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ZOOM Settings for Online Music Lessons – Desktop Version

Posted on by J Melin

{This post has been getting the most hits on my studio website since April of 2020. I’ve updated it a few times as Zoom settings have changed. Here is the current procedure as of August 2024.}

When using Zoom for online music lessons, both the teacher AND the student need to avoid using Zoom’s default sound settings! Zoom is primarily a verbal-communications app, so the default settings are designed to cancel out sustained background noise, high pitches etc. — the type of sounds that are generated by musical instruments! Zoom has had an “original sound” setting since 2020, which curbs their aggressive filter for these types of sounds. In the fall of 2022, Zoom specifically labeled their Original Sound feature to say “Original Sound for Musicians.” Clearly they are aware that using Zoom for music lessons is a very popular application! If you’ve never seen the “for Musicians” addition, or if you never got the audio settings just right, here is a quick guide to the desktop version of the app. The iPad settings are covered in this post.

Follow these visual steps to update the Zoom app on your desktop or laptop, and configure the Audio settings for music lessons.

Continue reading “ZOOM Settings for Online Music Lessons – Desktop Version” →

Incentive Program Package #3: Seven Summits and Beyond

(This post contains some affiliate links.)

As my incentive programs have developed over the past 20 years, they’ve expanded and become more graphics-heavy. Each year’s theme now includes a large wall display that tracks individual student progress towards meeting their (minimum) 10 annual MusiQuest Goals. So this third incentive program I’m going to share with you comes with more printables!

“Seven Summits And Beyond” is a mountain-climbing theme that celebrates the indomitable spirit of the world’s greatest mountaineers. Living where I do in the Pacific Northwest, the familiar sight of Mount Rainier dominating the skyline is always breathtaking. Since it’s a training summit for prospective Everest climbers, it was the first “destination” for my students. The theme continues through the highest summits on each continent (the “7 Summits”) leading to Mt. Everest as #10. Students who completed more than 10 goals went on to “climb the 8000’ers” — the Himalayan peaks over 8000 meters high. Continue reading “Incentive Program Package #3: Seven Summits and Beyond” →

Posted in Technology

Top 10 MuseScore Uses for Studio Teachers

Posted on by J Melin

The MuseScore open-source notation app has been an incredibly helpful tool in my studio for several years, and as I get more familiar with its many features, I’m finding even more uses for it. Here are my top 10!

1. Notating
It’s MuseScore’s primary function: a “word processor” for writing music! Get started here by writing out your favorite scale assignments for students, using the MuseScore menus, palettes and helpful online manual (search for the function you need). Practice copying and pasting, and raising or lowering pitches by octave. Add repeats and endings. Listen to playback to check your work. Change key signatures to learn about…

2. Transposing
This capability is such a time saver! Besides changing keys for your own self-created scores, you can download user-created scores from the MuseScore website and edit them freely. Want to give your violin student a piece notated for cello, or clarinet? Change the clef, key signature and octave if necessary, and it’s instantly playable. Set up your own MuseScore account and share your scores with others.

3. Marking up
If you have a nice clean copy of a teaching piece without bowings or fingerings — or if you want to mark your own preferences — add these markings from the Articulations and Fingerings palettes. You can also add or change dynamics — the Lines palette has hairpin markings.

Continue reading “Top 10 MuseScore Uses for Studio Teachers” →

Posted in Intermediate, Repertoire, Sheet Music

New Arrangement: Warlock’s Capriol Suite for Violin and Piano

Posted on by J Melin

Ever since Peter Warlock’s “Capriol Suite” for string orchestra entered public domain in 2022, I’ve been wanting to arrange it for solo violin so my students can enjoy its catchy Renaissance melodies and quirky 20th-century harmonies. I finally completed that project, and my arrangement is now available for digital download at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. It’s also available right here, at a discount!

