To think that granparents giving a five year old a violin is an act of cruelty to the parents!

[ReallyTired]

After two years of pestering I have agreed that dd can have violin lessons. I am now wondering what on earth I have agreed to. My parents gave dd a violin and she is desperate to play the dratted thing. I am dreading the violin practice. I have decided that if she must attempt to play the violin that she might as well have lessons.

How long will it take a five year old to sound reasonable on the violin.

I absolutely adore the violin.... but not for the first 15 years LOL! I was from a family of 5 children and 4 of us played the violin - badly. There was never any question of my children being allowed that instrument.

Good luck!

then again she could turn out to be a child prodigy and keep you in gin and cake in you old age

DD started the violin in Y1 - so about the same age as yours. It is a bit weird at first but I am sure you can cope and you are doing the right thing getting her lessons. If she gets on well with it then it is a nice skill to have - well any musical instrument really. Even if she doesn't eventually become a virtuoso, or even a grade 8, if she learns to play well enough to join in with a string group or orchestra one day then she has got something that she could get a life time's pleasure from.

I remember being surprised when DD had been playing only about 6 weeks the music teacher at school said she could join string group - they had Team Strings books which meant that with only a very few notes under their belt (or bow?) they could join in with the better players playing the simple parts for the piece while the better players did the tune.

You obviously did something terrible as a child!
I learned violin right up to Grade 5 and the dog STILL used to howl every time I played the thing. I then decided it might not be the instrument for me
However it wasn't entirely wasted. I'm a good pianist and play a host of other stuff and teach music. The violin lessons stood me in good stead - gave me a broader understanding of how music worked and also gave me the chance to play in the school orchestra (very badly).

You're doing a good thing. Just buy some earplugs.

payback for sleepless nights i learnt the violin for a term or so, maybe a year when i was 6. My very kind aunt gifted me her DDs violin to practice with, which had been given to her by DGM. It was decided that i would practice at DGMs house (think DAunt was still bitter about the present 5 years post receipt.)

I went off it pretty quickly once i heard how awful I was, and it is still referred to as the 'eeee ee eeee ee' in our house.

I am tone deaf to a fault though - it must have been AWFUL for me to hear it was bad. She is probably better! I do wish I had learnt something!

There is always hope that dd will be gifted and get past the screechy part quickly. I am aware that few children can practice effectively. I have to supervise my twelve year old's music practice.

I like the idea of getting dd into a strings group. I wonder if any will take children as young as five?

Yabu

At first the teacher might want her only to play in the lessons, so she doesn't develop bad habits when practising on her own. Depends on the teacher though.

DD started aged 7 and began with just plucking. She was very excited when she was finally allowed to use the bow. The onky time she gets screechy is if she is messing around or hasn't practiced for a while, or sometimes if she is getting to grips with something tricky. But normally the sound is very pleasant, although quite dull as she can still only do a handful of notes.

"How long will it take a five year old to sound reasonable on the violin."

Depends on your definition of "reasonable". If you mean "actually enjoyable in a musical sense" then probably a decade. Sorry. If you just mean "not actively painful" then it will depend on both the kid and you. I find out of tune playing to be pretty painful, and beginner violinists often play out of tune.

But at least it's not that loud. DD played the French horn for a while. DH called it "the dying cow". DS plays the drainpipe (bassoon) but that has a nice tone even for a beginner.

We refer to the recorder as The Instrument of Torture.

Not actively painful - best description of beginner violin ever
Sorry but as someone who learnt the violin from age 7 and has recently taken it up again I have nothing useful to add in the slightest other than the thought that one day the children may well be parents to enthusiastic musicians themselves...

AIBU in being slightly jealous that your DC got given proper instruments by the grandparents? Even if it is a violin?
Although I chuckled at the PP's double bass and harp story!

Hello OP

Some children neither sound bad on viledin as dh calls it
Our dd never did that horrible scratching noise, I'm not saying she was brilliant but the sound wasn't bad at all.
I second getting a good teacher as not only will she have a pleasant sound from the beginning but won't get into bad habits that are hard for teachers to correct.
Good luck to you, and her

My father always told us that if we brought a violin home from school, we would return the next day wearing it round our necks.

Slightly oddly, he didn't mind my euphonium.

Sorry, I don't believe the 'my child never sounded screechy' allegations. I speak as someone with violin grade 8 back in the day and someone who stills sings to a pretty high standard. All musicians sound terrible for the first few years months weeks.

When DD2 started learning the trumpet her father asked me if she was actually supposed to sound like that. I had to tell him yes. She is now at grade 4 and it's quite pleasant to listen to her sometimes.

OK, they might not sound screechy (possibly) but they still won't sound like something you'd actively want to listen to.

I'm rather glad DD1 has inherited her father's cloth ears.

I wouldn't expect an unbiased listener to actively enjoy the noise or anything, but compared to a beginner on the recorder, violin practice is sweetly melodious.

I find beginner violins excruciating, because of the tuning and also the pitch of the instrument. It's so easy to get it slightly out, which is horrid, horrid, horrid.

For some reason I have a lot more tolerance for a cello.

dh and I went to a concert by the Caledonian Fiddle orchestra (adults) in Glasgow earlier this year. I thought it would be a real treat: it wasn't, it was awful.

When I heard somebody's DC had got a violin I had a fit of the giggles. Recorders was bad enough. Gave me a migraine every time.

It depends how well they're taught to actually listen to what they're playing. simple things like making the bow go straight make a big difference. Learning to change the pressure of it to make it less scratchy, ditto. Much of initial violin playing can just be working on open strings, learning to get a nice sounds - honestly listening to the way it sounds and deciding if they like it and can they change it, etc. More important than learning lots of notes and fingers and so on, which some teachers want to get on to much too soon. And then when you do start on the fingers, learning to really listen properly to the tuning also makes a huge difference. I know some beginners who are more interested in being able to play with several fingers, to be able to make a sort-of recognisable tune, despite the fact that the notes are incredibly out of tune. But the ones who listen to the intervals, who can sing them, who know what they're trying to do, and go slowly at learning it, actually end up making much nicer sounds the entire time.

That sounds like the way DD is being taught.

I'm with Roisin. I used to teach violin and I can't think of a worse instrument when it comes to listening to beginners. It's not so much the scratchy tone (though that is a killer), but the tuning. Most kids are slightly off pitch for years.

The upside is that it's a great instrument for developing their musical ear, because they have to really listen to the notes they're making and use their judgement to correct the tuning. Learning violin tends to help children sing in tune better too.

So get a good teacher and a sound proof room for practising - and then reap the benefits.

OP, it'll be a few years before your dc is ready to join a string group. They need to master the basic techniques / get their heads around reading music first. But the teacher can do little duets with them from quite early on, which is nice and gives them a sense of what it's like to play with others.

My granda gave me his violin when i was born in the hope i would folle in his footsteps. However i was only told of this 'generosity' when i was 14. Cant think why.

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