ISBN 9781610653404. This book offers a comprehensive workshop in blues violin and specifically addresses improvisation techniques through exercises and ear training studies that relate to the various licks and scales. Original tunes by the author address various technical challenges, and old blues standards are included to build an authentic blues repertoire. The book next touches on the influence of the blues on swing, bluegrass, Cajun and Gypsy styles while teaching improvisational techniques in each. We next pay tribute to the great Blues violinists of the past and present with bios and some photos. Finally, ways to develop and vary breaks are explored. The text touches on many aspects of violin techniques as it relates to the blues and has an easygoing and at times, humorous appeal. The book begins at a moderate beginning level but quickly moves to intermediate material; toward the end, we get into fairly advanced territory. Both violinists who have been playing a couple of years and serious classical players can benefit from Getting Into Blues Violin. Audio download available online.

Poem For Carlita (for unaccompanied violin) MO149

Violin Solo

Music by Mark O?Connor

5 pages - 7:30 minutes in length



Poem For Carlita In contemporary vocal music, there is a form called a story song. It is an odd form in that it does not contain any departure from the central idea; therefore there is no ?return.? The story has a beginning and ending but uses subtle variation to push the idea along its way. .. much the way loving relationships evolve. The equivalent of the story song in classical music is a Poem, and this is what I have called this piece. An inspiration I used for my musical poem was the ocean and it?s repetition of waves as they fall in to the shoreline. I grew up near the ocean and remember how the sounds of the relentless waves used to calm me. While it was the repetitive sound of the sea that moved me as a child, today, I observed that each wave was not the same but in fact slightly different. I was amazed that it seemed that no two waves looked or sounded the same to me. This natural occurrence seemed to mirror my love for wife Carla. Each day was just something a tiny bit different. It was very natural to make these kinds of life experience connections. Bridges that joined nature, love and art. The poem begins slowly and inquisitively and builds through in intensity with loud and mightily passionate moments of emotion before the music comes down peacefully and reflectively, until the last statement played by the violin signifies that the sea is calm once again.