5/5 Fantastic for exploration of musical styles!
  by ForsakenPhantasm (Los Angeles, CA)
I recommend this book to everyone, including plugging it all over an electric violin forum I moderate! I love how not only does this book touch on many different styles, but goes into detailed and specific divisions of each general style. I also love that not only is there technical information to go along with each section, but focus on a specific master of each genre as well as text on the history and other details surrounding the development of each style of playing.

The information at the beginning of the book, explaining step-by-step how to develop your own ear for improvisation, was quite awesome as well. So many violinists aren't trained in this area, despite its crucial role in music throughout the centuries, including baroque works! I make sure all my students are able to improvise, if not fluently at least in an exploratory fashion, because I feel it's a crucial skill to develop as a musician of any genre, and was really happy to see Julie go into such depth about it in this book, as well as adding in stylistic pointers and notes on playing rhythm violin (something a lot of people are apparently shocked to see me do on the violin!) as well.

I also really enjoy playing along with the cd track. It makes everything make a lot more sense to get a feel for each style of playing as intended by Julie, not just the interpretation in my mind (which isn't accurate very often, and while I'm all for personal style, sometimes you have to learn the correct way first!).

Overall, this book has five stars for content, both in quality and quantity, and I highly recommend it to all violinists looking to venture past their Suzuki upbringings ;-)

5/5 musician's best buy
  by
This book is the most wonderful ,inspiring music text I have been able to find in seven years of searching for the book that really tells you why you picked up your instrument in the first place.It offers a lifetime of experiments and improvisation ideasand in addition there's a wealth of tips that you can apply to approaching any instrument.
I love it and I'm a guitarist!

2/5 Not all the info in this book is correct.
  by
I was looking to buy something on violin, but then I saw the notation about Natalie MacMaster Being taught by her FATHER Buddy. Buddy is a wonderful fiddler and a great man, but he's Natalie's Uncle. I have to wonder what else is wrong in this book. Sorry.