Violin Forum/Message Board

[rcmanning]

Hi All-

I'm about at the end of my rope. I'm a groom-to-be that is looking for several beatles songs arranged for string quartet, and I can't find them ANYWHERE. Does anybody have the following or know where I could get them?

Strawberry Fields Forever
Across the Universe
Let it Be

[Becky]

thinking outside the box...are you musical? If so, (or you can ask the string quartet if they can arrange this), you could take a different arrangement and rewrite it for a string quartet. The two easiest ways to do this would probably be to find the piano part and simply divide the notes the piano plays (i.e. the cello takes the bass lines, the viola and 2nd violin share the inner voices, and the 1st violin takes the melody/top notes), or if you're feeling creative, you could find the guitar tabs and use those chords as the base for writing parts. It's actually pretty simple to do if you have some basic theory knowledge (e.g. what notes belong with what chord, some part-writing rules).

As far finding the music pre-arranged for you...have you checked out the selection at sharmusic.com? I seem to remember them carrying string quartet versions of some Beatles music. I think there were a few volumes...and if they don't sell it anymore, you could always check for a used copy on half.com or ebay

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I'm getting married in a few months and ended up arranging some of the music myself--also, the musicians are friends/teachers of mine and they're willing to arrange some things...I just have to give them the framework (chords and melody) for the pieces. My fiance is also a musician and we've written our own arrangements for some of the weddings we played in. One wedding we completely wrote our own arrangement and in another we changed some things around in the printed arrangement, and it really wasn't a big deal for us to do that...I'd definitely at least ask your quartet if they'd be able to (it is extra work though, you may have to pay them more)