Is violin hard to learn?

You’ll never know until you try but you said you learned the clarinet and know something about music so i guess your inclination to music gives you an edge. But it’s one of those instruments where you have to start young.

Very hard.

I’ve worked as a music teacher for over 10 years, mainly singing and piano, but have also taught a bit of violin too. Not to disregard what the other 2 people on here have said, but my advice: ignore the comments ’you have to start young’ and ’very hard’. For starters, no-one is ever too old to learn ANYTHING new if it’s what they really want to do, and as for something being ’very hard’, well, it’s a matter of perception. Sure it’s not going to be easy at first – you’ll have to learn to hold the thing for starters, and then develop the coordination for two hands doing very different things, but that is of course all part of the challenge. The most important thing is that you find yourself a good teacher, someone who has good technique and some experience of teaching, and who you get on well with. I cannot stress enough how important your choice of teacher will be to your learning experience. Next thing, if you can afford to either buy or rent a relatively decent instrument, this would be a great help, as the quality of the instrument will have an impact on the quality of the sound you create – which will no doubt be very important to you as a musician! You already have a good grounding in music, so as long as you have patience and the will to learn, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t go for it! Of course if you decide you don’t like it once you’ve given yourself a fair amount of time to get to grips with it, then at least you’ve had a go and you’ll know! Good luck!

It completely depends on the person. Some find it far easier than others, but you can’t know till you give it a try. Don’t get discouraged in the beginning, where it sounds awful. If you stick with it, it will eventually sound better.

@fjl82 How would I know how to find a good teacher, if I dont even know much about violin?

The first thing I would do is ask around if you know anyone that does play (or has played) violin – you never know there may even be someone with whom you have regular contact who once learnt and you never knew. Another place to do some research would be to go into your local music (instrument) stores and ask there, as quite often local music teachers will have built up a rapport with the shop assistants and will be known by reputation, or at least may advertise in the store. If those options don’t work, then look for teachers in the phone book or online. Although it can be helpful to find a teacher through recommendation, the most important thing will be that the teacher you learn with is adaptable to what YOU want out of the experience. There may be a teacher out there who is well-known, has many students and a very successful reputation with ‘results’, but that doesn’t mean to say that this will be the teacher for you. In the first instance I suggest that you consider your motivation for learning and what you want to get out of the experience. For example, do you want to learn to get yourself to a high standard? Do you want to do exams? Do you just want to be able to pick it up and play a few tunes? Are you just curious to see what it’s like to play violin? What kind of music would you like to be able to play? Is your motivation to play for fun, or would you like to be a bit more ‘serious’ with it? Are you prepared to do lots of regular practice, or do you want to just go to it every now and then when the mood takes you? If you haven’t thought beyond ‘I’d like to try learning violin’, then that’s not a problem, but obviously the clearer you are in what you would like to get out of the experience, the easier it’s going to be for you to find a teacher who will be right for you.

Once you’ve found a teacher, the next thing to do would be to call them up and have a chat with them about what YOU want from the experience, and to find out how they teach. From my personal perspective, when I was taking on new students, I only wanted to teach people who were going to be reliable about turning up for their lessons, whether they were at a fixed time for the semester, or organized the week or a few days in advance. Some teachers may only want to work on a fixed schedule, whereas others may be more flexible, so this is something you may want to consider when looking for the right teacher. I would always suggest that in the first instance you arrange an introductory lesson and have a couple with the teacher before you commit to anything longer-term (be clear about this with the teacher to start off with). I would say that normally within the first lesson you should get a feeling of whether or not the ‘working relationship’ is going to be successful for you. If you don’t feel comfortable with the teacher in the first lesson, to me this would be a clear indicator that this teacher is not right for you. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how old we are; if we are learning something with someone that we like, then we will work harder at it and the overall learning experience will be enjoyable, and in my opinion, THAT is the most important thing. With any learning, my experience is that the beginning stages are always fun as we see progress happening fairly quickly, but then more often than not there will come a point where progress seems very slow, and we feel a bit stuck. This will be the point where a good relationship with your teacher is most important, because you will need to feel encouraged, and to trust that your teacher is working with your best interests at heart.

Happy hunting, and remember to listen to your gut instinct!