Does anyone know of available printed violin score that would suit a pre-teen? (10 year old with teenage aspirations )

Daughter has just taken grade 5, and although played it well, thought that Air was very dreary, and grew to dislike pretty much all of them towards the end! (maybe that was just a reaction to practice)

I would love to get her some modern music to play (things she would have heard before) as an interest over the Summer. I had thought of "High school Musical" but apparently this is now passe in social circles! She already has The Corrs , and one of those Playalong books, of which she likes "Livin La Vida Loca".

As I rarely hear "the charts" ,and I dont have an iPod, are there any young people out there who would understand what she wants to play, and where to find it ? (The current CD favourite is Lily Allen)

Or is it a case of having learn to play by ear, on hearing something she likes?


Many thanks from a mum who's starting to feeling her age

I have a number of books of about Grade 4/5 with CD accompaniment, one of which is called 'Big Hits' and another is 'TV Themes'. They are part of the 'Take the Lead' series which would probably interest your daughter. My own copies are a bit out-of-date now, but they are widely available throughout music shops and online as well so I'm sure there will be a newer version. Here I found another book from the same range, but with music from Grease.

I found these when I searched on the same website for 'Pop music' for violin.

I find that music from films also interests quite a lot of people; would your daughter enjoy playing some of this genre? I was given this book last year, and although at first it appears to be aimed at younger people, it has proved a fantastic resource, and I still enjoy playing from it even now.

This site seems to have quite a wide range of solo music for violin, although your local music shop is probably just as good, and they'll be able to show you the lastest ranges which should appeal to your daugher.

themusicroom.com has been reccommended to me a number of times by various people, and has proved rather useful in my continuous search for sheet music . Ebay sometimes have some good offers as well.

Playing by ear is always good aural training, but my own experiences are that it can become rather tiresome after a while, and so it's nice to be able to go back to playing from music! There are certainly plenty of books out there, it's just a matter of finding a publisher/supplier and seeing what interests your daughter. I hope the sites I've reccommended are of some use to you. Also, if you, like my parents and I, don't like buying things online, you could just take a note of the publisher, title etc and ask at a music shop or order via the telephone.