Deep Dive: Graded Studies

Hi everyone,

In todays post I will be talking about the Graded Studies Compilation books.

These books offer a range of different studies for various instruments and composers, and these books are arranged and compiled in level of difficulty.

Book One - Grades 1 - 5

Book Two - Grades 6 -8

For the flute it's 76 studies across both books, not 76 studies per book. I'm not too sure about other instruments, but I am aware that the violin has at least one Graded Study book.

The studies which are in these books offer a range of different studies, and a variety of studies from a number of composers. 

The range that these studies cover are as follows :-

- Technique

- Time Signatures including some unusual ones

- A mixture of classic old school studies and modern studies

They also progress in difficulty as you go further through each book, but it will gently push you in whatever it is that your working on. Whether that would be working on your staccato, slurred, tonguing, bowing, tone, dynamics as well as unusual time signatures.

Also the studies start off relatively short, and then they start to get progressively longer.

The Graded Study books are a great way to introduce studies into your collection, and to also give you a variety of studies for you to choose. You also don't need to work through the book - you can just pick one or two manageable studies that will benefit your learning and include them in your practice routine as a little extra.