The Doflein Method

Volume 5: The Higher Positions (4th-10th)

By Elma Doflein

Already bought this book in the past for myself and now buying one for my pupil, exactly the same layout as the one 20 years ago! I would say its the perfect book for learning 3rd position, with excellent studies and classic duets for both pupil and teacher. highly recommend...

to anyone

Being the last book in the series, it assumes that you're already comfortable with the second and third positions covered in Book 3. Like the rest, the book uses a combination of "technical" exercises and short pieces/duets. There are excerpts from Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Kreutzer to give the...

sense that the student is playing (parts of) "real" pieces from the repertoire. Progression is logical and well thought out. Fourth and fifth positions are given the most space, followed by sixth and seventh, and the rest. There are few other books in the violin pedagogy dedicated to the higher positions. The technical exercises are much shorter than Schradieck's. Whereas Schradieck tends to jump right into new stuff, the emphasis here is on learning (exercises), developing (each subsection teaches a separate technique), then playing (solo/duet pieces).The method of progression is similar to Leopold Auer's Book 5 but Doflein takes more time in helping the student master the higher positions.