Finger Exercises for the Cello, Book One Spiral-bound – June 1, 2004

This book looks deceptively simple, but is incredibly useful. I only recently received the book, and here is how I use page 1:* As a warm up to get my fingers moving, somewhat slowly at first, then faster and faster if speed is my goal* With the tuner, to find and get muscle memory for "the perfect hand" (I learned I need more space between 2 & 3 to play in tune).* To improve the strength and dexterity in my left hand, especially fingers 3 and 4* To work on bowing distribution and speed (four notes to a bow, slurred)* To work on bow placement (it's easy to repeat the drills so I am able to look down and fix bow direction / angle; still working on that muscle memory as well).If you are unsure if you should get this book, I would recommend the following: curve the fingers of your left hand and rest the tips lightly on a flat surface. Try tapping your ring finger (#3) up and down, and try doing a trill motion with fingers 3 and 4. It should be obvious to you if you need to work on strength or dexterity, and if so, you need this book.I took the book to my lesson yesterday and planned to ask my teacher to play along so that I could get practice rolling into tune quickly to match her intonation. When she saw the page she asked me to start playing and she looked at me. She immediately pointed out that my third finger was collapsing, which I hadn't realized. When I fixed that, I went from sounding like a sick cow to sounding like a cellist. So now I will practice with focus on my left hand shape, which I will check periodically by glancing at my hand or by looking in a mirror while I practice. This is all from the first line of page 1. I'm very glad that I bought this book, and I intend to start every practice session with 5 minutes of these drills.Please note:As of March 15,2014, two of the four reviews are written by people who have only reviewed this book, and they sound like infomercials. I mention this only to encourage people to evaluate reviews and vote accordingly, to maintain the integrity of amazon's review function, for every product that you research. This is a real review by a real user. I hope that it helps you.

Through repetition of patterns on all 4 strings this book has helped me to build confidence in knowing where the notes are on the fingerboard. It also helps these 77 year old fingers to gain speed and strength. I try to play at least two pages each day.

My cello students use this, and they learn fingering and become strong in note-reading quickly with it. This is a good exercise book.

My daughter, age 14, Is new to the cello. Hand/finger strength is an issue. We thought this book would assist in her physical development. While the book most likely serves the purpose for which it was intended, it is for the more advanced player - not a beginner. Buying it was premature.

Harvey's book is well thought out and is a very fine work for beginning cellists!

This book helped me a lot. I recommend it.

Good Excercises, but not for begginers.

Good finger exercises but jumps a little faster than where I am.

This is a set of progressive exercises for the Cello player who wishes to develop their technique. If you know where the notes are in 1st position you can really make some headway by working your way through this book. The exercises are intelligently constructed to develop strength, correct finger placement and flexibility in the left hand and good control of the bow. The double stop exercises can only be played using correctly curved fingers (or one string won't sound) so in this respect they are self regulating.This book has worked very well for me and the good news is that there are three more Finger Exercises books by Cassia Harvey to follow this one.Highly recommended!

This book was super useful as I am teaching myself the cello. The exercises are pretty easy to start and help to develop a stronger left hand but the different bowing patterns allow your bowing to improve as well. Very happy with this book!