I love duets and students enjoy playing duets. My husband can play piano and some of my favorite memories is when we play duets together. Matter of fact, I recently passed out several Christmas duets to siblings because I want them to play a duet in addition to their solo at our MTA Music at the Mall event in December. Not even a week goes by after giving one of my siblings their Christmas duet do I get a video clip shared by a Mom saying that they have been loving their duet and have been practicing 1-2 hours a day. Talk about motivation!
I love duets not only because they are super fun to play, but also because it forces students to listen and count. They become aware how much those two things are so important when we play music. Rosa mentions on her website that duets also help enormously with note reading, which requires you to think ahead and possibly the most important lesson you need in music – to keep going.
Rosa Conrad composed a duet music and compiled it into a book, Rosamund Conrad’s Delightfully Easy Piano Duets. This book is specifically for beginner students in mind. In this delightfully easy duet book (by the way, the name is perfect for this book!) you will find 8 pieces. The primo part is meant to be played by the beginner and the secondo is meant to be played by the teacher or intermediate player.
You will find the primo part stays in the 5 finger positions, has simple rhythm patterns and no accidentals. But one unique aspect of the pieces for primo is both hands are played in unison. The advantage of this is 2-fold. 1) If the student is just learning hands together, what a better way to start out! 2) As Rosa suggests inside the book, “the beginner’s parts can be played with both hands or one.” You can have them play hands alone reviewing just the treble clef or just the bass clef and the full melody is still there.
The secondo part really can be played from early intermediate to intermediate players. Much of the patterns are simple alberti-bass and chord patterns.
The duets are nice to play for any age group. Many are classical style in nature, but there is even a fun blues style one in the mix (see sheet music example above). You can listen to Saloon Bar Blues below.
If you purchase this book directly on the website, there is an option to have chord symbols written on the intermediate part. However I say, what a perfect opportunity to have students add in their own chord symbols! The easiest way to order Rosamund Conrad’s Delightfully Easy Piano Duets book (especially if you are in the US) would be on Amazon.
You can visit Rosa’s website here. I enjoyed browsing through it and would encourage you to as well. In addition she has a blog you can check out. Be sure to like Rosa Conrad Music on Facebook too!
And guess what? You can even download free samples of V. Breeze and VIII. Saloon Bar Blues for free! Click here.
Rosa shared with me recently that she was with an old friend from college, playing through and making final adjustments to all the duets for book two. (Yes! There is a book 2 coming soon!) She said that it brought back memories of how much fun they had playing duets together years ago.
Rosamund Conrad’s Delightfully Easy Piano Duets is full of delightful, easy and fun duets that both performers will surely enjoy.
Rosamund Conrad has been teaching privately in west London since 2000, while studying for her postgraduate certificate. She customizes her teaching style to her students needs and interest. In addition to teaching piano, Rosa also teaches the ukulele and guitar ranging in students from age 5 to 90. She will often write music specifically for her pupils, again, catering to her students needs. Rosa is quite versatile in music. In addition to playing piano, ukulele and guitar, she also sings and plays the accordion.
I would love to have this duet book. I love playing duets with my students or having them play duets with their friends or siblings. Students learn so much about rhythm when they have to play duets,
Every spring recital I do a duet with a friend at the end of my studio recitals and hers. We were piano majors together over 10 years ago and still get together to play duets. So much fun and the parents love it!
Playing duets with my students is my favorite part of the lesson. I love that it helps them with rhythm and counting!
I have my students playing ensembles from their first year of study on up – so much fun combined with good musicianship! My favorite personal recital memory is a 4-piano recital I played in as an 8th grader.
Love playing duets with my students!! Sometimes when we get to the end and I’ll say “Let’s try it faster!” for fun. I love how duets can take a simple song and make it sound so much more intricate and impressive.
I did lots of duet with my adult students especially when they want to experience different style of music
I have done all duet/trio recitals in the past and have one planned for spring 2015. Once a student and I were going like mad playing “Can-Can” by Offenbach when we both got lost at the exact same moment! We laughed, I pointed to where I wanted us to start and we finished brilliantly! I think the audience enjoyed the mistake as much as the piece!
As a younger student, I had the hardest time understanding how to play musically. I played everything correctly, but there was no passion in it. It wasn’t until I started playing duets with my teacher, and later with my sister and other colleagues, that I learned what it really meant to “play” music and convey the feelings both I and the composer had. To this day duets are still one of my favorite things to play and to teach, and I’m so glad there is new music coming out for this special genre!
This looks like a great collection! I grew up playing duets with my mom and friends. Honey are one of my favorite parts of playing piano. My studio is planning a duet recital for the Spring where we will try to include family members in the music making fun.
I love duets! When I first started teaching, I taught my son and we played duets a lot, at recitals, at church and for fun. Lots of great memories! Now I have many of my students play duets with their family members and with each other. It would be great to get Rosamund’s duets!
How fun! Duets/ensemble play with other students are such good learning tools, and these look lovely for even beginners. I can see myself covering the Primo RH with post-its to boost bass clef reading 🙂
Ooo- I love duets! One of my fav memories was when I first started teaching and my youngest brother and his friend were playing a duet in recital. They were around 5 or 6 yrs old and started out with gusto, I was so proud! Then, suddenly they stopped and started laughing, my brother reached out and turned their music right-side up (it was upside down!). They picked it right back up and finished with huge bows and bigger smiles. I was only 12 or 13 and thought it was awful then…but now I love that memory!
I love playing duets with all of my students, but especially those younger ones who realize how cool music can sound with more notes involved. These books seem great!
My students always have fun playing duets. This looks like a great book.
Love piano duets! A favorite for the Halloween season is Monster Bash by Mary Elizabeth Clark. The girls (and their parents) preparing this piece for our Halloween Recital are loving it!
I love duets too! My students will performs duets at our Christmas recital in December. I would love a copy of her book.