Writing a Book of Violin Duos - Schedule Outline

May 30, 2023, 11:20 AM · Throughout my time as an undergraduate student, my violin teacher would occasionally take out her copy of Bartók’s 44 Duos for 2 Violins, and we would sight-read through them. It was a great way to practice sight-reading and have something meaningful to do during our lessons if I had just finished playing a concert with the symphony orchestra or a composition recital or whatever. As I was graduating, I believe it was her who suggested I could write my own book of Duos as a composition major, and ever since mid-2019 that’s been in the back of my mind as a project to do. For various reasons, I focused on other projects instead for composition contests and writing for other instrumentalists and orchestration and things, and this idea evaporated from my brain.

When I was going for a composition walk this weekend, trying to sketch for a collaborative musical I’m working on with someone (more on that in a future post!), I realized I wanted to wait for my musical partner to write some lyrics before I returned to that. So, I thought I’d return to the “academic” world for a bit and start sketching some Duos, and make this idea a reality! My plan is to sketch a short composition (roughly the same length as an average Bartók Duo or Chopin Prelude) and let them live in my penciled notebook. Once I’ve written up several dozen of them, I can then sit down and look through them, perhaps this winter when it’s too cold to go for walks. (Summer and fall is the perfect time to go for daily morning composition walks!) Not every sketch will make it into the final thing, but it’s a combination of working towards a goal of mine and getting me back into composing and practicing composition, which is an important thing. Since it’s all for the violin, I can also explore a few extended techniques and colors, but ultimately I’d like most of these to be sight-readable, just like I did with my violin teacher as an undergraduate student all those years ago. Each sketch might be influenced by whatever music I'm working on or listening to around it (I expect some musical-esque things down the road when I get back into that world...), but I can always edit them once I've engraved them to help the entire thing feel like one cohesive experience.

In addition to (hopefully) publishing this book in some capacity - maybe selling it on Etsy or as an e-book download on my website - I would love to make demonstration videos of the pieces with me playing through them on my violin for my YouTube channel. This will be a great excuse for me to get back into practicing the violin as much as I can, which is something I’ve wanted to do ever since this weekend, getting back to playing music by my favorite composer, Maurice Ravel, from a binder I had made on the violin, as well as on the piano. I will certainly share these when they’re done, and perhaps I can use them as a teaching tool for my own students to come full circle sometime next year when they’ll hopefully be finished. I’m looking forward to the engraving process for these!

I might update on here or my official website as to how progress is going on this, and maybe I can record a short video of one of my sketches just to provide an idea of how I’m implementing my musical style and tastes into the violin duos. I’m super excited to work on this and get back into playing and loving my favorite musical instrument(s), not just pulling them out when teaching them. My hope is that they will do that for young violinists everywhere who are interested!

Just because I wrote a lot about the previous game on here around 2017... Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is incredible, and the additions to the soundtrack range from gorgeous orchestral Disney-esque moments in the strings to focused piano tones, like isolated As. Hearing all these over the sounds of nature makes for an unforgettable experience all over again.

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Writing a Book of Violin Duos - Schedule Outline

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