SKU: CF.BF131

ISBN 9781491153765. UPC: 680160911264. 9 x 12 inches.

Inspired by Clarence Cameron White’s book The Violinist’s Daily Dozen, The Violinist’s Daily Sixteen is a collection of daily exercises compiled by Roland Vamos. Intended for student and professional violinists, the collection provides the performer with a variety of exercises for daily warm-ups. Mr. Vamos also focuses on developing dexterity and flexibility in the fingers and joints, the first and fourth fingers in particular. Each of the sixteen exercises is notated for each of the four strings, and Vamos recommends that the exercises be practiced as warm-ups, choosing a different string for each day of practice.Also included with the Daily Sixteen is a comprehensive set of studies for developing fluency with scales and arpeggios. Mr. Vamos’ unique methodology is to begin with major scales and arpeggios, followed by minor scales and arpeggios, all of which are notated in two, three and four octaves. Alternate fingers are provided, as well as a variety of slurred and mixed bowings using the three parts of the bow whenever feasible. It is a remarkably systematic approach to performing scales and arpeggios on the violin and will surely benefit students and professionals alike.
ForewordThis short hand-setting set of exercises was inspired by a book entitled The Violinist’s Daily Dozen, conceived by Clarence Cameron White, a prominent African-American violinist, composer and arranger who enjoyed the bulk of his career in the first half of the twentieth century.I have practiced this set of exercises since I was twelve years old. It has served me as a superb warm-up and hand setting tool. Over the years, I have found that there are some aspects of this warm-up routine that were not given sufficient attention or not addressed at all. Consequently, I have expanded the Daily Dozen to create a new work entitled The Violinist’s Daily Sixteen.I have also paid particular attention in this work as to how these exercises are to be practiced. In exercises one and two, I have indicated some notes to be played before the actual written exercises. This is to ensure that the fourth finger will be over the string in a position ready to strike even though it is not being used. Before playing exercises three, four, nine, ten, eleven and twelve, I have indicated silent fingers to be placed on the notes they would be playing if they were being used.I have replaced Mr. White’s grace notes with notes of specific value and have slowed down the exercises so that the first joint (the joint nearest the string) of each finger can move with flexibility and strength. At no time should the first joint buckle.In Mr. White’s version, the last exercise gave the first finger some very valuable backward extensions. In this exercise (number 14 in this book), I caution the student not to move the hand along with the first finger. The hand should remain in position while the first finger independently moves back and forth.It became obvious to me that if the first finger were given the opportunity to develop the dexterity that Mr. White’s twelfth exercise emphasizes, the fourth finger could benefit from an exercise that gives it a forward extension. Consequently, I added another exercise to create a Baker’s Dozen (thirteen).Several years later, I felt that the second and third fingers should also have an exercise to further develop their dexterity…hence exercise fourteen was added to create a “Vamos Dozen.”Because the first finger did not have sufficient practice in the development of the first joint in the original version, I have added two exercises to precede White’s fifth exercise. After re-working and re-numbering these exercises, I have come up with a total of sixteen exercises. It is my suggestion that these be practiced as a warm-up, choosing a different string each day.—Roland VamosEvanston, Illinois 2017 PrefaceScales are a means of teaching a person the fingerboard on his or her instrument. The fingers move across the strings and are required to make shifts, all in highly organized patterns. Scales and arpeggios are the foundation upon which our repertoire is built. Many scale books have been written; each one being organized in its own specific way. The Flesch Scale System has been a standard for many decades. It is very comprehensive and systematic. From the point of view of establishing similar patterns, it has one drawback: it is organized by starting with a major key, followed by its relative minor, going through the circle of fifths. I believe that it is more profitable to do only major scales with their arpeggios first, going up chromatically, and then follow them in a similar way with the minor scales. In using this approach, the similarities in fingerings between the various scales are more apparent. It is also profitable to have alternate fingerings whenever possible. My approach to scales and arpeggios includes a variety of slurred and mixed bowings using the three parts of the bow whenever feasible. These bowings are not all-inclusive. Whenever a particularly awkward bowing pattern is encountered in the repertoire, it can be practiced as an additional bowing variation in the scales and arpeggios.    I have chosen to introduce the three and four octave scales by teaching two octave scales across the strings in one position going up chromatically through seven positions; starting on the first, second, third, and finally fourth fingers in major and melodic minor.—Roland VamosEvanston, Illinois 2017.

SKU: PR.144407380

ISBN 9781491133903. UPC: 680160683475. 9 x 12 inches.

