Folk Arrangements Sheet Music for Strings and Other Instrumental Groups

Welcome to my folk arrangements digital (PDF) sheet music website.

Here you can find traditional music from the British Isles set as various duets, flexible four-part arrangements, and transpositions for CGDA instruments.

I’m a violist who plays folk music, and for many years I have been composing my own harmony parts to accompany traditional tunes from Ireland, Scotland, and England. I have published the sheet music for my arrangements, which you can buy in digital form (PDF) and print out yourself.

The arrangements are primarily aimed at bowed string players. There are packs of simple duets, and also flexible four-part harmony arrangements which can be used by various different ensembles.

Folk Tune Harmony Sheet Music: String Duets

Packs of 40 traditional folk tunes arranged for various different string duets. Buy these in individual volumes, or a discounted pack of all three volumes together.

Choose from:

Fiddle duets
Fiddle and viola duets
Viola duets
Viola and cello duets
Fiddle and cello duets

In all of these duets, one instrument plays the original melody and the other plays a newly composed harmony part or bassline.

e.g. in the fiddle duets, violin 1 has the melody and violin 2 plays the harmony; in the viola and cello duets, the viola plays the original fiddle tune transposed down by a fifth to fit on the viola, and the cello plays a bassline.

The arrangements also come with chord symbols for an accompanist (e.g. guitar, piano, accordion).

Build-Your-Own-Arrangement Packs

Each of these arrangements includes the original melody, which is written in treble clef. This part also has chords written above it, for an accompanist to play.

For each tune, there are two harmony parts and a bassline.

The harmony parts and bassline are all provided in three different clefs: treble, alto and bass. You’ll receive all of these with your download, so you don’t have to spend time checking you’re buying the right version in the right clef.

You can use different versions of each part depending on which instruments you have in your group.

You can use them in simple arrangements, with one part per player. You can also use the different parts to build more complex pieces, by playing the tune several times through, with players switching between different harmony parts to form their own arrangements.

They work well as a resource for folk band arrangement workshops, fiddle groups who have violists and cellists joining them, and simple duets, trios or quartets.

What You Get

When you buy one of the downloads, you will receive PDF digital sheet music.

There are 21 tune arrangements that can be purchased in sets of seven (Irish, Scottish and English packs), or all pieces together in one "megapack".

The downloads also include demo recordings.

Discounted Bundle!

My "Super Folk Strings" bundle contains all of my harmony arrangements for strings. It includes all duet packs, plus all three of my "build-your-own-arrangement" bundles.

This makes a great resource for string teachers and anyone else who wants a large folk repertoire with flexible instrumentations to choose from.

Demo Video

While I can play violin and viola, I can't play the cello! But I can play the bass guitar so I've played the cello parts on that instead.

Session Tune Transpositions for Awkward Instruments

When I say "awkward" I'm talking about stringed instruments in CGDA tuning: viola, cello, and tenor banjo. (I haven't quite got to the stage of arranging reels for tuba...)

These are melody-only settings of popular traditional Irish, Scottish and English tunes, in two versions - a "solo" version and a "session" version.