Sheet Music

Two things decide whether a book will actually help you: the notation and the edition. Much of this shelf is imported from the mainland in simplified characters and jianpu (numbered notation), a handful of standard methods exist here in traditional-character editions, and some etude collections print jianpu and staff notation side by side. Grade repertoire is stricter still, because the Central Conservatory volumes and the Chinese Nationalities Orchestra Society volumes do not share a syllabus, so buy the one your board actually sets. Beside the methods sits a shelf of writing about the music itself, such as 《宛然如真：中國樂器的生命性》.