Combining Learning Materials to Get a Rounded Learning Experience

Hi everyone,

In todays post I'm going to talk about using different learning materials to get a nice, rounded learning experience; especially if your just starting out on your musical journey. If you do choose to learn from a variety of different learning resources then please don't overwhelm yourself with practice. Just practice little and often, and maybe change things up a bit during your practice sessions.

Tutor Book: A New Tune a Day and/ or Abracadabra

Both of these books are brilliant instrumental tutor books, and are available for a wide range of musical instruments. Both of these books will walk you through the first steps of learning your instrument in different ways. 'A New Tune a Day' will do this through a variety of exercises, scales and arpeggios and short pieces. 'Abracadabra' focuses mainly on learning pieces and duets, with a few exercises; and your scales and arpeggios are at the back of the book.

Additional Material: Rubank Elementary Method

This is a great book to get you started on developing your long tones, and forming your embouchure quite early on in your learning. But it will also get you used to sight reading, and recognising notes and their time values. It also got exercises and pieces for developing your time signatures and techniques, along with pieces and duets that you can do with your teacher or a friend.

For Fun: Winner Scores All/ Hal Leonard Play a Long Series

This is ideal for when you are a little more comfortable with your instrument, and you want to learn some fun, but short pieces. The 'Winner Scores All' book is brilliant as it has loads of well known pieces, but in a short and easy to absorb format; but this series isn't available for all instruments, whereas the Hal Leonard Play a Long series is, and the stave is also in a larger print to make it easier for younger players to read from the stave. Both options are brilliant if you want to look into having a little bit with your musical journey. It will also give you a feeling of what its like to learn and develop your pieces, so then you can get the best experience with them.