Hello! I haven't been on here in ages! it's awful

for any violists out there (particularly beginners), do you ever have trouble with people assuming that it is absolutely easy to just play a violin piece on viola?

My music teacher is driving me a little mad with this! I'm in the school chamber orchestra (only because they always need violas even though I'm only grade 3 ish and the rest of the orchestra are about grade 6 or so - eeeeeeeeeeeek!) At the moment we're doing 3 pieces and only one of them has a proper viola part, with the other two ('Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'The medallion calls' from POTC) My music teacher (who is a flautist) has just basically bunged the violin 2 part for Bohemian Rhapsody into Sibelius and so I have a part written for violin that goes really high on viola (up to B, fourth position A string) and I've only just learned 3rd position! also, it's all in ridiculously high ledger lines! Also my part is a bar behind everybody else because of a 'copy and paste' error. having said that though, Bohemian Rhapsody would go fairly high anyway.. but that's not the point!

As for the Pirates of the Caribbean music, she didn't even make a viola part I had to read violin 2 which was a little mind boggling since I've not yet played a whole piece in treble clef!

Finally, she went to tune my viola (yes, I'm awful at tuning ) and asked if it was tuned the same as a violin... *fail*

I suppose it makes for interesting learning that is above my lesson standard but it's irritating that she didn't check it with me and hasn't edited it so I've had to now take it home and edit it myself! grrrrrr! As if I didn't have enough work with uni applications and A2 work!

On a final note, I get to start learning vibrato next week!

ok, rant over, sorry for the long post but I'm currently in the middle of trying to practise it and it's annoying! anyway, back to practise!

Does she have any qualifications? She should learn more than that about instruments in a music degree. Graduates in music don't usually have much difficulty getting jobs, but I would have thought an aware head would have known not to recruit her and a non-musical one ought to know enough to get a musician to interview her before she was appointed.

Did she really mean G D A E? If so, I'm glad you stopped her. Would she have paid for broken strings?

yes she has qualifications, she is the new head of music in my school and was interviewed by the old head of music who is still my other music teacher.

I put the tuning down to confusion, the rental viola I have is after all 14" the same size as a full size violin (since the music service don't have any bigger ) but she knows I'm viola...

yes, I agree that I think if she's arranging a piece she should be aware of the limitations of viola with violin music with regards to shifts/clefs etc She also put a Gb in the violin part.. a bit hard when the lowest string is a G, what are they going to flat? air?

Hmm, it's really a pity that she's doesn't seem very knowledgeable. I would recommend asking her whether she can transpose the high parts an octave down for you, and rewrite the violin parts in alto clef. A B in 4th position on the A string isn't out of the range of a viola, so it's understandable that it's there (I've come across notes as high as the E above that in my orchestral music), but she should take your level of proficiency into account. Also talk to your teacher about this problem and ask her how she thinks you should approach it (i.e. whether you should talk to her, whether you should just learn to play the parts as written, etc).

blimey! an E above that! And I though trying to play the B was bad enough ah the innocence of just starting to learn something! My sister nearly threw her German textbook at me when I was practicing the B, my answer: 'at least I don't play violin'

Some of my younger pupils have problems with their Junior school teacher in a similar way. He is a brass player and runs a brass band, but for end of term concerts he insists the string players take part and writes them parts. The trouble is, it's all in flats for the brass, and strings tend to learn in sharps first, and he just doesn't seem to 'get it'.
And yes, he also has a music degree..

Bad strategy, mixing beginner strings and beginner brass. After that, there's no solution, because his brass instruments are pitched in Bb and Eb (unless he has orchestral horns, who don't usually play in brass bands). I'ld rather play my bass in a flat key than my horn in a sharp one.

That reminds me that an unexpected aspect of horn parts in wind band is that they have key signatures, which change frequently. They are not very common in orchestral music. Of course, you get transposition instead, as late as R Strauss (Bb horns in one of the Four Last Songs, IIRC).

You know it and I know it!
The trouble is, he doesn't! And he's not even nice to them about it when they struggle. And struggling at early stages in an ensemble puts them off from playing in one in the future. He has some flutes with the same problem.
Silly man