Carol of the Bells – Easy Violin
It’s November! Can you believe it?!?! 2020 has flown and dragged on all at the same time. I’ve been teaching some classes online and haven’t had time to blog. But hopefully you’ll see some of the fruit of that work sometime. But, here is a free easy Christmas violin arrangement that I just did for my group class.
I’ve been working on Christmas music with my private lesson students the last few weeks. There is so much good Christmas music out there. And I’ve just finally admitted to myself that I really love Christmas songs. Although by January I’m usually ready to not hear Jingle Bells for a veeeeerrry long time.
Our Suzuki program is doing virtual holiday concerts this year. My group class has been doing lots of work on our C-naturals this year. So I thought an easy Christmas violin arrangement of Carol of the Bells would be perfect for them! I can get lots of C-natural practice in with that great little motif that everyone loves to play.
My Class
The kids in my class range from Minuet 1 to the beginning of Book 2. We’ve done lots of review work playing some early Book 1 songs with C naturals. (Today we even played Minuet 1 and we would squat down low every time we played a “low 2.” Believe me I got my squats in for my workout today. I’ll be a little sore tomorrow.) Carol of the Bells has lots of C-naturals. And the repeated patterns drill it in. My students were all familiar with the tune so they were pretty excited to learn it.
Breaking it Down
I took each of the melodic phrases and called it a color. There are 5 colors to learn. Then they just have to learn the order of the colors.
Teaching Points for Each Section
- The first phrase is playing 4 of the blue pattern. This is the pattern they will play 3 different times throughout the arrangement. By the end they will have played this pattern 16 times. I’d say that some good C-natural practice!
- Then the next phrase is playing 4 of the “Magenta” pattern. You could always have them use 4th finger to play E, and get in some good 4th finger practice. I’m still deciding if I’m going to die on that hill. I suggested it, and they weren’t super thrilled. 🙂
- The “Purple” section is a little tricky to get into the fingers. I changed the melody on 1 note for a technical reason. My students who aren’t in book 2 yet, have not learned “low 1” F-natural yet. So I switched that “low 1” to a D natural. With our COVID restrictions of distancing and also teaching this via group class, I don’t think I would be able to teach the technique of “low 1.” And I’m not sure that those kids are quite ready to move their 1st finger quite yet. My book 2 student who tried this yesterday had no trouble playing this as F-natural and thought it was super cool to incorporate that F-natural in.
- Next week I’ll teach the “green” section. This is a modal scale with high 2 and high 3. I like the fact in this section that we have a high 2 on the D string, and then a low 2 on A string. This gets that 2nd finger moving back and forth on different strings just like in the Book 1 Minuets. I also like that they get a couple G#’s high 3’s.
- Gold is the last section. Here we are reviewing some bow articulations with the accents and diminuendos.
Recording and Accompaniment Track
Since one of our core principles in teaching Suzuki is listening. And even more importantly learning our music by listening. I created a recording for them to listen to.
I wanted the kids that participate in group class via zoom to be able to participate. So, I also created an accompaniment track. We are going to make a video mash-up of each of them playing and the accompaniment recording will be our glue holding it all together. It also gives them something to play with if they want to play for family over Christmas break.
So, lots of free stuff on this post. Be sure and download the violin part, the piano accompaniment, and the accompaniment track. I’ve also made the recording with violin that I did in my back bedroom. It’s not stellar, but it would give you an idea of how it goes!
Here’s to improvising and flexing our way to the end of 2020!
If you are looking for an intermediate arrangement of Carol of the Bells, check out the duet in my Christmas duet book, Winter’s Snow. This arrangement will include 3rd position and some harder bowing and position work.
You can order a hard copy or the publisher has made the book available as a pdf download.
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