Thanks again, folks.  Glad you liked it.

@APA: How long it takes to write a bit of music depends on the music and the person doing the writing.  With this piece, from deciding "I'm going to sit down and write a piece of music" to having everything you hear here in the mix took me about 4 hrs of work. 

@BillyG: Ah, thank you, MadBill.  Some thoughts of snowflakes and warm fires and other such imagery did go into it.  Does my heart good to hear that they "came through in the mix" at least a bit.  I'm going to be listening for that robin every time now, though. LOL

Now, you want more fun, Bill.. It was also written to act as easy accompaniment for playing/jamming.  Pick up a fiddle, guitar, flute, harmonica or anything that can do a C major scale and give it a go.  If you happen to like to strum a guitar or anything like that, the chords are C F Dm G. 

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I'll talk a little about the theory and etc that went into this piece down here, so folks can just skip over it, if that isn't your cup of tea.

I don't usually put up my "non violin" work here, since hey, this is a violin/fiddle forum.  I don't write "classical", since I was born a century or few too late.  I also don't write the "Cat Threw A Hairball on Maggie's Drawers Again Reel", because I don't really live a fiddle lifestyle.  LOL

This piece is a duet.  One piano is all the way to the left and the other all the way to the right.  The challenge I was going for was to come up with two pieces that weren't identical, but would fit together and sound like one big piano piece when actually played together.

I do not like duets where one player does most of the work and the other just plays "accents" or strictly backs them up.  I like both sides of a duet to be able to stand as at least being listenable music.  Ideally, I prefer them to be variations of what is recognizably the same piece. 

The piece is "beginner" level for piano.  All chords are easy, no long stretches, and neither player's left hand has to do more than 2 notes at once.  Even "easy beginner", since it is key of C major with no really tricky changes.  No pedal or long reaches or hard shifts.  All trills are ones that fall pretty easy under the fingers.

Part of that is because I am rusty.  LOL 

But the other part of it is because for music students and their teachers, getting the rights to perform any actual new music is an extra cost.  Schools often balk at paying for it, and so that cost gets passed to students or their parents, or sometimes the teacher just pays it out of their pocket so students can play something that isn't the same tired old material as was done in past years.  All too often, what happens is just that there isn't any new music played.

Or folks put up a video on youtube or somewhere showing cool stuff of their holiday or where they are playing along, and it gets taken down or "silenced" because they used some music in the background and some company's lawyers filed a complaint. 

Ever since one of my profs back in college explained to me about the problems with getting new music for recitals and student performances, I've tried to write at least one piece of new holiday music every year.  

Also, I get kinda burned out on the same 20 or so holiday songs heard over and over in every store and etc all through the season.  Writing a bit of new stuff for the holidays lets me use things I learned in composition class and music theory, while giving family and friends a little break from those favorite (but overplayed) traditional pieces of holiday music.

My usual objective or "mission" with writing a holiday piece is to make background music.  Something that could be playing while folks are engaged in any of the pleasant parts of their holiday season.  Like if their life was a movie, the music that might be on the soundtrack for a few minutes of it somewhere.

I've personally been doing more this year with working on my improvisation with violin against backing tracks, so I made it a point to make this one easy to either follow along with or make up a nice little melody to float on top of it easily.  

And still be something where a couple of first or second year piano students could sound pretty good playing it at a recital or holiday program.

@BillyG: Yeah, I know there is no actual robin sound in there.  LOL  But sometimes when the winter is bitter, one can wish to hear one enough that you can imagine it then, too.  Climate where you live isn't a lot different from where I live.  For folks that live in warmer places, looking for that first robin is one of the early signs that spring will come, eventually.

Glad to hear you're having fun with it, that was one of the reasons why I decided to actually post it here.

There is (or will be, after I tidy it up) written score available for pianists who would want to get together with another pianist and play the actual piece as a duet.  I don't think it would be possible for anyone to play the whole piece by themselves, unless they happen to have 4 arms.  

But none of that actually matters when using it as a fun little backing track.  You can just pick up an instrument and jump in anywhere.

Way to go, MadBill!

@MrYikes: So are you and yours, sir.

Thank you.

Bravo, MadBill!