Book Review: Cellotude : A Fast Track to Brilliance by Sara Lovell

This is a specialist book, but it should be bought for any children whose field it describes. It’s for children who are cello players.

The book’s format is small and it’s about sixty pages long. The style is whimsical at times, but essentially it offers advice on all the practical points about playing the cello – how to look after the instrument, how to sit properly, and how to practise. Don’t leave your cello in the sun. Don’t get grease on the strings. Buy the best strings for the best sound. Keep your head straight. And so on.

We are informed by our specialist that the advice is all sound, and confirms what his cello teacher has been saying to him. But without the cats.

The book is illustrated by the author, who thanks her cat Dimitri in the acknowledgements for posing for the pictures scattered throughout the book. There are also quotations from John Milton, Oscar Wilde, Confucius and other sages, though their advice was presumably not directed at cello players.

Sara Lovell is intending this to be the first of a series of guides. Perhaps she has a cat for each type of instrument – Sergei for the clarinet? For more information, look at www.beautiful-books.co.uk .

Lovell, S. (2006) Cellotude : Fast Track to Brilliance Beautiful Books Limited

ISBN 1-905636-02-4
ISBN 978-1-905636-02-0
£8.99

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