Simon Tiffin - Cellos

Simon Tiffin

Cellos

In Cellos, Kathryn Stevens breaks down what it means to play cello in various ways and presents the various aspects of playing cello to young readers in a digestable way. Stevens begins the book by discussing what the cello is and how it functions normally in musical groups such as the orchestra. She then begins describing the appearance of the cello and names various parts of it with a diagram. After defining what a cello is, Stevens takes time to explain how cellos make sounds, and how those sounds are organized among strings. This transitions nicely into the section about tuning and how to play the cello well. The book, of course, ends with a few pictures of various string instruments and includes a glossary of bolded words in the text. It also mentions a few modern instances of cello being used in pop music, and also touches on famous cellists such as Yo-Yo-Ma. I believe this book could be helpful in an elementary classroom, likely a general music class. Young students will likely have not heard the name Yo-Yo-Ma, but will possibly know what string instruments are. This book could be highly effective if incorporated a few days into a "string instruments unit." This unit could include playing the guitar, playing the violin, playing the lute, etc.