BF81 - 14 Advanced Christmas Favorites: Violin

The music is nice and well written. The arrangements are neat. The only problem is that there is no way to get a copy of the accompaniment which makes it almost impossible to know where to come in on some of the pieces. The accompaniments are recorded so they come is really softly at the beginning and to know when to start counting to come in is next to impossible. My family is very musical and between us we play many instruments and with all of us listening and trying to help we still could not figure out where the violin comes in on some of the pieces which was a shame because the violin part was nice. We would have liked to hear what it sounded like with the accompaniment. Some of the pieces we liked well enough that we just kept trying and guessing until we figured it out, but a few bars of the accompaniment printed on the page would have saved us SO much effort. We would have also happily paid for a piano accompaniment book to go with this. Also the CD with the accompaniment is recorded in MP3 format so it doesn't play on a regular CD player. We were able to convert it and burn them onto a regular CD for performing, but it was a process. Also all of these pieces can also be played by a flute and they sound really nice.

WARNING: This book does not contain any piano accompaniments to the songs.The book contains embellished melodies of the Christmas carols and a CD with MP3s of digital accompaniment on it. (you'll need to burn your own CD I suppose if you desire to play the songs in a CD player, which is odd as the songs are so short anyway.The description posted when I purchased refers to a CD that include piano MP3s. One would presume these are of the piano accompaniment in the book... but there is no piano part in the book. Moreover the CD does not include piano MP3s... rather it include MP3s exported from orchestral midi accompaniment. (Which do appear from the couple I listened to to be decently done, although they very much sound electronically produced.)4 star product (one off for lack of piano accompaniments either included on the CD, in book or in a partner book, that seriously limits the usefulness of this product)2 stars off for the misleading description that is duplicated on other musical sites and both refers inaccurately to the CD as including MP3s of the piano parts (that apparently don't exist) and never states that the product does not include the expected sheet music accompaniment.

This music is beautiful! The track and orchestrations are wonderful and our daughter is enjoying learning her first piece from here. We were a bit disappointed that the track is on MP3 format rather than CD however. Would like to have been able to play it on a CD player for lessons etc. Only reason we are giving 4 stars instead of five. Lovely otherwise!

Some of the keys feel wrong for the violin; however, that being said, a few of the backing tracks and pieces in this book are breathtaking. I love "Away in a Manger" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

The book is good but not is clear when you start to play alone. This books have a lot ornaments, by itself the books is good, but just if you want to play with a group of violinist not as solo.

Had to rearrange as they are for very basic band instruments and not professional level strings. The arrangements are good but the midi is a little to cheap sounding.

When the say advanced, they mean it. It's level four, or maybe 3.9. I love the arrangements, but it will take some serious practice.