Practical Scales and Arpeggios for Violin, Viola, Cello, and Bass

My first book, Practical Scales and Arpeggios for Violin, was created out of a dire need for an easy-to-use scale book that helps students learn scales and arpeggios faster. It highlights the most difficult parts for focused practice and offers advice in those sections. After the success of the first book, many teachers expressed a need for similar books for viola, cello, and double bass. For those of us who teach orchestra in a classroom setting or as an afterschool ensemble, developing skills and preparing for auditions, such as regional and all-state auditions, having a score of the scales and arpeggios with fingerings, positions, and shifts is invaluable. This allows us to quickly help and offer advice to students on the spot. This book is organized by scales and arpeggios from two to three octaves (from easiest to most challenging), arranged from the least to the most number of accidentals. Each section always starts with the major key followed by the relative minor key. Although there are multiple ways to organize such a book (e.g., a two-octave scale followed by the same key's two-octave arpeggio), for ease of finding particular scales and arpeggios quickly, everything is organized in the most logical and simplest way. Sometimes, you only have time to focus on a particular scale or arpeggio. For this reason, a table of contents helps you quickly find what you're looking for.