- Level: Early to Mid Elementary
- Pages: 4 pages, 2 pages of music, cover included!
- Style: Peaceful
- Series: Rote and Reading®
- Format: PDF instant download
Vancouver Island Sunset is a relaxing and mature sounding piece that uses the entire keyboard. The patterns in Vancouver Island Sunset are designed to be easy to find and play. In addition, the rhythms (longer note values) are carefully selected to help ensure that piano students find their place in the next octave easily without panicking!
Vancouver Island Sunset is part of the Rote and Reading® series! This series is designed to help elementary students sound mature, no matter what their age.
Vancouver Island Sunset is especially good for teens and adults!
Vancouver Island Sunset sounds mature and is quite relaxing to play. This piece gives you opportunity to introduce these musical concepts:
- 6/4 meter
- 8va
- Slurs
- Accents
- Dynamics, including gradual changes like crescendo and diminuendo.
- Moving up and down the piano
Chosen as part of the NFMC Federated Bulletin!
This piece is included in the one hand piano category of the current 2020-2024 NFMC Federation Bulletin! This piece is not notated to be one handed, but NFMC finds that it can easily be adapted for one hand.
Teach Vancouver Island Sunset by reading or rote.
Experiencing music in a variety of ways is the foundation to learning to read music. Just as kids learn to speak before they read, kids learn best when learning to play music before they read music! Since students can play more advanced music than they can read, teaching them occasional pieces by rote is a great way to keep them motivated. When combined with teaching students to read music, teaching rote pieces like Vancouver Island Susent is a more balanced way for students to experience music.
But however you teach it, whether by reading or rote, students will be motivated by the mature sound and look of them playing all over the piano.
Get the entire Canadian Rote and Reading® Series for a discount
Don’t forget to look at the other popular pieces in the Reading and Rote series. The Canadian Adventure bundle includes Vancouver Island Sunset, I Want Some Water, and Lumbering Kings. Plus the original African Adventure Bundle is one of the most popular sets of music in the ComposeCreate store. Kids, teens, and adults love the BIG sounds they make with this music!
Linda –
Wendy! I just used this piece for my group adult class! They loved it! Thank you for using the entire piano! Thank you for the variety of dynamics and marking that were teaching launching points(And Vancouver Island is extremely beautiful at sunset.)
Nicole –
I purchased this beautiful piece this week and, last night, gave it to a beginner adult student. She reads treble clef fluently (having played flute to a good standard) but her left hand and bass clef reading were holding her back.
Using a mixture of reading and rote this is the perfect piece for her! By the end of her 45 minute lesson she was feeling like a real pianist and had a real sense of achievement, playing with musicality and feeling but without any stress!
I highly recommend Vancouver Island – especially if you have students who may be struggling with putting two hands together and who need a little motivation boost or a quick, achievable goal.
I really enjoyed playing it too!
Thank you Wendy ????
Lisa Schuler –
I would like to share with you that I purchased Vancouver Island Sunset one day and the following day I had a first year student beg me to be in the upcoming Music Rally. I usually don’t put beginners in the Rally but she is a 4th grader and it is important to her to be with her friends and not be a year behind. So long story short, I gave her the Vancouver Island piece so she could easily learn it by rote, sound mature and be with her friends! Your piece has opened a door for this student. Hope this puts a smile on your face today!
Gayle –
I have given this piece to two beginner students this year to help them with legato and the ability to feel a longer line. Of course, they love it because it sounds so sophisticated. The piece demands quick hand position changes in the B section. This lesson in “thinking ahead” and moving with fluidity, has been valuable for them as well. Thank you so much, Wendy, for these pieces. Both my students and I love them!
susan –
I love this piece! My student wants to play it over and over. I can hardly get her to work on other piano assignments. I like the way it requires concentrating on the runs, while evoking a peaceful serene feel.
Great piece!
Joan –
Dear Wendy,
Thank you so much for all your work. My students are loving Vancouver Island Sunset. In fact, I have one student who challenged me to play it backwards to make a sunrise instead! We are considering using this piece to come up with a Nova Scotia Sunrise. We will be sure to share it with you if it comes to pass.
Cheryl Langley –
I gave this piece to a new piano student age 8. I wanted to capture her excitement for piano and give her something that sounded more mature. She has been able to play this right away! Thank you Wendy for providing fun pieces for students to play right from the start!
Valerie Evensen –
I love the patterned approach that is so consistent throughout the song. It is simple and yet beautiful enough for my adult beginners. Thanks!
Nancy –
Another wonderful piece for students to master quickly and enjoy right away. One of them told me that she could picture an eagle riding
the wind, soaring high above the water !! I’ve been to Vancouver and love the way you’ve captured both the serenity as well as the
majesty of that gorgeous landscape. This latest piece from ComposeCreate helps me to explain the concept of “sound paintings”
to my students. Thanks, Wendy !!
Nancy Rath
Peggy Flickinger –
Wendy,
My struggling 3rd year 5th grade student, has found Vancouver Island Sunset so much fun to play. She loves the repetitive patterns in octaves, allowing her to use the full keyboard. There is just enough variation to encourage note reading, interval recognition, longer phrases, hand movements all of which supplement her current material. I believe she feels she is playing very mature music when she plays this selection. I plan to supplement her lessons with more of your material. Thank you so much for teaching outside the box.
