Magic Carpet for Cello: Concert Pieces for the Youngest Beginner
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Cello
- Composed
- 2007
- Publisher
- Summy-Birchard (Alfred Music), 00-27747 (book & online audio/PDF); piano accompaniment 00-27014
Purchase or download
About this piece
Magic Carpet for Cello is a book of 13 short concert duets by Joanne Martin for the very youngest cellists, each named after a place: Wintertime in Russia, Carnival in Rio, Tango to Trinidad, Honolulu Hula-Dancer, Chopsticks in Chinatown, Machu Picchu Mountain and others. The student plays a simple part while the teacher or a more advanced student plays a fuller second part, and eight of the duets are also given as cello/violin and cello/viola duets so young cellists can play with friends on other instruments. Martin designed the pieces for both reading-based and Suzuki studios, so children can learn them by ear or from the page. The book includes online audio and teachers' notes, and a piano accompaniment book is published separately.
Technical overview
The book opens with Wintertime in Russia in D minor, 4/4 at crotchet = 108, where the student part stays on the open A string in repeated sixteenth-and-eighth Twinkle-variation rhythms with staccato eighths. Dynamics move between forte, piano and mezzo-forte with crescendo hairpins, and the student must keep a steady pulse against a fuller second part.
Technical focus
- A String Notes
- Rhythm
- Staccato
- Dynamics
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Ensemble Skills