Easy Music for Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass from Oval Music Edition

STRING ENSEMBLES : TUTTI STRING SERIES

• Three levels per instrument: Having three standards per instrument means advanced players don’t get bored and earlier players get excitement of playing in a big group.
• A Tune for all instruments: Often violinists are the only ones who get the tune. With  this series every instrument gets the tune. The violas, cellos and basses feel it is much more fun and that they are contributing more to the music.
• Varied styles: From traditional folk tunes to more exploratory sounds a sense of fun and innovation is provided across the series as a whole. Musical pictures are a special feature of some of the pieces.
• Ability range within the class: Teachers in a general classroom environment don’t  need to worry about making individual arrangements to fit the random nature of their string players’ abilities.
• Easy to learn: Some tunes are very short so can be learnt to perfection very quickly using block harmony. Other tunes are more adventurous with more independent parts. For a rehearsal and concert programme, mix and match as appropriate.
• Ensemble size:  Whether a small or huge ensemble the music will sound equally good. This is so,  even if there are unequal numbers of players on each of the instrument types, violin, viola, cello and bass.

TUTOR BOOKS : COLLECTIONS

• Versions: With 4 versions, one for each stringed instrument, Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass, the students can come together in a school to play and perform the same pieces in lessons and in performance. This means they can encourage each other  by playing together.
• Accompaniment: The teacher can provide an accompaniment on the keyboard and/or their specialist instrument so that even in the most elementary stages the students feel they are making real music, and it is fun!
• Curriculum: For the teacher needing a curriculum, it is all laid out. It works across different countries. Where there is a National Curriculum, as in the UK, how it fits to that does not require a lot of more work as the curriculum is very clearly shown at the beginning of each section.
• Progress recording: The progress of students is easily recorded by the use of the Collecting Boxes and check list questions. This is a thing young people love doing, collecting prizes, giving them a sense of direction at their own pace.
• Context within general curriculum: The stimulating music titles and imaginative music reflects life in general. This means the books fit in well to everything else in the curriculum and can be used in different contexts.
• Illustrations: The drawings in black and white allow students to colour in and make their hard copy individual.
• Presentation and skill learning: The layout is simple to comprehend. Music notation is learnt in context without being cluttered by an alternative system which requires learning in its own right. It is considered that learning by rote is a skill that takes longer to learn than learning to read. As such, rote-learning methods are less useful for sociable playing in ensembles.
• Student-centred:  Each student learns in a different way. This tutor is highly adaptable and has been created following years of experience. The pieces progress to suit the different learning rates of students. Whether the student eats up material very rapidly or whether the student needs step by step guidance, this book will ensure that neither is bored. There is plenty of material to allow for both types of learner.
• Each piece develops a new skill: The exact skill learnt in each piece is not apparent to the pupil. There are differences across the four stringed instruments, but the teacher should be able quickly to see what each piece is aiming at. If not, a detailed analysis may be in the pipeline from the author. The author is not intending to be so prescriptive so as  not to  encourage teachers and students to develop their own imagination.
• Size of printing: This has been carefully considered so as to make the music readable when read on a music stand, neither too overwhelmingly big, nor too small. This especially so for children from the age of 7 when self-motivation to play begins to be established. Before that, children from aged 5 to 7 need to have adult supervision when playing to themselves, (often called practice!).