In her powerful Foreword to the music, violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins has written: “There are great works which give voice to important moments for generations, and this is one of them.” The tragedy of Elijah McClain’s murder has moved us all, and for many musicians the image of this gentle young man playing his violin for kittens at an animal shelter has added a poignant extra layer. Zwilich was a professional violinist before turning exclusively to composing, and A LITTLE VIOLIN MUSIC is a memorial from the heart of one violinist to another.
[THESE NOTES MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OUTSIDE OF THE PUBLICATION; OK TO QUOTE A BIT AND GIVE AUTHOR CREDIT]We often research important pieces of music to gain some glimpse into the mind of the composer by understanding the times in which a piece was written. The times that brought this piece into being, 2020, has been a year like no other in our lifetimes.With the suffering of a once in a century pandemic raging in ever higher waves, and millions of people around the world confined to their homes with a shared attention span for the first time in generations, we watched in horror the 8 minute 46 second killing of George Floyd, a man previously unknown to us, but now unwillingly joining a long list of names of unarmed African Americans killed by police. The anguished backlash of citizens around the world, from Japan to New Zealand to Germany to the United States, of every age, color, and creed, has rallied for weeks and months on end to demand enough and that “Black Lives Matter.”And yet, in the midst of it all is an America starkly divided against itself with some defiantly pushing back, emboldened by authoritarian-style government actions against its own citizens occurring all over the country. It is against this backdrop that we ever had a chance to know of Elijah McClain. Here in quarantine I sometimes practice my scales in front of the news. And one day the mirror image looking back at me from the screen was a slight young man, warm, affable brown eyes, and also a violin under his chin. The newsreel-style camera pan so familiar now, I knew the only reason we were gazing upon his unfamous face was that he too had been killed by police nearly a year before. But the revelation of it in the broadcast hit me particularly hard.Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who is not only one of the great composers of our time, is also a dear friend, and called me the next day, also deeply saddened by the news. It was from Ellen that I learned that Elijah used to play for the kittens at the local animal shelter so they wouldn’t be lonely. This kind, gentle soul was aggressively taken into police custody while saying, “I am an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking... I’m going home.” He was never seen alive again.Ellen and I spoke of the sadness and the injustice of this several times. She felt a powerful calling to contribute something in a statement and the result is the piece you now hold in your hands. I am deeply honored to be the dedicatee of the piece, to have worked together with Ellen on some of the final details, and to pen this score note. As an invited alumna of the Eastman School of Music, I premiered the work for their virtual event on Diversity and Inclusion. Each time I play it, there is a persistent lump in my throat because Ellen has captured something poignant and powerful here.There are great works which give voice to important moments for generations, and this is one of them. We humbly offer this piece in memory of Elijah McClain.Foreword © 2021 by Kelly Hall-Tompkins. Used by permission.

SKU: HL.48181697

Part of the collection ?Concert Solo?, Ninth Concerto is a contemporary and modern piece by Raymond Gallois Montbrun, for Violin and Piano. Quite difficult, this piece should prepare upper-intermediate players to play classical concertos. This really nice piece is composed of a main theme, four variations and a final. The theme is quite lyrical and has an Allegretto tempo. The fourth theme stands out by its extensive use of harmonies. The Piano accompaniment also evolves based on the variations. The piece finishes on a really harmonious final. Raymond Gallois Montbrun (1918-1994) was a French violinist and composer who won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome and the Grand Prix de Paris. He later became the director of the Paris Conservatoire. He composed many symphonic pieces, an opera, a quartet and many pieces for Solo Piano, Violin and Piano and other instruments..

SKU: HL.48023884

9.25x12.0x0.053 inches.

This composition for solo violin was written in 1987 for the violinist Roger Zahab who performed the world premiere in New York. As is typical of Ursula Mamlok, the work of about 5 minutes' duration is very short. In one movement, divided into five short sections, she sums up her musical cause in an extremely virtuoso manner: A powerful opening theme, which varies several times, is followed by a quiet, lyrical passage which uses similar musical ideas, however. In the following, the formal contrast disappears due to the increasing fusion of opening theme and slower episode before the main theme is taken up again in the final section in a very dramatic form.

SKU: OT.22090

ISBN 9789655050738. 8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Daniel Akiva's Partita for violin solo consists of six movements based loosely on music of the Sephardic Jews. It was written for students as performance material, and dedicated to them.
Contents:
Liturgical Song
Prayer
Supplication
Dance
Kaddish
Supplication
Daniel Akiva is a composer, performer, and educator whose performances on guitar and lute have won great acclaim. Mr. Akiva graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1981, where he studied classical guitar with Haim Asulin and composition with Haim Alexander. In 1987 he completed his studies at the Geneva Conservatorium in Switzerland where he studied lute with Jonathon Rubin and composition with Jean Ballisa. For many years, he headed the Music Department at the WIZO High School for the Arts in Haifa, which he founded in 1986, and served as the Artistic Director of the Guitar Gems Festival from 2006-2019. As part of his work at WIZO High School, he has developed a method for teaching free improvisation that has been incorporated into the music program at the school.
Mr. Akiva has appeared in concert as a guitarist and lutist and given master classes in Israel, Europe, Russia, the United States, and Latin America. Daniel Akiva’s compositional output includes works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, choir, voice and guitar, piano, and chamber orchestra. His works have been recorded on twelve CDs, the latest of which, Malchut, was issued by OR-TAV in 2014.
A native of Haifa whose family has lived in Israel for over five hundred years, he was steeped in the Sephardic (Jewish-Spanish) tradition from his youth. Much of his compositional output has been devoted to a dialogue with the music of the Sephardic Jews. Daniel Akiva has also maintained a creative dialogue over many years with the poets and writers Amnon Shamash, Rivka Miriam, and Avner Peretz.