The best viola method books for a beginner

The viola is not a violin, and the book is the proof

A violist reads alto clef. Nobody else in the orchestra does, which makes the viola the only string instrument whose beginner cannot borrow a sibling’s book, use a free violin PDF, or follow along with the violin section of a mixed-instrument method. Middle C sits in the middle of the staff instead of below it, every note a beginner learns in the first month is in a different place on the page than it would be for a violinist, and a child who learns the violin positions first has to unlearn them.

This is why the first purchase matters more here than it does for violin. There are fewer viola methods in print, they are stocked more thinly, and the violin edition of the same book sits directly beside the viola edition in every search result — usually cheaper, because more copies sell. Ordering the violin edition of the right method is the single commonest mistake a viola parent makes, and it is not recoverable: the notes on the page are wrong for the instrument.

If you have not chosen the instrument yet, start with our beginner viola roundup and our viola sizing guide, which measures by arm length rather than age. Come back here once the instrument is decided, because the book depends on where the student is going to be taught rather than on what they are playing.

Ask the director before you buy anything

We say this on every school-instrument page on this site and it is more true for viola than for anything else: if the student is joining a school orchestra, the program has already chosen the book. There are two mainstream American classroom string methods, they are roughly equivalent in quality, and they are not interchangeable in a classroom. A student holding All for Strings in a room working from Essential Elements is on a different page, literally, every single lesson.

One email or one question at the first parents’ meeting settles it, and it saves the most annoying version of this purchase — owning the right method for the wrong program. Our guide to asking the band or orchestra director has the three questions worth asking, and “which method book does the orchestra use, and which edition” is the first of them.

Two kinds of book, and only one of them teaches reading

Almost all the confusion in this purchase comes from treating four books as four versions of the same thing. They are not. A method teaches note reading, rhythm and technique in a designed sequence, and a student can work through it. A repertoire book is a sequence of pieces ordered by technical demand, designed to be used inside a teaching approach that supplies everything else. And a studies book drills one skill — scales, shifting — for a student who already has a method.

The practical reading: most beginner violists should own one classroom method, chosen by their program, and nothing else for the first year. A second book bought at the same time almost always goes unopened, because a beginner has no spare practice time and a parent has no way to sequence two books against each other.

How we chose these

We have not taught from every one of these books, and we say so on every page — see how we research these picks. The criteria below are ones a published edition can actually answer, applied in this order.

Essential Elements against All for Strings

These are the two books a school program will be using, and the honest answer is that the difference between them matters far less than matching whichever one your program chose. Both teach alto clef from the start, both align across the string family, both sequence a first year sensibly.

Where String Builder still earns its place

String Builder is older than both classroom methods and reads like it. There is almost no page furniture: no photographs, no colored boxes, no app. For a nine-year-old working alone that is a real disadvantage, and we would not recommend it as a first book for a student without a teacher.

For a student with a teacher it can be the better book, and some private viola teachers still prefer it for exactly the reason it looks dated: more exercises per page, less time spent on presentation, and a faster climb. It is also usually the cheapest viola method in print, which makes it a sensible second method for a student who has finished a classroom Book 1 and wants more material at the same level rather than moving up.

Suzuki, and the question to ask first

Suzuki Viola School Volume 1 is an excellent book being bought by the wrong people. It is a repertoire sequence built for a teaching method that depends on listening, imitation, repetition and an involved parent in the room, and the early volumes teach note reading only lightly because reading is deliberately introduced later in that approach.

So the question is not “is Suzuki good” but “is there a Suzuki-trained viola teacher.” Suzuki viola teachers are considerably scarcer than Suzuki violin teachers, and a violin-trained Suzuki teacher taking a viola student is common and fine — but the book still has to be the viola edition. If the answer is no teacher, buy a classroom method instead. If the answer is yes, buy whatever volume and edition that teacher names, including whether they want the recording, because the book-only and book-with-audio editions are separately listed and priced.

Which book for which situation

Year two is where books get bought badly

The first-year purchase is usually fine because somebody tells you what to get. The second year is where money gets wasted, in two predictable ways.

The first is buying Book 2 early. It genuinely starts where Book 1 ends; a student halfway through Book 1 gets nothing from owning the next one except the feeling of being behind. The second is switching methods between years, usually because the first book felt slow. Switching costs a student weeks, because the two methods introduce keys and positions in a different order and a student who jumps lands in a chapter that assumes material they have not met.

The right second purchase, if a teacher is asking for more, is not another method at all — it is a studies book. A scale book sits alongside whatever method the program uses and drills the patterns the pieces assume. That is the gap most second-year violists actually fall into, and it is the only reason there is a scale book on this page.

What not to buy

A violin book with the intention of transposing. It is sometimes suggested as a saving and it is a bad idea. A beginner cannot transpose at sight, that is the skill the book is supposed to be building, and the first month of practice becomes an exercise in arithmetic rather than music.

A piano accompaniment book. These are sold beside the method books and look like part of the set. Unless someone in the house plays piano well enough to accompany, it will not be opened.

A general music-theory book, in year one. Theory is genuinely useful and both classroom methods already include enough of it for a first year. If the student is ready for more, our music theory book guide covers which one and when — it is a year-two or year-three purchase for most students.

Anything digital as a substitute. Apps and subscriptions are fine supplements and a poor replacement for the book an orchestra is reading from. The student needs the physical page the class is on, open on the stand, with the teacher’s pencil marks on it.