Practicing violin cannot become a chore or something that needs to get done. Just like anything else, some people will have an innate ability or gift to play and buy a violin online and will learn faster than others. You never want to compare yourself or your progress to others. Judge your progress by how much effort you have put into learning violin.
It helps if you set short term and long term goals for yourself, even mini-goals within a practice session. Perhaps your long term goal is to perform on stage in one year at a school or community event. A shorter term goal would be to learn vibrato in a certain amount of days or weeks. An example of a mini-goal could be to learn how to tune your violin properly at today’s practice.
You’ll have to decide if you want to take private or group violin lessons from a violin teacher. Your budget may help determine this choice. If it is not within your budget to take lessons from a teacher, there are lots of other options available to you.
There are certainly plenty of how-to-play-violin books and DVDs available at your local book store or online. There are also online violin courses that you can download for a fee straight to your computer. And for those who have even a tighter budget, there are also plenty of free resources. If you do a search online, you will find that there are lots of violin sites that offer free mini-lessons, videos and tips on how to learn to play the violin.
Do you have to be young to learn to play the violin? Not at all. Plenty of adults learn violin and can become quite masterful when they set their mind to it. You can argue that some adults later in life have more spare time to devote to learning an instrument than say a 20 or 30 year old who’s busy with careers, raising a family and the like. It’s never too late to learn. It is all about mindset and your willingness to learn that determines your success.
If you want to learn to play the violin, join an online violin forum or two. Within these forums you can ask fellow violinists, from beginners to advanced pros, any questions you may have. The more seasoned violinists enjoy sharing their knowledge and will be more than happy to answer your questions. No one will tell you that learning to play the violin is easy. There will be days when you get frustrated, but don’t give up. Even Itzhak has bad days.
