BF102 - Cellist's Guide to Finger Independence, The

Finger independence is an extremely difficult skill to learn on any instrument. While pianists and violinists have a wealth of teaching material for finger independence, there has been very little material written for the cello. This essay was written to fill this gap in the pedagogical resources available to cellists. Dr. Demetrios Constantine Dounis was both a virtuoso violinist as well as a medical doctor. Using his medical school specializations of psychiatry and neurology as well as his violin expertise, he was able to come up with some of the most original and effective technical exercises for the violin. Luckily, finger independence was one technique that Dounis analyzed in depth, and one for which he wrote many different exercises. Unfortunately, these works were written solely for the violin, so most cellists are not even aware they exist, let alone how to practice them. It is with this in mind that these finger independence works by D.C. Dounis have been examined at length and arranged to be played on the cello.