Whether a student or a great artist, the desire to make a beautiful sound is a constant in the life of any musician. Sound is the musicians voice, the means of communicating an artistic vision to the audience and it should be the aim for children of any age or standard to be engaged in good tone production.

The inspiration for writing the pieces for this book came to me from the wish to give the young children I teach music which would develop their ear for both good intonation and beautiful tone production. All the pieces have a strongly implied harmonic structure allowing them to be played without accompaniment. The purpose of the second violin part is therefore to enable the teacher to underline the harmony as well as to influence the student’s tone production and intonation through his own sound, which is something I think can be of great benefit, as much can be taught by good example. The choice of keys in this book covers most of the requirements for scales in the Associated Board syllabus Grade 3-4 with some pieces including 2nd and 3rd position.

Finally I think that children enjoy the challenge of expressing different moods and emotions musically, and I hope that the range of ideas implied by the keys and the titles of these pieces will fire their imagination. Nigel Goldberg