Viola Exercises

 Essential Exercise Books

Some of these exercises may not look quite as fun as a few of the pieces you'll find in the Etude books, but these are essential and when practiced carefully and regularly will improve your viola playing greatly. 

These books have some really challenging stuff in them! But don't let that scare you away, if you open it and scroll halfway down and see stuff that you think you could never do, take a slower look around. Many of the exercises in these books are meant to be done one after another, so by practicing and mastering the beginning exercises first you can build your skill for the later more advanced ones.

As my violin teacher is always telling me, remember to practice slow and carefully! If you try and speed through these you're going to get way less out of them.

1) Sevcik - School of Viola Techniques - Selections from School of Violin Technique and School of Bowing Technique - Book 1

This book is a great resource if you're a newer player or if you're just trying to sure up your fundamentals in first position, which is what this books covers. Some of the exercises towards the very end of the book are more advanced too, but still in first position, if that's what you're looking for. 

It'll help you a lot with your intonation by having exercises in different keys and with accidentals. It'll also help when it comes to bowing, while that isn't the main purpose of the book, many of the exercises aid you in bow skills indirectly. Overall, It's just a really great book for anybody to start on.

Download Sevcik - School of Viola Techniques - Book 1 Here

A Physical Copy of Sevcik - School of Viola Techniques - Book 1 can be purchased here.

2) Schradieck - School of Viola Techniques

This 1st book, transcribed for viola by Samuel Lifschey, contains dozens of exercises for promoting dexterity in various positions. This book is fantastic practice for shifting, bowing, and more. I have used it personally with the violin edition, while they can seem quite boring at times, you'll find lots of benefit from practicing them if you master them and go through them slowly.

In it you'll find exercises covering a wide range of skill levels, so really anybody could find benefit in this book.

Download Schradieck - School of Viola Techniques Here

Etude Books

In these books you'll find a large variety of exercises that cover most things from finger technique to dynamics, they're wonderful resources with lots to offer. Etudes are great because they help you practice your technique, but in a musical context. Use these in your daily practice, trying out different exercises that help skills you want to improve. Practice them until you have them down perfectly! There are lots of benefits you can gain from these if you do. 

Many of these are shared with the Violin page, as the skills developed are similar, but everything shared here is transcribed.

1) Wohlfahrt - 60 Studies for Viola

Thank you Freddy Ortiz for this wonderful transcription for Viola! This book is fantastic not just for beginners, but for more advanced players, too! It covers finger technique, rhythm, bow technique, and more. (If you're looking for shifting exercises, this may not be the one for you, but I still highly recommend it for everything else.) It serves to create a really good foundation for you to build more advanced techniques.

In the original Violin edition, it mentions that: "If practiced carefully and intelligently, they will serve as a solid foundation for the technique of any ambitious player to become an artist."

Please note - The little sections before some of the etudes with the same measure repeated with different bowing is showing you different bowing exercises you can do on the etude.

Download Wohlfahrt - 60 Studies for Viola Here

A Physical Copy of Wohlfahrt - 60 Studies for Viola can be purchased here.

2) Mazas - Two Intermediate Etude Books

If you've learned more about the positions on the viola from the position exercises that can be found on this website, then the Mazas Etudes are a great set of intermediate books to continue your progression on with. All they cover is so vast that It'd be best for you to take a look at them instead of me trying to describe all they have to offer.

In this book, the melodies are much more musical and enjoyable to play than what you find in some etudes, which is part of what makes these so attractive. They also, in being more musical, prepare you for the jump to standard pieces or student concertos of the same level. There isn't as much of a huge gap to 'real music' as you sometimes find.

Download Mazas - 30 Special Studies (Book 1) Here

Download Mazas - 27 Brilliant Studies (Book 2) Here

These aren't the best scans in the world, but they get the job done.

3) Kreutzer - 42 Studies or Caprices for Viola

This book contains a wide variety of exercises ranging from fairly easy to quite advanced. It covers bow technique, shifting, finger technique, and more. You'll probably be ready for it if you've made it through the Mazas, but if you want to try some things from Kreutzer before that, there are a few ones I, with my Violin experience with it, recommend to anybody.

I recommend exercise 2 to start with. Above it is different bowing styles you can apply to the entire exercise (look here if you're confused about how to read them), so it's fantastic for learning different bowing styles. I also found 3 great for shifting and intonation, as unlike 2, it spends quite a while in the higher positions on all strings. You can also apply the same bowing exercises from exercise 2 to exercise 3!

Download Kreutzer - 42 Studies or Caprices for Viola Here

A Physical Copy of Kreutzer - 42 Studies or Caprices for Viola can be purchased here.