ISBN 9781619118867.

For more than a century, violinists have played jazz, swing, blues and similar improvisational styles. With its rich tone, considerable range, and bowed rhythms and phrasing, the violin offers a unique opportunity for a creative and personal statement as a musician. This book presents a broad sampling of the styles of major jazz violinists, from blues to bebop, from jug band to jazzgrass, from big-band swing to Texas swing. Tunes represent the styles of Stephane Grappelli, Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Eddie South, Mark O'Connor, Benny Thomasson, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Darol Anger. Helpful jazz theory sections with exercises alternate with tunes that show how the theory works in practice. This book has two objectives; first, to present a broad, roughly chronological sampling of major jazz violinists and the styles associated with them, and secondly, to introduce the basics of jazz theory as applied to the violin. Whether consciously or intuitively, through critical listening or by practicing jazz patterns and exercises, the more knowledge of jazz you acquire, the better you will be able to think about the content of your playing without being bound by technical and theoretical aspects. This anthology was written to help provide that foundation. Interspersed with pragmatic jazz theory lessons, youall find 28 original tunes in the style of various jazz violin luminaries. The book ends with an extensive discography of recommended jazz recordings with a violin focus. Mandolinists as well as other instrumentalists will find a wealth of useful information in this outstanding collection. Delightful broadcast-quality recordings of the repertoire are available online. Includes access to online audio. Wirtten for intermediate to advanced violinists.

After playing hundreds of events throughout the years I have finally put some of my personal arrangements down on paper. This version of the Star-Spangled Banner is both fun to play and enjoyable to listen to. There is a balance of jazzy chords without losing the character of the piece. This is both a challenging work to practice a multitude of finger patterns and a great performance piece.

For those who are still working on chords and double-stops, the three-note chords can be altered to just playing the top two bringing the difficulty down.

Quarantine Etudes for Violin by Dr. Piotr Szewczyk
Composed in May 2020 during the global pandemic.

All major etude books for violin, including those by Mazas, Kreutzer, Dont and
others, are firmly rooted in romantic harmonic language; minor and major triads,
arpeggios, diminished and augmented chords, dominant 7th etc.

A 21st Century violinist will encounter a much more varied musical language.
Those standard etudes don?t prepare students for octatonic scales, various
modes, whole tone scales, rapid chromatic twists and turns, atonality, extended
jazz harmonies etc. that are a big part of contemporary music.

I created these bite-sized etudes to help students experience different musical
languages and go against the ingrained familiar patterns their fingers are used to.
I hope they will be fun and adventurous challenge for violin students of all ages.