Peggy
Helen –
Another big hit from Wendy! Vancouver Island Sunset has really inspired my beginners who really want to sound like great musicians. It seems they automatically play it very musically, and we work on not pausing as they do the crossovers. Love that they are actually learning valuable lessons as they are playing such a fun piece.
Paula C –
Vancouver Island sunset was given to my young student, a beginner, who feels very accomplished playing a lovely piece that covers the keyboard. She is currently learning it by rote but will enjoy having the music to read when she is able as well. The sound of this piece rings true to the beauty of Vancouver Island and the sunsets enjoyed on the west coast of Canada. Thank you Wendy for such a timeless, beautiful, artistic piece of music.
Dianne –
One of my beginner teens is playing this piece for our upcoming Halloween Musicale (another Wendy inspired idea). At her lesson yesterday, she marked that it is “very satisfying to play!” The multiple octaves and short runs in each hand is encouraging her to use all of her fingers in a fluid and independent way that is really challenging for a beginner. This plus creating a mature and reflective sound. We have several Wendy Stevens compositions performing in this musicale including “The Rite of Fall,” “The Candy Nabber,” and “There is Something in My Piano”!
Mary Majerus –
Wendy, I’ve used Vancouver Island for a transfer student that needed motivation and the feeling of success on a musically challenging piece, yet one that was easy to learn by rote and reading. This one was perfect for that goal. The phrasing, the new meter, the use of all the keyboard, all of it makes for the sound she wanted. You’ve helped me hit the mark again with a lagging student and I thank you for your enthusiasm in sharing these pieces too. You are quite the creative composer, Wendy, and you understand what young people like to play!
Martha Cogdill –
I have used Vancouver Island Sunset with young students and teens and they all enjoy having a piece that they can play that is not only impressive but is soothing and calming for them. I’m sure it will be one they will play over and over in years to come.
Lois Ricciardi –
I gave Vancouver Island Sunset to a student who has so much trouble staying focused and reading music. She came back the next week and had really practiced it and loved it! It is a great piece for students who don’t progress as quickly, but can still get a mature sound that makes them feel accomplished. Thank you, Wendy, for giving students what they love to play!
Drema –
This piece was perfect! We live in Vancouver and having a piece called Vancouver Island Sunset was a perfect piece to give to a student.
I gave this piece to a young student for her to play at our annual visit to the seniors’ home. Actually, all my younger students received a rote piece to work on a few weeks before the event. The pieces included Wendy’s pieces from the African Safari series, which are superb too!
The patterns in the piece made it easy to pick up and allowed my student to focus on playing expressively. Not only so, it sounds very impressive — a beautiful piece!
Sara –
I played this piece for a young beginner and she loved it. She wondered if she could play it and I told her that she could
learn it by listening and copying. She was so excited. She told me that her Mom just loved it and has asked her to play for the
family in the evening for relaxation. Learning this beautiful piece has given her a big boost of confidence and she senses that
music can have a real positive impact.
Cathie –
I was very excited to purchase Vancouver Island Sunset! This is another wonderful reading and rote piece that makes beginning students feel like mature players. This one is so beautiful and has such a peaceful sound. For years, I have looked for compositions for beginning students that sound big and complicated. Now I know that I always have a wonderful source of fantastic recital selections! I always look forward to checking out the pieces at composecreate.com. They are perfect for recitals!! Thanks Wendy!
Susan –
Great piece, great fun, great music — easy with artistry
Zoé Iglesias –
Each of my teens or adults always play a Wendy Stevens piece because they feel accomplished moving all over the piano and the sounds aren’t “babyish”. This piece is for my new adult mom student who just entered last January but feels confident to play Vancouver Island Sunset on the Summer Recital!
Lynndell –
A beautiful, expressive piece with a rich sound.
Marilyn –
I have a student who can’t wait to play this piece at our recital later this month. She has only been in lessons since February, so Vancouver Island Sunset is perfect for her! Thank you, Wendy, for creating songs that beginners can play without sounding like beginners!
Sally DuBois –
I asked Wendy for a right hand only piece that could be learned in two lessons by a six year old student who had broken his arm. She responded quickly that she had not written anything for one hand, but that Vancouver Island Sunset would probably work. I downloaded it, taught it the next day and two weeks later he played it in the recital. The fingering is a little more difficult in the single hand version, but we made it work. Best of all he sounded brilliant even to people who didn’t notice that he was only playing with his right hand.
Thank you, Wendy for being responsive and for making your materials available to down load.
Sally – June 14, 2018
John –
“Vancouver Island Sunset” has such a beautiful and evocative sound. It’s that sound that makes it irresistible to my students and makes them want to learn it. In the process, the piece allows the student to explore a wide range on the keyboard, and not merely the octaves around Middle C.
Jennifer –
We love them (Vancouver Island Sunset and Lookin’ Sharp)! My students have been really interested in them and they are very playable for beginners, while sounding sophisticated.
Susan Davis –
We love this! Especially the my 9 and 10 year old girls, they love how they can make it “flow”! What a treat!
Melody –
I gave this piece to one of my 9 year old students for our Spring recital and she loves it. It’s so beautiful, and flowing, and she loves using the pedal. I love that it introduces 6/4 time and it has never scared her off because it isn’t 4/4 rhythm. She loves being able to play all over the piano keys and it has helped bring out expressiveness when she plays. We love this piece!