Essential Elements for Strings – Cello Book 2
by Michael Allen, Robert Gillespie and Pamela Tellejohn Hayes · arranged by John Higgins
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Publisher
- Hal Leonard, HL 00875063 (current edition with online resources); ISBN 979-8-3501-3659-3; UPC 196288279013; 48 pp
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About this piece
Essential Elements for Strings, Cello Book 2 is the second book of Hal Leonard's string method by Michael Allen, Robert Gillespie and Pamela Tellejohn Hayes, with arrangements by John Higgins. It is written for string classes that learn in unison, with exercises for each instrument's own needs alongside the shared music. The book includes access to Essential Elements Interactive, an online resource with recordings, instructional videos by string teachers and bonus pop songs. The current edition keeps the same page and song numbers as earlier editions, so old and new copies can be used side by side, and it replaces three songs in Book 2 with new pieces.
Technical overview
The book reviews G major, then works on dotted quarter-and-eighth rhythms with a counting and shadow-bowing exercise, the fermata, and the forward extension on the D string for G sharp, leading to the A major scale. Several exercises are duets with A and B parts. Finger-pattern pages at the back drill extensions and patterns marked for 2½ and 3rd positions on every string and in C, G and D major.
Technical focus
- 2 Note Slurs
- A String Notes
- Accidentals
- Bow Control
- C String Notes
- D String Notes
- Dotted Rhythms
- Dynamics
- Ensemble Skills
- Extensions
- G String Notes
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Rhythm
- Shifting
- Theory