Beginner Violin Tips

The Best Beginner Violin Sheet Music

A lot of beginner violin sheet music focuses on music you probably know from your childhood, songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

When first learning to play sheet music, it is usually best to start with relatively simple tunes that you already know by ear. These can be folk tunes, patriotic music, holiday music, nursery rhymes, and other traditional pieces.

In general, easier pieces will tend to have no sharps, one sharp, or two sharps – in other words, they are written in C major, G major, or D major – the easiest key signatures to play on the violin (see our article about key signature) – and have a limited range of note pitches that you have to deal with. That said, try to play anything and everything that interests you!

One thing to note is that most classical and traditional sheet music is in the public domain (i.e. the copyright has expired) because it was written so long ago. That said, particular arrangements of the original music may still be copyrighted, and the public domain versions usually lack instructions (such as fingerings for the left hand) that many beginners find helpful. Here we recommend a variety of free and paid resources that together can form a good starting place for violin beginners.

Here are some great beginner violin sheet music resources (please note that we do not control the content on external websites and it can change. We may also receive a small commission if you buy something from another site after arriving there from one of our links, which is helpful for supporting this site):

Top Beginner Violin Instructional Books

Instructional books have the advantage of being designed explicitly for beginners and take you through lessons that help you to learn violin performance concepts while applying it to actual pieces of music. They often come with music CDs that you can play along with or offer additional instruction.

Our favorite introductory book:

Essential Elements 2000  – more details and reviews here

  • We highly recommend this book because of its thoroughness at introducing the main concepts of learning to play the violin in concise, easy to follow lessons
  • Comes with a CD with play-along tracks for every exercise
  • CD also contains an introductory video lesson covering how to hold the violin, etc. for complete beginners
  • Introduces notes and strings one at a time in a logical order
  • Presents songs in order of increasing difficulty

Suzuki Method – more details and reviews here

  • The first books have simplified versions of well-known classical tunes
  • 10 books – once you finish one you can move on to the next. Designed to slowly increase difficulty and complexity as you grow from a beginner violinist all the way up to pro, or however far you want to take it
  • Recordings available of professional violinists playing the pieces
  • Very popular system used by many violin teachers
  • Piano accompaniments available for every piece, so if you want to perform a recital with a pianist you can

Other Classical Violin Sheet Music

Movie Themes

These books typically come with a CD and piano accompaniment. The links below will take you to a detailed description where you can read reviews and get more information about what is included:

Musicals and Showtunes

Beginner Fiddle Music

How is a fiddle different than a violin? The answer is that physically it’s not… it’s all in the type of music that is being played. In Irish, Bluegrass, Country, and a few other styles of music, the violin is often referred to as a fiddle, but the instrument itself is the same. Fiddle music can be unbelievably fun to play! Here are some great resources for learning to play fiddle music:

  • The Session – Irish fiddle sheet music – a great free resource for Irish sheet music along with MIDI files, videos of performances, and a strong community of fiddlers
  • Old-Time Fiddle for the Complete Ignoramus – this introductory book consistently gets rave reviews
  • Fiddler’s Fakebook – tons of sheet music plus a brief intro to the culture and style of fiddle music – also gets rave reviews on Amazon
  • Old Music Project – scroll down to the section with the yellow colored boxes, which contain links to a number of online fiddle music libraries
  • Kitchen Musician – has a ton of free traditional fiddle sheet music from Scotland, Ireland, England, and elsewhere.

Pop & Rock Music

Holiday Violin Sheet Music

Beginner Jazz Violin Sheet Music

Video Game Sheet Music

Here are some other great violin sheet music resources, although we can’t guarantee that all of it will be right for beginners.

  • Ichigo’s Sheet Music – anime & video game sheet music (do a search for Violin under “Instrument”)
  • Game Music Themes – browse a wide variety of video game sheet music listed by system and by franchise

Scales, Etudes, and Exercises

Scales and etudes are written as practice exercises specifically to help ingrain good violin technique. They tend to be repetitive and are typically used for practice only, not performance pieces. They are hugely helpful for rapid improvement. Here is our favorite:

 Additional Sheet Music Resources

  • Violin Sheet Music on Amazon – Amazon.com has an enormous selection of beginner violin sheet music
  • Your local library may have violin sheet music that you can check out just like any other book

How to Read Violin Sheet Music

Need help with how to read beginner violin sheet music? Check out our free mini course on How to Read Sheet Music for Beginner Violin.

Did we miss anything?

If you know of any great beginner violin sheet music resources we didn’t already mention, please leave us a comment below!

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6 Responses to “The Best Beginner Violin Sheet Music”

  1. Linda Says:
    June 18th, 2013 at 7:27 am

    Hello.
    Thankyou for taking the time to produce this excellant site.
    I am having lots of trouble learning or should I say trying to learn to read music, I new it was going to be difficult and it truly is.
    I have a very nice teacher, who is very calm ,so far”
    But having come across your site, it makes perfect sense to have planned and structured practise sessions ,rather than going through the bits and bobs that I have done in my lesson, every day. I feel as though I’m getting no where fast.
    It was also like a light bulb switching on, learning your method of counting beats.
    This has helped me so much.
    Thank you once again
    Best regards Linda Vynne

  2. Sherrie Says:
    August 8th, 2013 at 10:20 am

    I also appreciate your website. My son has started to learn the violin and I thought I would try to learn with him. He’s progressing more quickly than I am but I’m hopeful. I’ve been looking through multiple sites and just wanted to let you know that I love the variety of music you have to choose from. My son actually found the site and showed it to me. We’re fans!

  3. serenity Says:
    August 18th, 2013 at 9:52 pm

    this was exacly what i was looking for thanks to the website i now know how to read music and i can play like a pro if you want better result check out this site good luck :]

  4. Dyllis Says:
    May 27th, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    Thank you very much!!!
    This is simple, straight-forward, easy to understand. Exactly what my son needs! He says: “It’s very good”
    Just arrived form a half-hour class with my son. This is his 3rd. week, he has a very good teacher and is learning to play the violin as extra curricular for the summer but I cannot stress enough to you how much this is helping him.
    This site is excellent!!!

  5. Leopold Says:
    May 28th, 2014 at 1:52 pm

    Dyllis,

    Thank you for your kind words and we are glad this was helpful to you. Best of luck to you and your son!

  6. cabrine nans ginah Says:
    July 29th, 2015 at 2:13 am

    thank you for the article im in high school and lucky enough the school owns aviolin and a cello i personally had picked intrest in the violin as a child at the age of 5 but ive got this chance at17 but i have no teacher iv tried to learn from the web now i can bow and handle plus the scale .now i have to learn how to read music coz i didnt offer it at ordnary level i9 offered english literature and commerce.HOPE I ONE DAY BECOME A PRO!!!!!!! LOL LO

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