Reassure me about the Violin pls!

[PassTheSherry]

My dd is going into juniors in September and her school are offering group music lessons.

They were given a choice of flute, brass, violin, drums, or keyboard.

She has chosen violin, based on a music workshop I took her to last year in which she saw a string quartet play and was able to 'have a go' on one for a couple of minutes!

I'm slightly thinking we may well be paying or a year's worth of lessons only to hear a LOT of screeching and scraping - before she gets bored of not being able to get a decent sound out, and gives up. It's my own fault for taking her to that workshop - didn't think ahead, to what if she might actually in inspired to learn...

Whereas say with flute or keyboard, you can get a decent tune fairly quickly.

But it's her choice - so violin it is. Please tell me it'll be OK!!

You can get some excellent earplugs though.
If you need to buy one I have a 3/4 languishing in the attic after dd jacked it in after a year.

It'll be fine!! All instruments sound rough at the start.

They don't have to be screechy - make sure she plays properly, with the bow going across the strings and not sliding down them, and she shouldn't sound too bad!

It won't be screechy for a year!! If she practices it'll soon reasonable fairly soon

I teach open strings for up to six weeks so we get that phase over quickly ;-)

It'll be fine. She will probably only practise for 10 minutes a day at first(if you're lucky) so not much time to put up with. And anyway, it is possible to make horrible noises on the flute too (I am a flute teacher, so speak from experience!), and piano/keyboard takes much longer to master.

Violin is a good choice - cheap to buy, too.

Cheap... but don't dream of buying anything cheaper than a Stentor, probably the Stentor II. Violin Shaped Objects are out there!

I would recommend buying the best instrument you can afford.
They have a reasonable resale value and you'll save a fortune in gin compared to what you will need to drink to survive a year of a really cheap and nasty instrument screeching.

I have two violinists, and one bassoonist.

At least the violin is comparatively quiet.

Oops been out and about with both kids due to strike day and forgot about this thread. Thank you all for trying to say the right things.

I played violin for 10 years....
Really badly

How our spaniel used to howl

We used to have Vivaldi's Concerto in A-minor for Violin and Dog with Squeaky Toy.

But she hid when I practised piano, especially scales.

Both my twin DDs started the violin last September - so I had the sounds a strangled cats in stereo

Truthfully, I can say it hasn't been too bad. The worst thing is trying to get DTD1 to practice.

They can now both play short tunes (Ode to Joy/Clare de la Lune etc) reasonably well.

As they only practice for around 10 minutes every other day it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.

It could be a lot worse - she could have picked drums or trombone ....

DS1 was never really that screechy tbh. He's just done his Grade 1 after learning for just over a year. And I agree, it could be so much worse, and so much louder if your DD had chosen something else.

If she's actively chosen an instrument she wants to play, and is enthusiastic, definitely make the most of that.

I take things slowly to concentrate on technique, but my two youngest fiddlers are year 2 and year 3. Both started in September, took their copper music medal in around Feb; the elder has just passed her bronze medal and the other is at the level only missed a few lessons so hasn't been examined for it. That means that they're at a standard roughly equivalent to the prep test, but they both have very good tone and don't have sticky stripes on their instruments - which is why they took a bit longer to get there.

I reckon grade 1 in four terms is doable for most children, but we're working this differently now - we have a local Eisteddfod in November to work for, and because the younger is still only just 7 we'll be sticking with the medals for a bit instead. They also suit the older of the two better than exams would, I think, as she can be a bit scatty. Silver medal is roughly at the same performance level as grade 1, but tests different skills such as improvisation.