Cello Playing for Music Lovers: A Self-teaching Method

Cello Playing for Music Lovers provides beginners and intermediate cellists with an authoritative, step-by-step guide to learning how to read music and play it on your cello. On the accompanying CD, master cellist Erik Friedlander plays the book’s 116 varied selections chosen from folk tunes to a Bach Sarabande. The CD gives the reader aural feedback on how well he is doing. The book’s many photos show correct playing positions from first through fourth. Working with a good teacher certainly makes the complex process easier. However, this book puts the process in writing, making reviewing easier. It also covers more terrain than most books, which provide only exercises. Here you will find information on learning positions one through four, on music theory and playing with others, for example. Getting all your questions answered becomes more likely. A typical buyer said, “5 out of 5 stars – A Fantastic Journey for me and my Cello . . . . I live in a part of East Texas with no in

Many years ago, during my four years at the incomparable High School of Music and Art in New York City, I treasured my opportunity to study the cello. I was fortunate enough to receive a cello scholarship from Janos Scholz, a co-founder of the Cello Society. However, once I entered college, other demands on my time forced me to give up the scholarship and my music. During the next forty-two years, I embarked on a career as a teacher of literature, raised my four children and seldom thought about my cello. Still, I refused to relinquish the silent instrument. I kept it safe, untouched, encased and hidden in the back of my closet. When I retired from teaching in the 1990s, I took up the cello again, although with great trepidation. Like many people who took music lessons during childhood, I feared that my musical knowledge had been completely lost. I can tell you from personal experience that your musical training is tucked away in the back of your brain, as my cello was hidden in the back of my closet. Many people who never studied music in childhood won t even try in adulthood; they feel so overwhelmed by the prospect. They have been told that unless you studied music as a child, it is impossible to learn later on. But that is simply not true. Playing music is one of life s most glorious experiences. Nobody should be deprived of it, especially through an unwarranted fear of music s difficulties. It s shocking to read message boards on the internet with people asking, I am over forty: am I too old to learn to play the cello? I wrote this book because I believe that if I could return happily to music after so many years, so can almost anybody. I play with other amateurs who have done it. It requires patience and determination, but older adults have patience and determination. It requires only that the student be in reasonable physical health, discern higher and lower pitches, be able to follow instructions closely, and have the patience and persistence to study every day. Cello Playing for Music Lovers has been carefully scrutinized for accuracy and comprehensiveness by my cello teacher, Diliana Momtchilova, who holds a DMA, a Doctorate degree from The Juilliard School. If the book's technical expertise is the teacher's province, the approach and contents are mine. During my many years of teaching at Brooklyn College, I learned how to organize material clearly, logically, and in an appealing way. I particularly enjoyed making complex subjects simpler for my students. Accordingly, once I had advanced beyond the basics of music making, I wanted to pass on to others the gift I had received from Janos Scholz and my years of experience by setting the basics down in this book. Usually in this field, instruction is conveyed one to one, teacher to pupil, through spoken communication. However, it is easy to misinterpret or forget important instructions. Here, written out, are the fundamentals from a learner s perspective. You can study, review and absorb the information at your own pace. Studying the cello will keep you mentally alert and happy while it keeps your body active and moving. The rewards of music making, even for beginners, are great enough to keep me and many other seniors studying for years with astonishing tenacity. There's a saying that dancers do not age while they are dancing. I think musicians don't age while they are playing, either. Of course, young adults can also learn from Cello Playing for Music Lovers. My point is merely that learning to play the cello is neither forbidden nor impossible after you reach a certain age, defined as whatever your age is now when you are tempted to try it. Come join the party.