Shooting Stars

About this piece

Shooting Stars is the fourth and last volume of Katherine and Hugh Colledge's Boosey & Hawkes Easy String Music series. It contains 21 pieces for cello and piano. Boosey says the pieces 'concentrate on 01–2–3–4 and 01–2–34 finger patterns and include the augmented 2nd between the 1st and 2nd fingers'. It adds that 'triplets, basic syncopation and chromaticism are introduced, together with some new bowings and a piece in five time.' The titles include The old oak tree, Morris dancers (dedicated 'for T.C. and The Lobster Potties dancers of Sheringham'), The misty isle, Cossacks, Stiffkey blues, Miles away, Moto perpetuo and Tarantella. The music is © 1996. The book is sold as a cello book with online audio and as a cello-and-piano edition, and Boosey's demonstration tracks are by Carina Drury and Robin Bigwood. ABRSM sets Miles Away, Stiffkey Blues and Cossacks for Grade 3, Trinity sets pieces at Grades 2–3, and RCM sets them from Grade 2 to Grade 4.

Technical overview

21 first-position pieces of one to three pages, covering all four strings from low F on the C string up to fourth-finger D on the A string. The pieces seen, The old oak tree (4/4, F major) and Morris dancers (2/4), use dotted crotchet–quaver and dotted quaver–semiquaver rhythms, slurred quaver pairs and longer slurs, running semiquavers, a B natural chromatic note, and dynamics from p to f with hairpins.

Technical focus

• C String Notes
• G String Notes
• D String Notes
• A String Notes
• 2 Note Slurs
• Dotted Rhythms
• Rhythm
• Dynamics
• Hairpin Dynamics