Anyone taught themselves to play the violin?

[shinyhappytonks]

I fancy giving it a go, but worried that without proper lessons i will never get past 'sawing'

Any tips/encouragement - or complete horror - would be most welcome.

em

I think you could certainly cover the basics on notes etc, but it would be good to have a proper violinist give you some pointers on posture, bow hold etc.

I think this would be pretty difficult tbh - agree with everything pjqueen has said. Holding the violin and bow is v important and would have thought difficult to learn without guidance.

Honestly, I think it would be pretty difficult

if you learn with dodgy techniques, and then want to take it further but the technique is stopping you, it is VERY difficult to 'unlearn'. I would get some lessons. Sorry!

Dd has just started learning and they don't start using the bow at first. They begin with plucking the strings.

DD has also just started learning the violin. She is plucking the strings at the moment and learning their order. I am hoping she can teach me a little bit while she learns!

I'd get some lessons, at least to get you started and help you with the posture and finger placement. Yes fiddle players play with the violin resting on their knees but the ones I know started holding it in the tradition way and became more relaxed after years of practise. A good posture has a big impact on getting a decent sound.

I played for about 15 years (only gave it up because I couldn't find an orchestra to join and it's boring playing alone.) My teacher always said it was one of the hardest instruments to play as there are no marking for where to place your fingers, it's all done by ear, and the difference between 1 note and the next can be as little as a 1 cm. My teacher put paper sticky dots on where the notes were for the first few years that we played to make it easier.

my friend learned and lo 10 years later is a music teacher. not self taught thoughof course.