventually other instruments as well) so these resources can start to be used by students right away. They are designed to be bigger in size to make it easier to read, and are going to have little accompaniment files to go with them so the student can hear the melody and play along.  These resources will eventually be published in a booklet, but for now I am making them available up here for free so that I can get some feedback from ...

To give my students a fun song to practice over holiday break, I put together a little "Garage Band" made accompaniment to the song Jingle Bells.  Anyone interested can feel free to download the mp3's of these.  Here are some different versions: Slow Moderate Fast Also, here is the PDF of the song for download: Jingle Bells My hope is to start taking some of these simple public domain songs and putting them online for students and anyone wanting to play violin to utilize.  More with this as I start to update my blog. New things to come soon: -Composition Class updates -A New Original Composition for a Local High School Orchestra -New "Bag of Tricks" Teaching ideas

I recently finished a new arrangement and uploaded it to Free LDS Sheet Music.org .  It is an updated version of an old arrangement I wrote of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."   Come check it out!  There are also some of my other arrangements and original hymn posted there, along with many other neat resources.  This site is great for those who are looking for something for their ward choir or for a musical number in sacrament meeting or a fireside. As always, you can also find these here on my blog.

I've recently reworked an arrangement for choir and piano I did several years back of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."  The result is in the Hymn Arrangement section and will also soon been on www.freeldssheetmusic.org (if you've never used this site, it is so excellent for finding nice arrangements of hymns and original music as well!) Also, I should soon be able to continue more on the weekly warm-ups and give updates on some of the other compositions!  There may even be an opportunity soon to have one of my compositions performed, but we'll see how that works out.  Thanks, everyone!

A new arrangement is available for download in the Violin & Viola Arrangement section.  It's an arrangement of "Come, Come, Ye Saints" played for a Stake Night of Music, and every instrument features the melody at some point.  Have a listen:  For the present time, this arrangement will be free to download. Soon to come also will be the same arrangement with a cello part in place of the violin and some updates on previous arrangements.

After working with the BYU-Idaho Help Desk, we got our computer back up and running, and I have now put some of the promised free resources on to the blog. In addition, I have created the first edition of a Viola and a Violin Scale Exercise book which are now available at a discounted rate for purchase through lulu.com! Violin Scale Exercise Book 2 Viola Scale Exercise Book 2 Some of the additions:  more scale and arpeggio stuff and more songs for the Violin section.  There are some sight reading exercises (pre-cursors to what will eventually be a sight-reading book), Frere Jacques, and my child-friendly "What Would You Do With a Tired Sailor?" (What would you do with a tired sailor?  Put him in the long-boat until he's woken.)  There's also a worksheet section which will probably expand soon, but we'll see if I have time to do it. In addition, I'm starting to build up a few things on the Viola section.  A few songs, etc.  Most of my students h...

I've spent some time updating the education section of my blog, and will soon be putting up a lot of different resources, some for my private students, but generally free to use for the public.  Here's the link to this updated new section:   Educational Materials . I had a new student start taking lessons a little bit ago, and she was a little bit older and more able to use technology, and I thought about putting up some scales and other things that she could download and use so she wouldn't need to go out and buy a scale book or other things.  I realized that this could be a useful resource to put up for all of my students and for other teachers and their students also.  I started changing and moving things around on my blog to get the new pages set up, and I now I have the beginnings of my education section. Some things that will be included: -A section on each page for free resources that I have created for use with my students -Other extremely use...

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...