Janice Tucker Rhoda's phenomenally successful series, The ABCs of Violin, owes much of its success to the wonderful original material and to the sensitive arrangements of classical, folk, fiddle and other popular melodies. This best selling instruction book along with the special CD insert is the perfect start for an Absolute Beginner of any age on the Violin. The many melodies plus short warm-up exercises and study pieces advance students technically in an easy and enjoyable way! Simple duets, scales, a note-reading worksheet, glossary and practice chart are also included along with many graphs to show left-hand finger placement. The special CD consists of three components: 34 performance pieces of violin with piano accompaniments, piano accompaniment tracks by themselves for play-along, and a printable pdf file of the piano accompaniments. Concert violinist Emil Altschuler is a protégé of Erick Friedman and Dorothy DeLay. He plays the ABCs of Violin Book 1 CD with passion, sensitivity and elegance.
Janice Tucker Rhoda is the author of the popular instruction series The ABCs of Strings published by world-famous Carl Fischer Music. She has designed her path-breaking series to encourage students of all ages to play the Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass. Her method makes learning to play a bowed string instrument easy and enjoyable. She gives string teacher training clinics and courses at colleges worldwide, and teaches an Adult Violin Course at Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. She also teaches Viola, Cello and Double Bass, and accompanies students on Piano.
Ms. Rhoda studied in the prep and college division of New England Conservatory beginning at age 16 with pedagogue Eric Rosenblith, protégé of the famous Carl Flesch. Ms. Rhoda played a Brahms Sonata on a popular TV show at age 16, and became concertmistress of Massachusetts All-State Orchestra after auditioning playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. When she was age 19 a car hit her Italian violin out of her hand and it sailed through the air and crashed to the ground! She grew up in a family of 5 children and 35 first cousins on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
Janice Tucker Rhoda's best-selling method series, The ABCs of Strings, encompasses Books, DVDs and CDs for Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass and String Orchestra. The books combine melodies from classical music standards, folk and fiddle tunes, rock 'n roll and jazz, and Ms. Rhoda's original compositions of these various styles along with warm-up exercises, scales and study pieces. There are simple graphs showing left-hand finger placement, worksheets for note identification and practice charts in all of the books. Each absolute beginner book has additional duets and a glossary of music terms and symbols.
Violinist Yuki Beppu began with the ABCs of Violin method series at age 4 with Ms. Rhoda. Ms. Beppu won the New England Conservatory concerto competition at age 10 and performed for the President. She stars in The ABCs of Violin for the Intermediate Player DVD and performs all 69 pieces from the ABCs of Violin Books 1 and 2, and A-Major, D-Major and G-Major Scales.
Ms. Rhoda's father played the steel guitar and harmonica; her mother played piano, acoustic guitar, accordion and sang. They both played by ear their entire lives. At age 60 both of her parents decided to learn to read music, so her father focused on Harmonica, and her mother on Piano. Her father practiced 5 hours or more every day while self-teaching. Her mother's private piano teacher from Russia said she would have been a child prodigy.
Ms. Rhoda has also studied Guitar, Flute, Clarinet, Recorder and Mandolin, and had years of private voice lessons beginning at NEC for college credit. She learned to read music at age 6 in the public schools and sang solos in school plays and graduations before studying Violin at age 9.
