BOOKS

ABRSM Initial Grade:

Exam Packs 2020-2023

VIOLIN: 32PP ISBN 9781786012784

VIOLA: 32PP ISBN 9781786012807

CELLO: 32PP ISBN 9781786012791

DOUBLE BASS: 32PP ISBN 9781786012814

ABRSM £7.50

Grade 1 violin is actually quite hard.

Ditto Grade 1 viola, cello and double bass. It can take even the most enthusiastic young beginner well over a year to be ready to start thinking about preparing for their first exam, and although we all know exams aren’t necessarily the right path for everyone, there’s no denying that they can be helpful for motivation and general raising of standards. The Initial Grade is a new qualification for ABRSM, and it gives string playing newbies a chance to have their skills formally assessed in the first year of learning their chosen instrument.

Those of us who have been looking enviously at the exam packs that have recently been made available for lower-grade woodwind instruments will be delighted to find that an Initial exam pack is available for each instrument – yes, each instrument, not just violin, but also cello, double bass and even viola.

Each pack contains nine pieces from the syllabus, the scales for the grade, and two pages of sample sightreading exercises. As you would expect from the ABRSM, everything is immaculately typeset and, try as I might, I couldn’t find a single typo or extraneous accidental across the set. As an added bonus, at the back of each book is an access code which enables you to stream or download recordings and backing tracks for every piece in the pack, for practice purposes. (Accessing the page requires you to type in your email address and create a password, which may not please everyone.)

The books contain quite a bit of overlap in repertoire between the instruments. A new piece composed by Thomas Gregory is included in every book, as is a Sheila Nelson favourite from Tetratunes, both of which are in the same key for each instrument. Other pieces are included for a selection of instruments, such as arrangements of Hill and gully rider for everyone except the double bass, and All night, all day for viola, cello and bass.

Somewhat oddly, the Peter Wilson number Bow Rock is included in the viola and bass books only, even though it appears in the same key on the alternative list for violin and cello, and Waterfall by Katherine and Hugh Colledge is included in E major in the violin book but in A major in the cello book. This is where the logic of the content of the books as a set falters slightly: although there are clearly differences within the string family which mean not every piece can work for every instrument, it would have been handy to have had a minimum of one piece in each group in a compatible key. Lovely as it is to have the exam packs, especially for the ‘minority’ instruments, it is not possible for teachers of mixed ensembles to use them to prepare three exam pieces for the Initial Grade within a group teaching situation, which does seem like a slightly missed opportunity.

That aside, this new resource is highly useful, and the introduction of the exam itself certainly fills a gap.

The pieces and scales use just one finger pattern and apart from the odd bit of syncopation, the pieces contain mostly simple rhythms, with no dotted notes or slurs. The sightreading and aural are easier versions of what is to come in Grade 1 and in many ways this new exam feels like a nearly-but-not-quite Grade 1 – a sort of ‘Grade 0.75’ which children can use as a springboard to further exam success. I look forward to using the books in both individual and group lessons.

CELIA COBB

Accidentally on Purpose: Becoming a Cello Teacher

Wendy Max

266PP ISBN 9781546293231 AUTHORHOUSE £20

As a cello teacher myself, I was intrigued by the blurb on the back cover of this book and I was keen to find out how, with only a cordon bleu cookery certificate to her name, Wendy Max, an adult beginner on the cello, went on to ‘achieve renown in the world of cello teaching’.

A mother of four young boys, Max started learning the cello in order to encourage them in their music lessons (her son is the cellist Robert Max, so this obviously worked). She reached ABRSM Grade 8, started teaching a few friends’ children, found she had a knack for it and ended up teaching at the Royal Academy of Music’s junior division, and running summer schools in the UK and abroad.

Covering a lot more than just her 40-year teaching career, this rather rambling and repetitious autobiography nonetheless contains some real down-to-earth gems about the nuts and bolts of teaching the cello to young children. The renown Max achieved, it must be said, was for teaching young children, not advanced players – pupils were always passed on once they reached intermediate level – but a genius for knowing what worked for young children, an impressive organisational ability and a certain amount of living in the right place and moving in the right circles resulted in an engrossing career.

Sheila Nelson’s groundbreaking Tower Hamlets String Project in east London, Florence Hooton’s summer schools, the Royal Academy’s First String Experience – Wendy was at them all and, in some of the book’s most interesting chapters, shares her experiences and how she incorporated their ideas into her own teaching, as well as the summer courses she went on to run at her own house in Essex (with a living room that seated 70 for concerts), in the Lake District, and in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Max’s son Robert played in a chamber music group with the children of conductor Colin Davis and this led to her giving lessons to them, along with the children of other distinguished musicians in the same area of London. Her methods of teaching children as young as five make fascinating reading, particularly her belief in group teaching from day one, backed up by a weekly private lesson, and she includes appendices of games she made up and songs she used with young children in her group classes and music courses.

JANET BANKS

Wendy Max (far right) teaching at a course in Sun Valley, ID, US, in 2005

Easy Concert Pieces for Double Bass and Piano: Books 1 and 2

Charlotte Mohrs

BOOK 1: 60PP ISBN 9783795710552

BOOK 2: 64PP ISBN 9783795710569

SCHOTT MUSIC €17.50

The Easy Concert Pieces series is designed to offer books of varied styles and periods within a particular level of technical proficiency at the double bass.

Book 1 focuses on half and first positions with some shifting between positions. The position or positions a piece can be played in are indicated at the start of the piece, while bowings and rhythms are fairly straightforward. I use this book both as a source of repertoire and also for developing independent learning: I encourage the students to learn the piece at home by themselves (without listening to the CD!) and then perform it, with piano accompaniment, in the lesson.

Book 2 starts to explore more positions and shifts. A few of the pieces extend the range to middle C, but most go a tone higher into third position and require a knowledge of all the various shifts between first and second; first and third; and second and third positions, and the same in and out of half position. The bowing remains relatively straightforward.

The repertoire in both books has a good balance of arrangements of melodies from the 17th to the 19th centuries with a few short 20thcentury pieces written for the bass.

There are some old favourites and many new arrangements, and some of Bottesini’s studies have been given piano accompaniments.

Both books have fingering and bowing suggestions and each book comes with a CD of the pieces recorded by editor Charlotte Mohrs. The CD has the piano accompaniment recorded separately for practice purposes and the Schott website has supplementary information on the pieces and on the composers.

These books provide an excellent addition to the growing body of repertoire for young bassists, not least because of the breadth of pieces at a similar level of difficulty all in one book.

CATHY ELLIOTT