My favourite resource for teaching instrumental music is a long out-of-print book called Band Fundamentals in Easy Steps.
I absolutely love it. It is organized brilliantly, starts out students with pieces they can immediately have success on, and it introduces new notes and topics at a good pace.
I have tried out other method books and am often disappointed that they seem to rely on the same 5 notes for every song. They don’t introduce new concepts, and as such, don’t teach the kids much other than simply playing new pieces.
I digitized the individual books for each instrument about a year and a half ago. Since then, I have had people tell me how much they appreciate this resource as well. I have even had requests to add the Conductor Book to the post.
I’m sorry that it has taken this long, but I have finally digitized the Conductor Guide. You can download it for free as a PDF file, print it out. and put it in a binder to keep in your classroom.
Here are all of the resources from Band Fundamentals in Easy Steps: Book 1. You can check out the original post for some more information as well.
Book 1: Alto Saxophone
Book 1: Clarinet
Book 1: Drums
Book 1: Euphonium / Baritone
Book 1: Flute
Book 1: French Horn
Book 1: Tenor Saxophone
Book 1: Trombone
Book 1: Trumpet
Book 1: Tuba
Original Silent Cacophony Post
Download, print off, and enjoy. And you might want to keep a PDF version on your computer too. This way, you can project the piece of music you are working on directly to your Smartboard. I do this all the time and find it very useful. I hope you will too.
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7 responses to “Updated – Free Method Book for Beginning Band”
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Hi CM,
I would greatly appreciate if you could proceed to digitalize book 2 of “Band Fundamentals in Easy Steps” as well.
Anyway, thanks a lot for the work you’ve already done!
Sergio
Hi Sergio,
I would love to do that for you. It takes a fair amount of work to do though. I can’t get to that for a little while. Sorry. I will try to in the future.
Any way of getting an oboe book?
Hi Mckenzie,
I think I might have an oboe book for this series. I don’t have it digitized yet, but I will do my best to find it and do it soon.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for doing this I have been looking for additional resources to use with my beginners during their one one one lessons with me to supplement the method book we use in full band class. This is an answer to help me out along with a couple other things I have found as well.
Hi Christy,
Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you’ve found these resources helpful.
Chase