Hi,
I have two pupils who are sisters, one has recently passed grade 2, and the younger sister has been learning for about 7months. They often come to lessons asking to perform what they have made up at home and I really want to encourage them by also giving them some duets to play. I have used some very simple duets from very early beginner books but I dont want the older one to feel bored if her part is too easy!
Can anyone recommend a good duet book that could cater for their different abilities?

Thanking you!

What instrument?

Oh dear! I knew I posted this topic tooooo late at night!

Piano my dearies! Thankyou owainsutton!

Are they actually making up their own music at home? You could have a look at the LCM compostition exams - we're discussing them over on the Theory and Comp forum.

Duet-wise, I like the Five Star duet series as they write both parts in treble and bass with instructions just to play an octave higher or lower - so good practise for normal sight reading. And they are nice arrangements of popular tunes. Good luck to your Labeque sisters!

Two at the piano is fab, top part is very easy, lower part is around Grade 2+.

http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/03279/details.html

I wonder why they didn't vary who had the easier part.

The two players can always switch position between pieces.

'Easy Jazzin About' by Pam Wedgwood also has an easy and more difficult part for each piece, standard is between 1 and 3.

There are a couple of duet books in the Piano Time series; one of them is called Mixed Doubles, I think. There are also some jazz ones (i.e. Piano Time Jazz), but they're quite a lot harder as far as I can remember.

I have the Jane Smisor Bastien Duets Book 1. I don't know how many are in the series, but there is definitely a Book 2. Book 1 is pretty easy for both parts - but there are only about 6 pieces in the book.

I often don't use duet books for this situation but regular beginner books with piano accompaniments (i.e. the ordinary PA or HL or Bastien method books that they may well be using anyway).

The Primer books have perfect pieces for the primo (7 months girl) and then the secondo (G2 girl) plays either the accompaniment as written or a slightly modified version (some of them are not really suitable, others are fine with a slight modification),

I find these are musically far more successful than the regular 'mixed level' duet books.