Egon Sassmannshaus (19 March 1928, in

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

– 7 August 2010, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

) was a

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist and string pedagogue. His Early Start on the Violin was first published in German in 1976, followed by three more volumes, and is widely used. The work has been translated into Italian, Chinese, and (in 2008) into English; adaptations for viola and cellos have also been published. Sassmannshaus grew up in

and was largely self-taught on the violin. In the late 1940s he briefly had lessons with the German-American virtuoso Walter Schulze-Priska. He soon started teaching himself, and by the early 1950 he had enough pupils to make a living, and although he took up a more secure position of assistant principal violist in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

in 1958, he continued to give private lessons. In 1976 he became the head of the municipal music school in Würzburg. His teaching methods became known through presentations at national or European conferences in the late 1960s and early 1970s, resulting in the publication of his handwritten materials. Sassmannshaus taught children from the ages four to six at a time when starting at ten was still considered normal. Unlike

Shinichi Suzuki was a Japanese musician, philosopher, and educator and the founder of the international Suzuki method of music education and developed a philosophy for educating people of all ages and abilities. An influential pedagogue in music education of ...

(founder of the

Suzuki Method The Suzuki method is a music curriculum and teaching philosophy dating from the mid-20th century, created by Japanese violinist and pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki (1898–1998). The method aims to create an environment for learning music which para ...

), he introduced note-reading early, using a large-print format. To teach pitch and rhythm he used familiar folk songs and texts, and often the same song recurs later to teach a new finger pattern or position. Particularly innovative was the early introduction of shifting and playing in positions. The large print, illustrations and familiar songs made the violin books more approachable than most others, while at the same time the method introduced at an early stage technique usually considered as quite advanced. Previously available only in German, these books were edited and translated into English by his son,

Kurt Sassmannshaus Kurt Sassmannshaus is a German violin instructor, primarily at the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music and Great Wall International Music Academy. Life and career Born in Würzburg, Germany, he is the son of violin pedagog ...

, a violin pedagogue now working in America.

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sassmannshaus, Egon 1928 births 2010 deaths Violin pedagogues German classical violinists Male classical violinists German male violinists German music educators 20th-century classical violinists 20th-century German musicians 20th-century German male musicians