“The Art of Cello Playing”, by Louis Potter, Jr.

I forgot I had this book. I bought it back in 2017 when I purchased a cello after moving back here. I did not have a teacher.

This book is terrific. I have placed it in my wicker basket holding my cello, and violin books and materials by my chair. I will start using it in my practice routine.

It covers everything, even reading treble, bass and tenor clefs. The basics of reading music: staff, measures, time signatures, notes, sharps, flats, key signatures, slurs, common terms, etc.

It starts from the beginning, holding, tuning, posture, and continues from there. There are photos and diagrams where needed. So far, I have not wished they had a photo showing something. They have been where I needed them. This is important to me because one of my learning necessities is visual. I took a course in college (no degree, just a course that interested me here and there) about how you learn. It was spot on with me. So, the photos and diagrams are a must, and are more than adequate.

The index is laid out nicely. I can find what we are doing in lessons and add this book’s explanations and exercises to my lesson material. I have also found previous lesson material that was covered before I just found this book. A few light bulbs have lit up.

I am also reading a little beyond what I have covered in lessons so I will be somewhat familiar with it in lessons.

There are a lot of tunes and exercises with each section. They have parts for another cello, and some have parts for piano accompaniment.

I could go on, but Google the book and you will find more information.

TIP: As with most music books, whether song collections or instructional, it has the silly useless bound binding. I brought mine to Staples and had them put a spiral binding on it. Not a COMB binding, a true spiral binding. I do that with a lot of my music books. I should put a post about doing that in the “Learning” section. Will do that, soon.

I am adding a link to this page of the forum to the Cello instruction reference post I started earlier.

Cello Lesson Links Index