All For Strings Theory Workbook 1 - Viola

By Gerald Anderson

This is in no way a book that you can just assign pages to your student and then send them on home to do. There are terms and concepts out of nowhere which you are going to need to explain before the student attempts the work. A minor, but real...

beef, is that on all of the keyboard charts (and there are many-- the book states to the student that it is important to relate the pitches on the violin to the keyboard), the black keys are not filled in. I teach piano as well as strings, and *I* was making mistakes. The directions are a bit complex and involved. It is all well and good that children learn to read directions thoroughly, but this isn't really the place to work on that. On the plus side, this series is cheap, and it does cover a lot of information. But I'm still unsure if I think that is worth all of the trouble I've listed above.

There is no teacher answer key copy available for sale, so you must make your own. As you do this, you will discover why they haven't produced one: there are too many answers that have various correct responses. It makes it hell to correct the pages, especially if you...

are in a classroom setting. These books are obviously intended to only be used with the All for Strings method. If you use any other method book, you will find concepts poppling up that you probably have not reached yet in your lessons. There are games and puzzle pages that involve other knowledge that younger students will not have yet encountered, such as long division.