Violin Forum/Message Board

[mokumoku]

I have a book called Artistry in Strings (book 1). I am very curios about a small section called "Mean Green Halloween''', but I don't know how to play it. Let me describe the section. First I will quote the directions: "It's time for you to become a composer! Below is some unusual musical "notation". Practice each effect by itself, then make up a spooky story..." Below this are six pictures, labeled Witch's Hat, Black Cat's Tail, Shooting Star, Frog Croak, Witch's Broom, and Spider Squish. The first two have notes around the pictures, G and E, and D and A. The others are pictures without any notes. I cannot figure out how this is to be played. This section isn't on the CDs. To be able to figure out these effects just from this seems too advanced for a beginner's book. Please help if you can.
I guess I should introduce myself since this is my first post. I am a musician/composer in training, so far I play guitar, piano, and violin, with the most experience in guitar, especially "classical" style. Two of my favorite composers are J.S. Bach, and Erik Satie. I am taking the Virtuosic approach to both composing and playing. I look forward to learning from the members of the forum, and sharing what I think.

[Lemuel]

Somehow, I missed this post.

Thanks for joining the forum.

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I assume that the musical notation looks somewhat like this:

G (Witch's Hat) E D (Black Cat's Trail) A (Shooting Star) (Frog Croak) (Witch's Broom) (Spider Squish)

It appears that they are asking you to compose additional notes for the remaining pictures, matching the notes
with the theme implied for each picture. As for playing the notes, simple is the best (G, E, D and A are all open strings).