A few years after I started making sheet music for fiddle trio, as published in my first three fiddle harmony sheet music multipacks, I realised something: people often asked me for cello and viola parts for these arrangements. The obvious thing that I should do was create some arrangements that were written from the ground up for a flexible string quartet.
I started writing string quartet arrangements, but making sure they could still be used by groups of violin players, or a fiddle group with a violist. As well as the traditional string quartet format, I made versions of the scores which had three violin parts and a cello part, and also some with three violin parts and the cello part transposed up an octave and played on the viola.
As I include all these versions of the scores in my download packs, with individual parts available, it opens them for up a few different types of ensemble as well as the ones I have scored for. You can mix parts from the "three violins and viola" and the traditional string quartet so that you have two violin parts and two viola parts, for example, for a quartet made up of two violins and two violas, or a big fiddle orchestra with multiple violists in it.
The arrangements still work with one or two parts omitted, too - so they can be played by trios (maybe violin, viola and cello, violin and two violas, two violins and viola, two violins and cello) and duets formed by a violin in combination with violin, viola or cello.
When I had released several of these string quartet packs, I decided to add string quartet versions to all my existing trio arrangements too. This means that all of my arrangements for "harmony strings" come with the scores in these formats, so it's all consistent and you don't need to worry about whether the arrangements will fit on the instruments in your group.
The main difference you might notice between how the "fiddle harmony" and "string quartet" arrangements are presents is the recordings. With the original fiddle harmony packs, I made recordings demonstrating full band arrangements based on what it was possible to do by building up the different parts and adding in different harmonies at different times. I also added piano backing to demonstrate the chord symbols. With the newer string quartet arrangements, my recordings are much more like what the score actually looks like: I play the tune once through, with all parts, and no piano. I hope that both types of recording are useful in their own way.
[listen to audio demos] [buy sheet music]