About Join The Band

This unique book series marries modern technology with traditional notation in book form. The books for the various instruments are sold on Amazon’s online bookstore, both digital and physical versions, and the backtracks are all included for free on this website.

Bragi Thor Valsson, musician

Bragi Thor Valsson is a performing musician, composer and music teacher. He was born in Iceland and has lived in 5 countries and performed in over 20 countries. His popular choral arrangements have been performed all over the world.

He says about this book series:

I have been teaching music for over 15 years and the one thing we music teachers all struggle with is getting our students to want to practice their instrument on their own.

Music students understand the necessity of practicing scales and pieces on their own at home but the problem is that practicing alone can get boring.

These books are not meant to replace traditional music teaching books but rather act as a different way to practice your instrument – and due to the fact that we include slow practice files while you are still learning the song and full-tempo ones for when you have learned the slower version, you can practice with the band even when you haven’t quite mastered the notes at full speed yet.

The songs have been carefully written to fit within the abilities of students on each level. The songs in Level 1 should all be playable by students who are approaching the end of their first year of learning that instrument – and many of the songs will be playable by hard-working students who have only been learning that instrument for a few months. Level 2 is roughly for students who are at the end of their 2nd year, and Level 3 for students at the end of their 3rd year. This will vary heavily by individual students, as students do not all progress at the same pace.

I hope you enjoy practicing and performing – I am excited for you to Join The Band!