Method Books

Book Features

Click to listen to the Curriculum Guide to hear details of how each Standard of Excellence series book will expand and improve your music program:

Book 1 and 2 features include:

  • Full color drawings and color-coding of important text and music motivate and inform.
  • Three starting systems help insure positive results in any beginning situation.
  • For... Only exercises (i.e. For Flutes Only) offer idiomatic solutions to the unique challenges of each instrument.
  • Excellerators (advanced supplemental exercises) reinforce and enrich performance basics.
  • A nine page For Oboes Only starting system gives beginners a solid foundation for learning in the full band setting.
  • Expanded French Horn and Percussion books, including a separate book for Timpani & Auxiliary Percussion, address the unique needs of beginners on these instruments.
  • A comprehensive, totally correlated Electric Bass book offers expanded opportunities for student involvement.
  • Music from over 20 countries, with correlated enrichments, encourages multicultural study.
  • Achievement Lines and Go For Excellence! test lines ensure objective assessment of students' accomplishments.
  • A built-in reward system motivates students and encourages musical growth.
  • Expanded 48-page part books (instead of the usual 32 pages) provide added reinforcement of musical skills.
  • Full Conductor Scores contain objectives for every line of music, director tips, extended reference articles, duplicable worksheets and quizzes, and theory, listening, composing, improvisation, geography, foreign language, history, and other interdisciplinary Activities for Excellence.

Book 3 features include:

  • Solid reinforcement of major and minor key signatures.
  • Technique development exercises including scales and a wide variety of scale-related studies.
  • Advanced rhythms and time signature studies.
  • Detailed trill fingering charts and extended range fingering charts.
  • Twelve full band arrangements including concert length arrangements from historic periods.