Have you ever stared at your music library, trying to find something for your beginners to perform at their very first concert, and discovered all of your ensemble music is too hard? I have a pretty good sized music library with lots of great beginner pieces, but none seems to be quite easy enough for my very near concert. I'm expecting students will just barely be reading notes on the D string. We have had time for only very basic rhythms. I needed a concert piece that will be fast to put together and simple to learn.
So, I wrote one: Copy Cat Concerto! It has LARGE print and notes in the note heads to help beginners learn it quickly. I designed this piece to be a bit like 'call and response.' The great thing about it is you can feature many different students as 'soloists.' I plan on choosing a different student for each 2-measure solo. That way many students will be featured as they stand up to play and the entire group plays after. To add variety/fun, you could add repeats throughout the solo sections and allow soloists to play with different styles, volumes, and articulations for the group to follow. In the middle, you could add an audience participation portion where a student leads them in call and response through various rhythms. You can be creative!
For a limited time, you can have the score and parts for free at my TPT site!
Thank you!
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