niques such as col legno, pizzicato, numerous tempo changes and a wide dynamic range.
An American Suite (0019Colledge) includes the medley "Susannah and Liza meet Polly at the Races", A French Suite has "J'ai du bon violin" ("a smokeless version of J'ai du bon tabac") and A Celtic Suite has a great range of Scottish and Irish Tunes.

Movie Favorites For Strings is a set of books arranged for solo or flexible ensemble. Each instrumental book contains both the solo and the ensemble arrangement of each piece and can be supplemented with either other ensemble parts, piano or CD - all available separately. A conductors score is also stocked. The compilation includes the themes from Chariots of Fire, ET, Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible.  Phone us, or check our website for more details (the codes are from 0002Movies to 0008Movies and are listed under orchestral or for each individual instrument's albums).

Sheet Music News

Those of you who visit the shop to buy music will have noticed that the layout has changed somewhat. We have some nice new shelves to accommodate our ever increasing range of music (we can boast over four thousand titles are on our database!) and

access to the various books is now easier.

David Turnbull has written some excellent graded theory workbooks, called "Theory Time" which make good alternatives to the Associated Board ones.  Each book works through the subjects, such as Time, Pitch, Scales and Keys and provides easily accessible information alongside the questions.  The answers are given on different pages and so the books may be of more use to those teaching themselves rather than as homework given to pupils! The books, one for each grade from 1-5, are priced between £4.50 and £5.50. In order of  grades the stock codes are: 0010Turnbull, 0011Turnbull, 0012Turnbull, 0013Turnbull and 0014Turnbull.

On our somewhat eclectic workshop CD play list is the Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar, a lilting folk style piece for violin which was used in the soundtrack for "A Civil War". It was written when Ungar was feeling melancholy after a music and dance camp in New York's Catskill Mountains had finished and he was  missing the music, people and lifestyle. "Picking up my fiddle, I began to compose a lament.  By the time the piece had come together, I was in tears." We finally have in stock an arrangement for violin with piano / guitar accompaniment. Both the violin and piano parts are around grade 5 ­ play when you are in the mood for something mournful and very lovely! (0002Ungar. £4.99)

Katherine and Hugh Colledge (of Stepping Stones, Waggon Wheels, Fast Forward and Shooting Stars fame) have recently produced three collections of string ensemble music, which are already proving popular with directors of beginners string orchestras.  Each pack (at around £20.00) is designed to be educational as well as tuneful and so makes good use of tech

If you are a violin teacher or self taught learner and are looking for some advice on useful tutor and study books, please contact the shop as we now have lists of the top 10 most popular items sold. We have brief descriptions of the ranges, together with the approximate standards of the different books. As a general rule, we try to persuade a beginner planning on going it alone to have at least a few lessons with a teacher so that a basic technique can be picked up first. With this in mind we don't usually recommend beginners' tutor books as the techniques in each book are varied and may well be contradictory to any particular teacher's style. However, many players not currently having lessons require some revision or tips and for them there are a number of useful books in store.  If you are self taught it is always worth working through a theory book (such as "Theory Time" as outlined above) and an aural cassette or CD, of which we have a few different types in stock.