Arban’s Complete Method: What It Is, How to Use It, and a Free PDF Download

If you’ve been playing brass for any length of time, you’ve probably heard someone mention “the Arban book” in the same reverent tone people use for a family heirloom. It’s not hype. Arban’s Complete Method is the closest thing brass playing has to a shared foundation text — and unlike most method books from the 1800s, it’s still the one most working players, teachers, and students actually use today.

Who was Arban, and why does his book still matter?

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825–1889) was a French cornet virtuoso and professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1864 he published what he called the Grande méthode complète de cornet à pistons et de saxhorn — a complete method for cornet and saxhorn. He wasn’t just writing exercises; he was trying to prove that valved brass instruments could be played with the same agility, expression, and virtuosity as a violin, at a time when plenty of serious musicians still doubted it.

The book did more than prove a point. It became the standard. Later editors — Thomas H. Rollinson in 1879, Edwin Franko Goldman in 1893, and Claude Gordon in 1982 — revised and expanded it for trumpet, and it’s since been adapted for trombone, euphonium, tuba, and baritone as well. Ask a trombone player, a euphonium player, or a trumpet player what book got them through their toughest technical hurdles, and there’s a good chance you’ll get the same answer.

What’s actually inside the book

Arban’s isn’t a quick read, and it isn’t meant to be worked through front-to-back in a month. It’s built as a full progression, and understanding the shape of it makes it far easier to use well:

• First studies. Tone production and basic fingering, building from long tones into simple rhythmic and syncopated patterns.
• Scales and legato slurring. Major and minor scales in every key, plus slurring exercises that train smooth, even connections between notes — the foundation for a controlled legato style.
• Ornamentation. Appoggiaturas, grace notes, trills, turns, and mordents — the decorative techniques that show up constantly in solo and orchestral brass writing.
• Intervals and arpeggios. Exercises that build flexibility across wider leaps and outline chords, which pays off directly in tone quality and accuracy once you’re playing real music.
• Articulation: double and triple tonguing. A dedicated, methodical build-up of the fast-tonguing techniques that let you play rapid passages cleanly instead of muddying them.
• The Fourteen Characteristic Studies. Fourteen demanding etudes that pull together everything from the earlier sections into real musical passages, rather than dry drills.
• Fantasies and solos, including Arban’s own showpiece, the Fantasie and Variations on “The Carnival of Venice” — still a favorite recital and audition piece more than 150 years later.

How to actually use it (not just own it)

A lot of brass players have a copy of Arban’s sitting on the shelf that’s barely been cracked past page 20. A few things make it far more useful in practice:

Read the written instructions, not just the notes. Arban wrote detailed explanations alongside his exercises — how to approach the tonguing patterns, how to interpret the ornaments, what each section is training. Skipping straight to the notes and ignoring the text is the single most common way people get less out of the book than they should.

Don’t try to do it all, all the time. This isn’t a book you complete once. Most players return to different sections for years, depending on what they’re currently working on — scales and slurring when technique feels shaky, the Characteristic Studies when they want a real musical challenge, the tonguing exercises before a piece that demands fast articulation.

Adapt it to your instrument and voice. If a passage sits awkwardly high for your instrument, it’s fine to play it down (or up) an octave rather than force it — the point is the technical pattern, not the specific pitch. Trombone, euphonium, and tuba players have been doing exactly this for well over a century, which is exactly how the book spread so far beyond the cornet it was written for.

Use a metronome and be honest about tempo. It’s tempting to push through the technical studies faster than you can play them cleanly. Slower and accurate beats faster and sloppy every time — the speed comes later, once the pattern is genuinely secure.

Download the complete method free

You can download the complete Arban’s Method from this page at no cost, with no signup. This is the classic Carl Fischer edition, revised and edited by Edwin Franko Goldman, which is the version generations of brass players learned from. Across its 355 pages it contains Arban’s original method, The Art of Phrasing (150 songs and operatic airs), sixty-eight duets, the Fourteen Characteristic Studies, and the fantasies and solos, with the instructions printed in English, German and French.

One thing to know before you print it: this edition is written in treble clef, for cornet and trumpet as well as E♭ alto, B♭ tenor, baritone, euphonium and B♭ bass reading treble clef. Trombone, bass-clef euphonium and tuba players will want a bass-clef edition of Arban’s for day-to-day use, although the written instructions in this one apply to every brass instrument.

355 pages · 34 MB · free, no signup

Whether you’re a beginner working through your first scales or a seasoned player brushing up before an audition, there’s something in this book worth your time. Print out a section, put it on the stand, and start where it makes sense for where you are right now — that’s exactly how it was designed to be used.