By Theodore Buchholz and Robert Jesselson
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“Comprehensive really is the word for this book… Everything you could want is here… What really brings the book to life is you get to meet the authors — each section has a QR link to videos demonstrating the points made in the chapter in a clear and approachable way.”
- The Strad, November 2024
This book is a systematic guide for cellists to study and work on scales and arpeggios. Along with the printed and electronic versions of the book, we provide a unique assortment of Drones (sustained tones to help with intonation) and Instructional Videos that demonstrate various technical issues.
Inspired by a passion for the cello, we have written this book based on our combined teaching experience of some seventy years working with pre-college and college students, young professionals, and amateur cellists. And we use these scales and arpeggios in our own daily practice. We have found that the sequential steps that we present have worked well with all ages and all levels.
“The Cellist’s Guide to Scales and Arpeggios by master teachers Theodore Buchholz and Robert Jesselson solves a problem the cello world has had for a long time: the lack of a comprehensive and explanatory scale book for students of all levels… There is no doubt that Buchholz and Jesselson’s work will become canonical in publications on pedagogy.”
- Strings Magazine, February 2025.
Why Another Scale Book?
Why Another Scale Book?
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Scales and arpeggios are the most basic building blocks for music. This book presents cello scales and arpeggios in a logical and systematic way to facilitate:
Learning the finger patterns
Improving intonation
Enhancing coordination
Understanding cello geography
Strengthening sight reading ability
Playing faster and more accurately
Building or re-building fundamental cello techniques
There are virtually no publications that provide a complete sequential syllabus for cellists to advance progressively through various systems of scales and arpeggios. This book starts with the most basic one-octave scales and works through a variety of systems, including some of the most complex scales a cellist might ever encounter. In addition, we provide technical information to help with playing the cello efficiently and effectively. This book is intended for cellists of all ages, experience and ability levels, including teachers, students, amateurs, and professionals.
A Progressive System of Scales
A Progressive System of Scales
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One-Octave Scales and Arpeggios for beginners
Two-Octave Scales and Arpeggios, based on the Feuillard System
Three-Octave Scales and Four Octave Arpeggios, based on the Feuillard System
Universal Fingering System, using the “Mary” System
One-Octave Thumb Position Scales
Scales on One String
“Around and Around” System
Galamian System
Velocity Scales
Chromatic, Whole-Tone, Octatonic, and Quarter-Tone Scales
Thumb Position Tetrachord Scales
Modal Scales
Scales in Sixths, Thirds, and Octaves
According to Nicholas Slonimsky’s book Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947) there are some 1,330 different types of scales, and there are 479,001,600 possible combinations of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale. Needless to say, this book will not be exploring all of these possibilities! However, it is intended to provide cellists with the information required to learn scale technique in an organized way.
Learn About Our Unique Drones
Learn About Our Unique Drones
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One of the special features of this book is that in addition to the pdf or hard copy of the book itself, we provide access to Drones, in order to support work on intonation, as well as Instructional Videos that demonstrate various pedagogical concepts described in the book. QR codes and links provide easy-to-use access to these supplemental materials.
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