Practise lots and lots of different combinations of tones (whole steps) and semitones (half steps) to create some fabulously evocative patterns!
Practise lots and lots of different combinations of tones (whole steps) and semitones (half steps) to create some fabulously evocative patterns!
Juuuuuuump! You’ll need really agile, accurate shifting and string crossing for this exercise. If you miss, the Lazy Dog could very quickly become an Angry Dog!
There’s lots and lots of double stopping in lots and lots of different keys in these exercises … so much so, you’ll probably need to do a few double takes!
Drill those scales with these punishing exercises! Get the metronome going and then lift and drop the fingers with energy and precision of timing and tuning.
Adolf Grünwald’s scale-based Study No. 18 in D major is a great workout for the fingers, helping to develop dexterity of movement and accuracy of placement.
Ready … Steady … Galop!! This riotously fun piece by the master of violinistic bonbons, Carl Bohm, is also a fabulous bowing workout. See you at the finish line!
The Song of Veslemøy, from Halvorsen’s Suite Mosaique, is a gorgeous folk song. It’s yearning, heart-warming tune will keep you warm on a chilly Norwegian evening!
These two-finger scale exercise are fantastically useful for improving shifting and intonation and a great way to warm-up at the start of a practice session.
Shift up and down with the first finger - from 1st through to 4th position - to get a new, and hopefully nice and clear, perspective on things!
Schubert’s Three Marches Militaires were originally written for piano 4-hands (not a 4-handed pianist!). The first one is the most famous, and definitely the best!
This study has lots and lots of broken chords, where each note of the chord is played one after the other, up and down, up and down, otherwise known as arpeggios!
Join the band of brave elves as they venture on an adventure to uncharted pastures! Watch out for the tremolo trolls, shifting serpents and staccato sea monsters!
If you always know how to improve then you'll always be getting better and better! And this Practice Menu helps provide a clear structure for your violin practice.
The melody of this sorrowful piano prelude by Armenian composer and musicologist, Gayane Chebotaryan, yearns and wails, ebbs and flows, grows and wilts. Intense stuff!
Anton Rubinstein was a Russian pianist, composer, conductor and educator (Tchaikovsky’s teacher!). He is best known for this delicious little sweetmeat, Melody in F.
This is a gorgeous, idyllic, pastoral song by the excellently named Norwegian violinist and composer, Ole Bull. Those herd-girls must be having a really lovely Sunday!
The German pianist and composer, Carl Bohm, really knew how to write a good tune! This is a fine example of a Sarabande — a slow, stately dance with 3 beats in a bar.
Johann Vierdank was a composer of the early 1600s. His Capriccio II features some wonderfully antiphonal, delightfully conversational interplay between the two parts.
This lovely, lilting, flowing, yearning, dancing Medieval/Renaissance Ronde - written by that mysterious composer ‘Anon.’! - is exclusively arranged for two violins.
Largo' is the opening aria from the 1738 opera, Serse, by Handel. It's sung by Xerxes I of Persia as he admires the lovely, sweet shade of a plane tree!
Bénoni Lagye’s Danse Espagnole captures the spirit of Spain with its vibrant, insistent rhythm patterns. Use energetic, incisive bowing to really make the piece dance!
This rousing melody by Henry Purcell was written to accompany the dramatic and tragic late 17th century play, Abdelazer. You'll need agile fingers to play this one!
Johann Vierdank was a German violinist, cornettist and composer of the early 1600s. His Capriccio I features some delightfully imitative interplay between the 2 parts.
Louise Farrenc (1804-75) was a piano teacher at the Paris Conservatoire for over 30 years. Her Étude in A minor is a mysterious siciliana with lots of dotted rhythms.
Did you know, we now publish multi-level ensemble repertoire for strings? These scores allow players of different experience levels to play together! Here's 'Ragtime', performed exclusively for ViolinSchool by the Carducci Quartet!
