A complete cello curriculum from first notes to concert repertoire. Fifteen volumes. A video guide for every piece. 15,000 hours of teaching built into every page.

Designed for students age 9 and up. Younger students with piano experience or a musician parent may start earlier.

Used at Juilliard and the University of Michigan since 2012.

GET THE BOOKS →FIND A CELLOSOPHY TEACHER →

Not theory. Not tradition for tradition's sake. Every exercise exists because it solved a real problem for a real student in a real lesson.

The Cellosophy Method is a 15-volume modern cello curriculum, backwards-designed from the concert repertoire. It was conceived in 2010, playtested across hundreds of studios on three continents, and co-edited with Richard Aaron — whose Popper Etudes have been required at Juilliard since 2012.

How are we to be good musicians if we don't make music ourselves, and simply play the music written by men who were dead for centuries?

The Pinnacle

Every method needs a destination. Cellosophy's is the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto — the most frequently performed concerto in the US alongside Dvořák. It sounds more difficult than it is. It works for competitions. And it's a piece every serious cellist plays.

Working backwards from that concerto, Eric asked: which pieces scaffold to Saint-Saëns? The French Romantic showpieces — The Swan, Allegro Appassionato, Élégie, Sicilienne, Papillon. Which etudes scaffold to those pieces? Which 3-octave exercises scaffold to those etudes? And which fundamentals — from open strings through thumb position — scaffold to those exercises?

The entire 15-volume curriculum is the answer to that question.

Three Trilogies

Like Star Wars, Cellosophy was built in trilogies — starting with the second.

Preparation Volumes (coming 2028-2029): Cellosophy Junior (ages 7–9) and L'il Cellosophers (ages 4–6).

Cellosophy vs. Suzuki

The Suzuki Method was completed in the 1950s — before Elvis. It was designed for 3-year-olds learning by rote in rooms of 30. It requires a parent present at every practice session. It teaches no music theory, no score reading, no composition, and no improvisation. The pieces are exclusively by men. Teacher certification costs $800 or more.

Most students in the US start cello between 4th and 6th grade, when their school introduces orchestra. They already need to read music. They already practice without a parent. Suzuki was never designed for them.

Cellosophy was.

Cellosophy vs. ABRSM

ABRSM provides an examination framework, not a curriculum. It tells students what level they need to be — it doesn't tell them how to get there. Cellosophy is the how.

Many Cellosophy teachers use ABRSM examinations as benchmarks alongside the method. The two complement each other.

Cellosophy vs. "No Method"

Many private teachers use no method at all — they assign pieces based on intuition and experience. This works brilliantly for master teachers with decades of experience. It works less well for the 90% of teachers who are still developing their pedagogical instincts.

Cellosophy gives every teacher a proven sequence with built-in scaffolding, video demonstrations of every piece, and predictable "envelope moments" — the specific places where students will struggle, identified across 15,000 hours of teaching the same material.

Cellosophy features music from nine centuries. Most pieces in Volumes 1–2 are not originally for cello — they're transcribed from orchestral, keyboard, and vocal works. This avoids the problem of students learning simplified arrangements and then being confused by the real thing later.

By Volume 3, most pieces are complete, unabridged transcriptions. Starting in Volume 4, the 2nd cello accompaniment appears on every page — building chamber music instincts from the intermediate level.

Every volume includes extensive music theory — not as a separate workbook to be ignored, but woven into the daily practice routine. One line of theory a day, seven lines per page, one page per week.

Volume One alone contains 1,400 theory problems: pitch identification, interval identification, guided composition, free composition, enharmonic respelling, rhythmic identification, time signature identification, rhythm math, and more. Three units, sixteen weeks each.

In Volume Two, theory evolves into daily improvisation and weekly composition. Students improvise in the key of their current piece, compose their own music in that key, practice it, and prepare it alongside the assigned repertoire. Graphic score notation — white, grey, and black gradient grids — prepares students for a commissioned graphic score at the start of Volume Three.

By Volume Three, students work with chord progressions in Roman numeral and lead sheet form. They are reading, writing, improvising, and composing from the earliest stages of their development.

I have the data - the students who do the theory every week progress 25% faster. The ones who also improvise and compose progress faster still.

Every piece in the Cellosophy Method has a video guide. Not a performance video. A guided practice track.

Students don't know how to practice. Many professionals don't either. The video guides are a constant practice buddy — a student clicks Play and is guided through the session with demonstrations of technique, tempo, phrasing, and common mistakes at every stage.

Teachers save 5+ hours per week on lesson prep. Students come to lessons having actually practiced correctly. Everyone wins.

FOR TEACHERS: GET CERTIFIED FREE →FOR STUDENTS: START WITH VOLUME ONE →

Cellosophy certification is free. Suzuki certification costs $800 or more.

Certified teachers earn $5–15 per student per month. They are listed in the Cellosophy teacher directory — searchable by location, so parents in their area can find them directly.

The method saves teachers 5+ hours per week on lesson prep because every piece has a video guide. Students come to lessons prepared. The "envelope moments" — predictable mistakes at specific points in specific pieces — are documented so teachers can anticipate and address them before they happen.

15,000 hours of teaching are baked into these books. You don't need to reinvent the pedagogy. You need to teach.

GET CERTIFIED FREE →LIST YOUR STUDIO IN THE DIRECTORY →

Cellosophy is designed for students age 9 and up. It's the first major cello method designed with adults in mind — no nursery rhymes, no assumption that a parent is sitting next to you, no learning by rote. If you can read, you can use Cellosophy.

Each volume costs $35 (print) or $25 (PDF). Most students complete one volume per year. The video guides are included with the subscription — your teacher will provide access, or you can subscribe independently.

Every piece in the method has a video guide showing you exactly what to practice and how. Between lessons, you're never guessing.

FIND A CELLOSOPHY TEACHER →GET VOLUME ONE →ENROLL IN THE VIDEO COURSE

Eric Moore started building the Cellosophy Method in 2010 after completing Suzuki certification and realizing he couldn't spend a 40-year career teaching Twinkle Twinkle.

He wanted a method with diverse repertoire — not just dead European men. He wanted music theory and composition from the beginning — not memorization without understanding. He wanted video guides so students would actually know what to practice between lessons. And he wanted a method designed for the students he actually taught: school-age kids, teenagers, and adults.

Fifteen years, 15,000 teaching hours, and hundreds of students later, the method spans 15 volumes from first notes to concert repertoire.

He co-edited the Aaron-Moore edition of the Popper Etudes with Richard Aaron. It has been required at Juilliard since 2012. Having played the complete standard cello repertoire, he specializes in performing the most challenging works of brand-new music for the cello.

ABOUT ERIC →