This engaging suite of six Renaissance dance tunes, reimagined by Warlock (pseudonym of Philip Heseltine) for string orchestra in the 1920s, has been reduced to a solo violin piece with piano accompaniment. Suitable for intermediate to advanced violin players, the required techniques involve rapid tempos, spiccato bowing, some double stops, and expressive vibrato, with minimal shifting higher than 3rd position. The piano part is advanced. Depending on the violinist’s technical level, they could choose to play one or more of the easier movements (Basse-Danse, Pavane) or all six, including the unrelenting spiccatos in Bransles or the finger-twisting double stops in the finale of Mattachins. The highly expressive Pieds-en-l’air is a lovely stand-alone elegy, but with a title that will make students giggle (“Feet-in-the-air??”).

Here’s the source tune for Bransles along with a demonstration of its dance. Students can explore how Peter Warlock originally changed and enhanced the tune.

If you purchase this arrangement, I’d welcome your feedback! Drop a comment below.

Fiddle Folio for Etude Fun

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My recently released, curated collection of fiddle tunes is currently on sale at Amazon. You can also grab a PDF copy right away via download purchase.

I put together this Fiddle Fundamentals Folio book to answer the question: “Why play etudes when you can play fiddle tunes?” Introducing fiddle tunes into students’ (or your own) etude practice builds finger dexterity, bowing agility, and sight reading skills while also being FUN! I collected 40 toe-tapping traditional fiddle tunes and arranged them by key signature and sequential difficulty, from beginning to advanced levels. First-position-only tunes can be played slow to fast while focusing on the following technical skills:

Finger Dexterity: Fiddle tunes require rapid finger action on one or two strings. Ornamentations increase the speed of finger dropping-and-lifting and can train a light, tension-free touch. Students can learn preparatory double-stop technique through the focus on “quiet fingers” that stay put as long as possible. Guidance for turning tunes into finger exercises will get fingers flying faster and more accurately in no time!

Bowing Agility: Use fiddle tunes to focus on left side/right side coordination. The characteristic rapid string changes and off-beat slurs call for a relaxed, flexible technique and mindset.

Sightreading: Fiddle tunes can be deceptively simple to play at sight. The trick is in maintaining full-speed tempos, bowings, and ornaments while always reading at least one note ahead. The 40 tunes in this book will provide lots of fresh music to play, and resources are included to find even more.

Improvisation: Traditional techniques for adding slurs and ornaments allow the musician to play a tune differently each time. Preparatory scales and arpeggios are provided for each key, with introductory chord theory and chords for every tune, to help bridge players towards harmonic and chordal improvisation.

Here’s the table of contents.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on some tunes to play this weekend, you can purchase a PDF copy below. It doesn’t have a fancy cover like the book you can buy on Amazon, but the inside looks exactly the same! I would love to hear your comments after you’ve used the book! Sláinte!

Download “Fiddle Fundamentals Folio” PDF for $8.50

or    Purchase bound book version on Amazon

(Hey! If your taste tends more towards the classical, you might be interested in my Orchestral Excerpts for Intermediate Violinists book for a different approach to non-traditional etudes!)
Posted in Repertoire, Sheet Music, Videos

Intermediate Violin Piece Discovery – “Adoration” by Florence Price

Posted on by J Melin

It’s International Women’s Day and we just celebrated Black History Month. The perfect time to share a very special new-to-me piece that’s already been warmly received at a student’s masterclass and a recital.

While I was viewing a YouTube performance of a Gershwin piece by violinist Randall Goosby for a student’s reference, the playlist popped up this compelling interpretation of Florence Price’s “Adoration” by Goosby with pianist Zhu Wang. I got goosebumps! (no pun intended) The arranger’s name was in the YouTube description, so it was easy to verify that this very same arrangement was available on IMSLP.org.

Composed by Florence Price (1887-1953) in the 1950’s for the organ, “Adoration” was apparently discovered in 2009 in a box of her compositions that had been previously considered lost. According to IMSLP.org, the piece “failed to meet notice or renewal requirements to secure statutory copyright with no ‘restoration’ under the GATT amendments” and therefore is in the public domain. It has been arranged for violin and piano by Elaine Fine, who has generously provided it for free download and distribution under the Creative Commons license.

Get your own copy here! The arranger has also published versions for viola or cello with piano. She notes in the IMSLP description, “This piece sounds particularly nice on the viola.”

If you liked this post, you might also want to read about other Contemporary Classical Pieces for Intermediate Violin Players.

Check out my published arrangements at SheetMusicPlus.com!