WIBU to tell DD she can no longer play the violin and has to pick something else? (She sounds fucking horrific!)

[hoppitybob]

Help. I'm absolutely hating it. Awful sound, it's screeching in my ear, even when she is taking a break!! She loves it, but my God, I can't take anymore.

Piano, guitar, etc. fine. I wish the violin was never on offer to her.

WIBU to say she can pick any other instrument she likes? It's been 9 months and it sounds the exact same, but that awful sound is just making a sort of tune...

Oboes are scarily expensive and then the reeds. Bassoon even more expensive.

I sounded like an expiring ruminant when I tried brass.

G8+ flautist - reckon it'd be quicker to get into an orchestra starting viola from scratch!

Some of these comments make me quite sad! No one in my family was musical so I never had an instrument until I was 11 and bought myself a flute as I really wanted to learn. From there I had singing lessons and briefly piano lessons and would have loved to go to music college. Unfortunately by the time it got to music A level I was massively out of my depth - everyone else on my course had been playing instruments and learning music theory from a very young age and they had a fundamental understanding of it that I didn't have. I wish I could go back and learn something earlier, and will be making sure my boys learn something, whatever they prefer - I'll get earplugs if I need to!

Yes I briefly learnt the bassoon during my music a-level. It was about as big as I am, sounded gorgeous but I was in constant fear of losing or breaking it!

It will be painful for years.
Enjoy!

TimbuktuTimbuktu

Everyone is unreasonable to play the violin or flute at all. There are 1000 other kids that do it and you'll never get a place in the bloody orchestra because some snotty little 9 year old grade 8 prodigy will get there first.

Exactly how I felt as a teenager learning the clarinet.

Definitely not bitter either!

Is she having private lessons?

Is it a decent Violin? Some people buy very cheap violins with crap strings, don't tune it properly or get it serviced & expect the poor kid to be able to make it sound good. It's like buying an old banger & complaining you can't win the Grand Prix.

The only thing you can do is a sound proofed loft or a summer hosue at the far end of the garden ......

Round my way, girls are encouraged to play brass instruments because it tends to get them music scholarships / exhibitions to the private girls' schools whose orchestras are desperate for miniature trombonists.

Violins - ours both play, and each of them has sounded incrementally better as they sized up a violin - the tiny cheap 1/8th which cost £30 was never going to sound great and it's a welcome relief each time they go up!

No, it doesn't need to sound hideous or be painful for years. It needs a decent violin & a decent teacher and a child who wants to learn, then it sounds perfectly fine pretty much from the start, far from concert level, but not ear plug requiring awful.

This is why I steered DD towards the cello

It's also why my grandmother, with whom I lived at the time, refused flatly to let me start violin lessons when I'd passed the necessary aural test at school.
I well remember that "Not the violin! Any other instrument, but not the violin!" conversation.
Fortunately, they also did very popular guitar lessons for all the other kids who'd had similar conversations at home

Awww. My DS pestered the living daylights out of me and started playing at 3.5. He's nearly 6, getting ready for Grade 2 and makes a nice sound. That said I have gone with him to every lesson so that I can help him in his practicing. I have zero musical talent and knowledge but have picked up the basics along the way. Its possible to have a reasonable sound quite early but it needs supervision.

Get her a clarinet. You can have honking geese sounds for weeks! :D

Music is great. I play violin and woodwind, and all my kids play too (violin + instrument of their choice) . It will improve, violin does take a couple of years but so worthwhile I think. Practise was sometimes an effort when the elder kids were younger but now they enjoy playing in orchestras with their friends, have even been on a tour abroad , great fun.

8I'll get earplugs if I need to!*

My designated practice time was whilst mum made dinner, with three doors closed between us....

It's not the actual 'tuning' laughingelliot as I have perfect pitch, but I've got a fear of snapping the pegs when I turn them to tune the violin (I 'may' have done that to a violin player just before a school orchestra concert in the past..!).

Violin, schmiolin....

I give you: BAGPIPES

or, dd, playing her Sax, with the Basset joining in..

All together now: 'Puff the Magic Dragon'

Oh dearie me the boy whp used to live over the back from me played the bag pipes every saturday morning he used to practice in his garden,thankfully he you could hear improvement

Oh Dixie yes I can do understand that! Like blowing up balloons and have them burst in your face

The oboe is a lovely instrument

True, but it sounds like a dying duck until about grade 6. And I'm saying that as someone that got as far as grade 8!

Agree the violin is not great though - my brother learnt when we were kids and it did sound horrific for a long time. What with him on the violin and me on the oboe, I have no idea how my parents kept their sanity!

I remember a friend of mine trying to get to grips with the saxophone.
It sounded like she was torturing a duck.
I was made to learn violin for a long time. I'm glad I learned to read music and get a good feel for it, but I hated the violin.
It is very hard to get a good sound out of a cheap one.

Nothing is worse than a recorder surely?

I gave up violin at 12 as I hated the music teacher I had in secondary school and having to carry the bloody thing on the bus with all other school equipment.

It does take a while. I agree about the small, cheap violins sounding awful. Mine was old and well used but was lovely to play. I used to love torturing my DBro with 'London's Burning' when I first started.

Whilst I think it's great for kids to learn an instrument, I also think that there are those who will just never get it, no matter how much they practise.

Fair play to DS for sticking at it for 9months, a determined little lady. My DS went through phases of trying everything for approx 6wks at a time, so frustrating and such a waste of £. She will get there in the end and be able to play you softly to sleep some day

Another violin teacher here. Of course you ABU. Buy or rent her a decent instrument, pay for a longer lesson, help her find somewhere suitable to practise (her bedroom?), encourage her and praise her efforts. Find a group or orchestra for her to join so she can play with others. And talk to her teacher about how she can improve her sound.

I used to teach violin, so I get your pain OP. It's a long, long time before it starts to sound halfway decent. However, a decent instrument, good strings (crucial), good tuning and a well roisined bow all help immensely.

And there are huge advantages of learning the violin too. It's the lynchpin instrument for the orchestra - and hugely versatile outside that (trad music for example).