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New Cello Music Grades 4 – 8

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Recordings of Folk and Beyond – the new cello and piano collection for cellists Grades 4 – 8 – are now on You Tube: Folk and Beyond

You can buy the music here: Folk and Beyond

Folk and Beyond is a collection of twelve cello and piano pieces ranging from around Grades 4 – 8.  Special effects – such as col legno, snap pizz,tremolo bowing, ponticello, stamping and harmonics – are used to enhance character, and the music has a strong sense of narrative.

 

 

Interview about ‘Folk and Beyond’ Cello and Piano Sheet Music

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Kevin Mayhew Publishers has just released this interview about Folk and Beyond – my new cello and piano collection. I hope you like it:

All the music in the collection has been recorded and can be heard on the Kevin Mayhew website or on my Soundcloud site here: Folk and Beyond

If you have any questions about the music that aren’t covered in the interview please email at: jbcontact@btinternet.com

New Cello and Piano Recital Pieces

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We now have nine new cello and piano  recital pieces for sale on our website. This is an evocative collection of pieces, many folk inspired, and you can hear recordings of all of them on our website.

What standard is the music?

Three of the pieces – Panache, Over the Hills and Far Away and Sleazy – are around Grades 4 -5. The other pieces – Beyond Scarborough Fair, Morning Prelude, Lilliburlero goes Scots, Highland Meeting, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose and Christmas Variations – are between Grades 6 – 8.

For more information…

If you’d like more information about the music just email info@fedorastrings.com

New String Sheet Music

By cello duets, cello quartets, fedora strings, relaxing string music, sheet music sales, violin and cello duet sheet music No Comments

We have just added new string sheet music to our online shop. The new string sheet music comprises four cello quartets, two intermediate cello duets and one violin and cello duet.

The Cello Quartets

The cello quartets are Pirates’ Return, Poldark, The Magnificent Seven and a new composition called Together. All of the parts are of  early intermediate standard and all of the pieces are around three minutes long. Together uses the opening  notes from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells as an ostinato theme.

The Cello Duets

The new early intermediate cello duets  Pirates Meet The Magnificent Seven  are an arrangment of the main theme of The Magnificent Seven and a duet inspired by the song He’s a Pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean. Both use easy but imaginative effects on the cello to bring the mood to life.

The Violin and Cello Duet

The violin and cello duet is of special historic interest. It is an arrangement of a short piece written by the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz (under the name of Jim Hoyl.) Heifetz wrote this song – When You Make Love to Me Don’t Make Believe – after he bet one of his friends that he could compose a piece that would get into the top ten. Needless to say Heifetz won his bet. Despite this less than serious start, Heifetz plays this song with great tenderness…

New Early Intermediate Cello Duets

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Fedora Strings is now selling three new early intermediate cello duets for £6.99. The three duets comprise an arrangement of Over the Hills and Far Away, an arrangement of Basse Dance and a new composition called Sleazy.

The music is around Grades 3 –  5 . It’s the first time our website has sold music at this technical level and it’s an area we’re hoping to expand. And all the duets have character:
Basse Dance is lively and energetic…Over the Hills and Far Away is romantic…

...and Sleazy is jazzy…

Six great broadway violin and cello duets

You can view and  buy the music  here!

Cello Quartet Arrangements

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We have just starting selling cello quartet arrangements  at Fedora Strings.

What are you Selling?

We are selling a sheet music arrangement of two movements from Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite: Basse Dance and Mattachins.This is one of my favourite string orchetra pieces.
The cello quartet arrangement is intermediate and effective. Click below to see the first pages of the scores:
Basse Dance Score Page 1

Mattachins Score Page 1

Free Sheet Music

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Free Sheet Music

At this difficult time, when the current pandemic  is making life so tough for so many people, we would like to help our customers. So we have discounted the price of our sheet music and are offering five pieces of music for the price of three. And we are also offering  free sheet music  which can be downloaded right away.free sheet music

What free sheet music is available?

The free sheet music includes our arrangement of Look for the Silver Lining, by Jerome Kern, our arrangement of Scarborough Fair for cello and piano and some technical exercises for cello.

In the coming weeks

We hope you will enjoy playing our arrangements. And we will be varying the selection of free sheet music in the weeks to come.

free sheet music

 

Arranging music for Cello Quartet

By commissioning string music for an occasion, custom sheet music for strings, sheet music sales No Comments

I have just started arranging music for cello quartet. This is new for me.Previously I have only written music for two instruments: string duet or cello and piano.

How is quartet writing different?

As far as I can see so far it is essential that there is a clear tune in the quartet throughout. Unlike duos, where there are two soloistic parts alternately accompanying and playing the tune, in a quartet most of the parts are accompaniment at any time. It’s important that the melodic line in the accompaniment, as well as in the tune, makes sense. And, as you see in Puccini scores – you can sometimes double the line of the tune with another part and it’s effective. Having two or one people playing on their own in places varies the texture. Special effects – like tremolos, col legno, slides, pizz – are just as effective as in duets.And rhythm – as in all chamber music – is crucial. You can see many of these aspects of good quartet writing in the cello quartet arrangement below:

Repertoire so far

So far I am in the middle of arranging three short quartets for an ensemble that is starting at the beginning of February. If you are interested in having a bespoke cello or violin quartet, or indeed a standard quartet, arranged or composed for you, contact us here
arranging music for cello quartet                                                                                   The Prague Cello Quartet

Some inspiring cello quartets

Below are some inspiring (though varied) examples of cello quartets.

I love the improvisation at the beginning of this…  and the sunglasses…

Fab string playing and arrangements

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We hope our customers feel we demonstrate fab string playing and arrangements, but we know we aren’t the only ones out there. There are other creative string arrangements around. It isn’t always easy to discover these because google usually presents the largest companies first. So here are some examples of less well publicised  small groups who are selling excellent string arrangements:

Brooklyn Classical

Brooklyn Classical is a real find. They sell a range of classical arrangements, including cello duets with piano. They also have videos of their work. I love the imagination they use in their  trio arrangement of Bach’s Prelude from Cello Suite 1 (below).  Even purists would be impressed!  Their website is here: Sheet Music

Nathan Chan

Nathan is a well known  virtuoso cellist who sells his own cello duet and violin and cello duet arrangements of pop tunes. The video above shows some kids playing one of these rather well. You can also see videos of Nathan playing the arrangements with his friends on You Tube. Nathan’s website is here: Sheet Music 

James Barralet

James Barralet is another impressive cellist who also writes string arrangements.  The cello octet below is an inspiring arrangement of Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s taken from a 30 minute cello octet Film Medley – but I’m sure you can adapt the music to make it much shorter if you want.

James Barralet’s repertoire of string arrangements is wide, as you can hear from the performance of Monteverdi’s Pur Ti Miro for cello quartet  below. You can buy James’s sheet music here:Sheet Music

Finally, SJ Music is one of the smaller websites which sells interesting string arrangements including cello duets, cello quartets and cello octets. And of course at Fedora Strings we have a wide range of violin and cello duets, cello duets and cello and piano arrangements, which you can browse here