Simple Waltz for Chloe

Last year, I wrote a little duet for my granddaughter and daughter to play together at the Hamilton Suzuki School of Music duet concert. It was a simple piece with my granddaughter playing the same repetitive pattern on the E string, "taka taka ti ti", which was one of the first rhythmic patterns that a student learns in the Suzuki method. On top of that pattern I wrote a melody that my daughter played. Since my daughter is an accomplished violinist I was able to write a more interesting and demanding first violin part. They practised the piece together until it flowed well. at the concert, my granddaughter did here part well and the whole thing went well. Everyone like the performance and the piece. All was good.

This year, my granddaughter has had an entire year of violin lessons so her proficiency has increased significantly. I have written another piece for her but it is a little more complicated than the piece that I wrote last year. Both compositions are roughly the same length, about one minute, more or less. However, the piece that my granddaughter played last year consisted on one note and one rhythm played over and over again. This piece that I wrote for her this year is a little more complicated.

The piece that I wrote this year is based on the A major scale which incorporates all of the notes that my granddaughter has learned to play on her violin to date. Essentially, it starts with the open A on the A string, then B, C#, and D. Open E on the E string, then F#, G#, and finally A on the E string. It was an interesting process for me. I started with a version that I thought my be simple enough for my granddaughter to play then I proceeded to simplify through three more versions of the A major scale idea until I arrived at the version that I have now. I believe that it is simple enough for my granddaughter to play. It is repetitive in the since that, starting with the "A" on the "E" string, each note is a quarter note repeated three times in a descending scale. The second violin part, my granddaughter's part, consist of this descending three note pattern played twice. The whole piece takes about one minute to play. I wrote the piece in 3/4 time which is why I call it a Simple Waltz. If my Granddaughter emphasises the first note of each bar then it will have a typical waltz rhythm, a simple waltz rhythm.

Unfortunately, I do not think that my granddaughter will be able to play this piece this year. This is not a problem. There are other pieces that she has to learn and there is always next year. What I find interesting was the process of refining the idea to its simplest essence. What I have been thinking is to take all of the versions that I have been working on and working them into a set of variations. I would start with the simplest idea as the theme and work them into increasingly interesting and difficult variations. Maybe one day, my granddaughter would play the entire set of variations.

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