Sheila Nelson: Octotunes

  
Ideal for individual or group teaching, this selection of short, fun pieces for flexible ensemble can be played by solo violin, violin duo, three violins and cello or even string quartet, all with an optional keyboard accompaniment part. (Viola parts are available for free download).



Octotunes provides early experience of ensemble playing, without extensions, shifts or changes of finger pattern from the basic open string scales.

Suitable for students who have completed Sheila Nelson’s Essential String Method Book 1, these pieces stay within the keys of A and D major, with rhythms limited to quavers, crotchets, crotchet rests, minims and dotted minims. Time signatures are limited to 3 and 4.

Octotunes helps develop reading skills in two stages – the student is first encouraged to learn and sing tunes from the sol-fa charts, before transferring to the stave notation with its additional dynamics and bowing.