Village Dance (from Happy Half-Hours in Melody Land)
by Mathilde Bilbro · arranged by Samuel Araya
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Publisher
- Samuel Araya (self-published on IMSLP, 2022); original: Willis Music Co., Cincinnati (edition scanned: 1921)
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About this piece
Samuel Araya's cello-and-piano arrangement of 'Village Dance' from Mathilde Bilbro's elementary piano book Happy Half-Hours in Melody Land (Cincinnati: Willis). The tune is a bright, lightly detached dance in 3/4, with the piano supplying a simple waltz-like accompaniment. Bilbro, who ran a teaching studio in Gadsden, Alabama, was known above all for her children's teaching pieces, written over half a century. The piece makes a good next step after her Rosebud Waltz and Jolly Trolley-Riders.
Technical overview
A light dance in G major and 3/4, mostly quaver pairs followed by staccato crotchets. The tune lives on the D and A strings and climbs to F-sharp above middle C, so it practises shifting up the A string into 4th position and clean, short staccato strokes. Only mf is marked in the bars seen.
Technical focus
- Staccato
- Shifting
- A String Notes
- D String Notes