A Quick Guide On Cello Books For Self-taught Beginner Cellist

Hi everyone. so I have been learning cello for more than a month. If you are self-taught and also a beginner like me, you might find that looking for the right book to learn cello is not so easy. There are so many books out there and which one should we buy? So I want to share this review about my cello book collection with you all. I hope you find it useful.

There are many books about cello practice but not all of them are self-taught friendly. For us beginner cellists, we need a lot of information about basic things such as sitting position, bow hold, left hand shape, instrument care, etc. Ideally should come along with video and photos. So your very first book should serve this purpose. We also need beginners’ easy music pieces to play. By saying “easy pieces” I meant the pieces which are graded for starter. Some books are claimed for beginners with the pieces written in the normal first positions, but they are difficult and you might not want to start with those.

Finally, here is the book list I recommended to fellow beginner cellists. You may want to start with reading number 1 to understand techniques, number 2 for graded pieces to play as you progress and number 3 to guide your practice plan. After you have finished these three books, you can move on with number 4 (and may be 6) for more pieces and number 5 for practicing techniques.

#1: Picture Yourself Playing Cello [Link]

Pros: It covers many topics in learning the cello from introducing the cello & equipments, cleaning, replacing strings, tuning, etc. to bow hold, left hand shape and a bit of music theory. What I like about this book is the author explained the basic cello techniques in details with a lot of photos (both good and bad habits are discussed which is good for self-taught cellists). It even come with a DVD where the author demonstrates the basic techniques. If you follow the instructions carefully, you should be able to play basic tunes within a few weeks.

Cons: I don’t like the music pieces included in the book. The pieces in the last chapter are difficult for starter, and the practice pieces in previous pieces are boring. And the practice plan is kind of weird. You might not have any ideas how to progress with this book, what to learn first and what should be learnt later.

#2: Cello Time Joggers [Link]

Pros: Beautiful graded pieces for absolute beginners. It is shipped with a CD to play along. It is very pleasant to practice these pieces. Playing these pieces make you feel you really can play the cello, even from the first day.

Cons: It only contains music pieces with no explanation, so you need other books to learn how to play cello in order to use this book. (The pieces can be a bit childish but to me it is not a problem)

#3: A Tune a Day for Cello [Link]

Pros: Nice curriculum and gives us clear idea how a beginner should progress.

Cons: Very few explanation. The pieces are often duo student-teacher but how to find a teacher to accompany us? And as far as I know there is no CD to play along.

#4: Cello Time Runners [Link]

The second book of the Cello Times series. More pieces to play 🙂

#5: The Art of Cello Playing [Link]

Pros: Like a bible of cello techniques. Each technique comes with explanation and some study pieces to practice that.

Cons: Not a self-taught book. You don’t need this until you master the basic techniques of Cello (basic bow hold, first normal position and simple bow strokes).

#6: Suzuki Cello School

Pros: Nice music and we can buy the CD to listen to the playing as well.

Cons: Similar to number 2 and number 5, this book doesn’t contains good techniques explanation. If you want challenge pieces, you may pick it up but I don’t recommend this book to start with.

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