The O'Connor Violin Method employs classic violin technique and theory to teach students to become skilled violinists. But more than that, the O'Connor Violin Method uses familiar traditional American music to engage and motivate the young student. The lavishly illustrated books focus on well known traditional American tunes such as Oh! Susanna, Amazing Grace, Appalachia Waltz and Soldier's Joy. The method seeks to instill a deep appreciation of America's musical history with background stories of all those that contributed to this rich heritage: Immigrants, African-American slaves, soldiers - all of whom together created what has become the new American Classical Music. A unique feature of this method is that through the progressive development of initially simple works, O'Connor demonstrates that there is more than one way to play a piece, adding an 'improvisational' twist not found in other methods. The goal of the O'Connor method is that young people everywhere will fall in love with playing music. Currently volumes 1 and 2 of this 10 volume series are available. Included with each volume are CDs with Mark O'Connor playing all the tunes, plus piano accompaniment tracks.