Laying the Foundation: NEW Resources for Strings Friday, July 12, 2024
recommended by Austin Swack, Instrumental Education Specialist
Habits of a Successful String Musician, 2nd Edition by Christopher Selby & Scott Rush
“Habits of a Successful String Musician, Second Edition” is a complete method of over 400 musical exercises for teaching upper-level string students the technical skills needed to play advanced orchestral music. Perfect for an entire string orchestra or solo player, this series contains carefully sequenced warm-ups, sight-reading etudes, rhythm vocabulary studies, chorales, tuning canons, and much more. It includes everything an aspiring string musician needs to build musicianship skills and then transfer those skills into the performance of great literature.
What’s NEW in the Second Edition?
• Part I. Tone and Articulation: The open-string exercises and bowing variations remain invaluable tools for teaching articulation skills. The Second Edition now includes a rhythm canon for combining various articulations and new melodic exercises for developing tone, blend, vibrato, spiccato, and sautillé.
• Part II. Left Hand Patterns, Positions, and Shifting: Left-hand exercises are now organized into a sequence of musical exercises and etudes that review middle level skills, extend up to the highest registers, and teach alternate clefs and thumb position. A new Intermediate Positions curriculum teaches young cellists the shifting skills required for keys with more than three sharps or flats. A new sequence of two-octave arpeggios in ten keys improves students’ range and fluency across the instrument. The Advanced Positions pages contain new etudes for teaching the chromatic scale, diminished arpeggios, harmonics, thumb position, alternate clefs, and other challenging skills seen in advanced orchestral repertoire.
• Part III. Scales, Arpeggios, and Thirds: This section still has the much-loved tuning canons and chords, dominant arpeggios, and thirds, as well as one-, two-, and three-octave scales and arpeggios in all twelve major and minor keys. The Second Edition has improved cello and bass fingerings and includes bass scales with C-extensions.
• Part IV. Chorales: There are now 50 percent more chorales in a greater variety of keys and from more diverse cultural backgrounds.
• Parts V. Rhythm Study in a Musical Context and VI. Sight-Reading: These sections contain 185 completely new rhythm charts and sight-reading exercises with tempo markings for each exercise. This well-sequenced curriculum teaches students how to count and decipher rhythms and then transfer rhythmic literacy to melodic sight-reading in a musical context.
• Part VII. Orchestral Excerpts: This brand-new section includes three pages of excerpts from frequently performed school and all-state repertoire. Sequenced from moderately difficult to expert, these excerpts are the perfect culmination of skills taught in this method and are ideal for auditions or final exams.
• Additional Sectional Pages in each student book focus on technique and alternate clef lessons unique to each instrument.
Habits of a Successful Young String Musician by Sarah Ball, Margaret Selby, Christopher Selby & Scott Rush
“Habits of a Successful Young String Musician” is a field-tested and musical collection of 220 sequenced exercises for the beginning string student. The companion website (www.habitsstrings.com) features supplemental resources including accompaniment tracks, start-up clinic videos, and full performance videos for each exercise in the book. These cutting-edge online components are on MusicFirst (PracticeFirst) and MakeMusic Cloud (SmartMusic).
What makes “Habits of a Successful Young String Musician” unique?
Tone is at the heart of this method.
• Students begin using the bow earlier than other resources.
• The familiar melodies enable students to use their ears to develop good pitch and tone.
• Online videos allow students to see and hear professional string players modeling good tone and technique for each exercise.
Tonal literacy is a key focus of this book.
• All four open strings are introduced early.
• New notes are introduced with clear fingerboard diagrams and pictures next to the staff.
• New keys are taught by highlighting notes affected by the new key signature.
Rhythmic literacy exercises will have your students counting and reading independently.
• Long notes and rests are introduced early so students learn to count and subdivide.
• Melodies in 3/4 appear early and often.
• Nine pages of sight-reading exercises develop stronger tonal and rhythmic literacy skills.
Quality content includes:
• High-quality photos of excellent hand positions to help students develop great technique.
• A diverse repertoire of classical and folk melodies from around the world.
• Warm-up pages with scales, arpeggios, tuning canons, bowing variations, and other great tools for introducing, teaching, and reinforcing skills.
Online resources (www.habitsstrings.com) include instructional videos by professional string coaches to reinforce instrument position, left-hand set-up, bow hand technique, hooked bows, slurs, developing good tone, as well as shifting and positions in the lower strings.
Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!
About the Author:
Austin Swack joined the Stanton’s team after a decade of teaching band in Texas public schools, where his ensembles were consistently recognized for superior performance. He is equally at home with beginner and advanced students and has extensive experience programming for ensembles at all ability levels. Additionally, he is a versatile arranger as well as an experienced clinician and adjudicator. In his free time, Austin enjoys running, cycling, and cheering on the Blue Jackets!