Hi all,

Just working on composing a melody for Grade 5.

This is the given:



My response is as requested an 8 bar melody for violin with performance directions, etc.
See below:



Would that be an acceptable response
And if not, why not and any suggestions.

I'll leave string players to comment on your use of slurs.

I like the music you have added. No problem there.

Do you really see it as an Allegro melody? Taste I guess.

You say mp and then diminuendo but not how far to go; p, pp?

Just details.

Yes, it is an acceptable response! More than acceptable, in fact. Musically, there are no errors, you have recognised the key and the underlying harmony is simple, but strong. However, I think you would have sacrificed some marks because you have not composed a rhythm; you have simply copied the opening.

I find your diminuendo in the middle a bit odd, but perhaps that's just me. Also I wondered whether you could have used down bows for the last three notes? But I'm not a string player. Perhaps some dynamics in bars 5-8 would have been a good idea?

One small thing: your flat sign is a little on the large size!

So I think this would have got a good mark, but possibly not 10/10.

I'm worried by your bowing. By the end of the third bar, you will be near the point, unless the semiquavers get rid of a lot of bow, which will probably make them too loud. You then have a two bar phrase to play, starting somewhere near the middle of the bow. I would consider two other possibilities:

1) Separate bows for the semiquavers. If you want to keep your hairpin, start on an upbow.

2) Do each of the first two bars in one bow.

Back in the 60s, when Silvestri conducted the Bournemouth Orchestra, my now wife and I wondered why the national anthem, started quietly on the strings, sounded like, "God save our gra---CIOUS Queen". Then we realised it was not a special Romanian version, but the natural result of one bow per note.

I pretty much agree with this.
I can't comment on the bowing except to say if you are not a string player don't put any in.
Same for any instrument specific markings.

But you are asked in the question to put performance directions that are particularly required for the instrument chosen.

In which case I suppose the obvious thing to do is to chose flute or oboe!

I don't *think* there's ever been a grade 5 paper in the last 15 years where the only options have been to write a melody for a stringed instrument...

If you aren't a string player things like bowing marks are a bit of guesswork for most people I think.
Wouldn't phrase marks do the job at this level?
Are bowing marks generally on string music that isn't edited for learners? I wouldn't know......

Oh yes

Yes, on music written since about 1900, and some composers are particularly helpful. Elgar, for instance, played and taught violin and his string pieces have bowings that I would always do, or insist on as a conductor. I can remember being very impressed with the bowing in the bass part of the opening of Shostakovich 10, which had very long stretches with one bow, but which worked beautifully in the p dynamic in a section with seven basses (as Robert Russell Bennett wrote, "eight basses are not louder than three basses, just nicer"). One of the Sibelius symphonies has a long passage which has two sets of bowing, each for half the section.