Easy Pieces for More than One Violin
Instrumentation
Duration
Program Notes
Back when I was eighteen, and my sister Amy was five and just learning how to play violin, I wrote a little piece called Mischievous Dances for her, my brother and myself to play. Of course, the first violin part was rather easy since she was only five, but the other two parts were much harder. After that, I wrote several similar pieces, some accompanied by just one other violin, and some accompanied by two. I have continued to add to the collection over the years. The most recent of these pieces I actually wrote for my mom, who, after she retired, started taking violin lessons with my sister!
The entire collection of eight pieces and counting currently takes about 10 minutes to play through. Unlike many pieces for young violinists, it is not afraid to use all kinds of adventurous time signatures (which have not posed any problems for the young violinists who have played these pieces), and interesting harmonies. I should warn you that the second and third violin parts are often quite challenging, and are intended for teachers or advanced students to play. But the first violin part is quite easy, usually only going up to third position, occasionally using some easy double stops.
The list of pieces so far is:
- Mischievous Dances (three violins)
- Lopsided March (two violins)
- Preposterous Polka (three violins)
- Plaintive Song (two violins)
- Circus March (three violins, violin 3 in scordatura F-C-A-E)
- Ride Out West (three violins)
- Persian Dance (three violins, 2018)
- Wacky Waltz (two violins, 2018)