Celebrate a year of holidays, and add a musical flavor to your celebrations with these 40 tunes arranged for two players. Some of the tunes even have lyrics to enhance the fun.
This collection includes festive music for Chanukah, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo, Easter, Father’s Day, Flag Day, Grandparents Day, Groundhog Day, Halloween, Independence Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Passover, Patriots Day, Presidents Day, Purim, Rosh Hashanah, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Veterans Day, and Yom Kippur.
Each Tunes for Two collection consists of individual spiral-bound duet books presented in score form with melody on the top line and harmony beneath so you can play each tune by yourself or with others. Duo arrangements of the tunes in this collection, in the same keys, are available for violins, violas, cellos, basses, mandolins, soprano recorders, and alto recorders.
The tunes in this collection are laid out so that there are no page turns to interrupt the flow of your playing.
PDFs are available worldwide for each of the books in the Tunes for Two series.
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“La Adelita” (Cinco de Mayo) “Adir Hu” (Passover) “Amazing Grace” (Easter) “America the Beautiful” (Independence Day) “Ask My Father” (Father’s Day) “Auld Lang Syne” (New Year’s Eve) “Avinu Malkenu” (Rosh Hashanah) “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (Memorial Day) “Day Dawn” (Christmas) “Dayenu” (Passover) “Did You Wash Your Father’s Shirt” (Father’s Day) “Easter Sunday Jig” (Easter) “Grandfather’s Clock” (Grandparents Day) “Grandmother Song” (Grandparents Day) “Groundhog” (Groundhog Day) “Hail to the Chief” (Presidents Day) “Halloween Strathspey” (Halloween) “Hop Mayne Homentashn” (Purim) “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (Halloween) “Kol Nidre” (Yom Kippur) “L’Shana Tova” (Rosh Hashanah) “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (Valentine’s Day) “Mama Don’t Allow” (Mother’s Day) “Maoz Tzur” (Chanukah) “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” (Patriots Day) “My Yiddishe Momme” (Mother’s Day) “New Year’s Eve” (New Year’s Eve) “Over the River and Through the Woods” (Thanksgiving) “Oy Hanukkah, Oy Hanukkah” (Chanukah) “Rachamono” (Yom Kippur) “Saint Patrick Was a Gentleman” (St. Patrick’s Day) “Saint Patrick’s Day” (St. Patrick’s Day) “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (Labor Day) “Star Spangled Banner” (Veterans Day) “That’s Amore” (Valentine’s Day) “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy” (Christmas) “We Gather Together” (Thanksgiving) “We Shall Overcome” (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) “A Wicked, Wicked Man” (Purim) “You’re A Grand Old Flag” (Flag Day) |
This collection of violin tunes looks at a number of holidays celebrated throughout the year, presents them in notation that is easy to decipher, and piques one’s interest by showing an enjoyable counter-melody and/or accompaniment from a second violin. While many songs are easily recognizable, such as “Auld Lang Syne” for the New Year and “Amazing Grace” for Easter, Greenblatt pulls out some lesser-known songs as well. For Christmas, there is “Day Dawn,” for Hanukkah there is “Maoz Tzur,” and even “Ask My Father” for Father’s Day. Other holidays covered in song include Mother”s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Yom Kippur, and Halloween. Overall, this is a great reference when in need of a special song for a particular holiday.
As is typical of Deborah Greenblatt’s work, the arrangements of pleasing tunes are well done and accessible to a diverse audience of recorder players.
The publisher continues the practice of printing with unpretentious colored covers (pink for the Holiday Tunes). The table of contents is printed on the outside front cover. The binding is a nice spiral, enabling the music to lie flat on the stand.
Both the soprano and alto versions of each piece have the same key signature. Therefore, the alto volume consists of the same music as the soprano but is, for the most part, written up an octave. There are a few exceptions in which the alto parts are given on the same pitch level as the soprano. The practical effect is that much of the alto music is set in the upper register of the instrument, which offers something of a challenge even for more experienced players. The intention is to enable groups with both soprano and alto players to work together.
Page turns are generally avoided by the insertion of blank pages. Spacing on the pages and between staves makes for overall clarity with regard to pitches and other markings. (It is a pet peeve of mine to play from crowded staves that make it difficult to identify pitches that involve ledger lines — no problem with that here.)
There are no difficult keys. Chromatic notes are found, and in a few cases, they are a bit challenging. For example, in the alto part of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” in Holiday Tunes, we find successive G# and A# as well as E#. There are also sharps in the grace notes in several measures.
These editions are accessible to intermediate players. Rhythms are generally straightforward. The textures are a mix: artfully arranged polyphony or homophony, and some in which one line carries the melody and the other serves an accompaniment function.
While some tunes are short and simple, others are longer and more elaborate. Some are composed of a melody and variations, in which the voices cross registers and trade the melody back and forth. While most of the pieces are not difficult, there are several that present more of a challenge, and thus can appeal to more experienced players. Because of the skillful arrangements, they would be very effective in concert performances.
This edition would make for great additions to one’s recorder library. Because they contain a mix of easier and a bit more challenging pieces that are pleasingly arranged, they offer less and more experienced players both a challenge and an opportunity to play simply for the enjoyment of the music.
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