Hello there. I'm an adult starter, and after much consideration, decided to hire a violin and teach myself to play (no money for tutors - violin hire is only £5 a month, so affordable, but music tuition is not. I used to be a language tutor, so know how expensive it would be). I started out in November on a 3/4 size (I'm small) Vivaldi 500 (?). Recently upgraded to a 4/4 Vivaldi 700, which sounds much better, and whose pegs are considerably less slippery, so much easier to tune.

Whilst I've been enjoying learning (can play "Twinkle twinkle little star" by ear, and am able to play the theme to Beethoven's 9th, and am working on Ronnie Hazlehurst's "Last of the summer wine" theme), I'm somewhat disconcerted that I cannot find this Vivaldi brand mentioned anywhere, even on the internet (which tends to be a useful tool for finding out such things).

I want to buy my own violin eventually, but would really appreciate some advice on brands, and would prefer to know where this Vivaldi brand originates . I asked the hirer, who explained that they're mostly made in chinese workshops, but I'm still a bit disconcerted that I can't find any mention of this Vivaldi brand anywhere. Loads of other brands, but no Vivaldi.

Comments and suggestions most welcome.

Hi there and welcome to the strings forum.

I don't know anything about the brand you mentioned, although I do seem to remember hearing/seeing the name somewhere, (or I may be confusing with Antoni instruments). At £5 a month rent though, it doesn't seem like a great quality brand. I rented a Stentor and that was £30 a quarter, so twice as much. The viola I went on to buy was £35 a quarter to rent. I have a Stentor Conservatoire viola, which I paid about £200 for the full outfit for, plus another £20-odd for a good shoulder rest.

The comment I think you're going to get most of though, is to reconsider the 'no teacher' bit. Unless you have considerable past experience on strings, say cello or double bass, (I daresay you're not a violist, but them most seem to go from violin to bigger strings than the other way around, so I suspect you're not a cellist either...??), you really can't self-teach violin. One can't even learn proper bow-hold by oneself, never mind the rest and there's a LOT more to it than intonation. If you can even get some sessions with a violin/viola playing friend or, hey, here's an idea, can you advertise at your local college/university for a professional exchange - they teach you violin, you teach them your language. I nearly did that myself and it would have worked too as it seems everyone wants to learn Chinese these days!! Anyway, do try and find some way to get some experienced input as you really do need it. I'm only in my 2nd year of playing and I really do speak from experience there! You'd be better investing in some basic lessons at this stage than looking for a nice violin to buy, I think. There may even be some classes you can go to locally?? Check out your local library over the summer.

Hello there. The rental is from a hirer who's made a point (and a business) out of renting our instruments at affordable prices in order to make them accessible to those of us who would otherwise not be able to even try. The violin I'm renting should be more expensive, but they upgraded me from a much cheaper one, and saw no point increasing the rent for the remainder of the contract. If they doubled my rental to £40 if a quarter, our finances would only just be able to cover that amount of rental, so if they charge any more, I won't be learning violin any more. Which would be a crying shame, because i'm enjoying this, and look forward to my violin sessions.

Chinese eh? Courses for Chinese are relatively easy to get hold of. Try finding courses and material for languages in less popular scripts. The language I'm learning has increased in popularity, but remains incredibly difficult to find course and source material for.

Anyway, back to the violin. If absolutely everyone is going to insist that tuition is absolutely necessary, I might as well give up now, because that would be money out of our food budget, so not going to happen.


Pah. Tried to edit that, but board wouldn't let me. I do have a friend who has considerable experience in strings (used to be in an orchestra), and she checked me over just after I started the rental. I played "Twinkle twinkle little star" to her (and her baby daughter) and she was impressed with my progress, and asked if I'd felt the need for a sponge/cushion. I said not, and asked if I was doing anything wrong, or that needed correcting, and her response was that I was doing fine, and should continue as I was.
If I was doing carp, she would tell me.

There are plenty of folk fiddlers who never had lessons, but if you want to play classical stuff then elisabeth_rb
is right. You can have fun playing simple tunes, but there will come a time when you start to wonder why you're not making progress. What is your goal?

What's my goal? I just want to be able to play pieces of music that I like, and have them sound as they should. I intend to have fun, and enjoy what I'm doing. I'm striking as fine balance between learning and knowing when to stop. I have no problem saying I'm at grade X level, but I'm not sure I'd take exams to prove it. At some point in the dim and distant future, it might be fun to play with other people. Right now, I just want to have fun and enjoy what I'm doing. With languages, I just speak, or try to read something in the language. With the violin, I try to play the music.

If you're having fun now, there's no reason why you should stop having fun - as long as bad habits don't actually injure you. But you did say

Most people here will tell you that tuition of some sort is necessary if you want to play classical violin well. Some would dispense with some of those qualifications. So, if you really can't manage tuition of any kind, you will need to decide whether it's worth persevering anyway. Maybe it is: it depends on your priorities. And music lessons are not always good value even if you can afford them: it depends on the teacher. But I do think you would be kidding yourself if you thought you could make serious progress without tuition.

Well, linguistically speaking, that was interesting. I wonder how many people either give up their musical interests, or just never manage to pursue them in the first place, because finance is restricted. I think I shall continue as before, and enjoy playing, and producing pretty music (as our son calls it).

Just a quick defence of folk players - very few @good@ folk players have had no tuition - most of the good ones have trained just as hard as classical ones. So, if you want to be a bad folk player, then maybe, but otherwise tuition is just as necessary as in classical (which, contrary to popular belief is not harder, just different - I've done both so feel I'm well placed to pronounce).

That said, if your goal is to play some tunes and enjoy the sound you make, you CAN teach yourself. Use your violin playing friend as a guide now and then, use sites like www.violinmasterclass.com for the video tutorials, or follow the lessons with professorv on youtube - there are ways to learn without a teacher.

They won't be anywhere near as productive and if you seriously want to learn to play in sessions properly (for folk) or in an amateur orchestra (for classical) then you will need tuition - if these things are not your goal, then go for it on your own and use the resources I've added.

At the worst, you'll plateau and won't progress very much after a while, but at least you'll be having fun where you're at - at best you might do really well and find your financial situation changes making a lesson now and then possible.

Enjoy yourself and see where it takes you.

Allan

Thank you very much, Allan. I watched several online videos (really enjoyed Larry Bartley's double bass ones), and will certainly check out your recommendations. Not been so well for a couple of days, so excuse the silence.