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Learning instruments. Violins?
CangoFett
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm 19, and have no creative or artistic talent at all. Despite this, I've toyed with the idea of learning an instrument, and for some reason, I'm thinking violin. Basic questions:
How much would the actual equipment cost?
When I think violin, I think of String metal, Charlie Daniels, and Classical music. Is being able to play all 3 at some point way down the road actually possible/realistic, or do they require like, different types of violins, or something?
How much would lessons cost?
How long can I expect to have to be playing before I can play something that doesnt do mean, naughty things
to peoples' ears?
And anything else I should know?
How much would the actual equipment cost?
When I think violin, I think of String metal, Charlie Daniels, and Classical music. Is being able to play all 3 at some point way down the road actually possible/realistic, or do they require like, different types of violins, or something?
How much would lessons cost?
How long can I expect to have to be playing before I can play something that doesnt do mean, naughty things
to peoples' ears?
And anything else I should know?
CangoFett on
0
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As for lesson cost, it depends on where you live. If you live anywhere near where there is a college/university with a music program, for example, there will be students there who need money and will probably be teaching cheap. Right now I'm taking flute lessons from a local teacher and it's costing me $25/one hour lesson, so about $100/month. Starting out you'll probably be doing half hour lessons, so it should be cheaper than that. The cost of the instrument itself depends on how good an instrument you get. Don't get one from Wal Mart or another non-music store, any instrument they sell will be crap and will cause you nothing but grief. I've seen violins at my local music store for around $400, but I'm not sure on the qulaity. I think bows are usually included, and they'll likely throw in some rosin. You'll also need a tuner which will be about $20, give or take, and if you're taking lessons, you'll likely need some books which seem to be about $10-15 for beginner ones. I would advise talking to the person you'll be taking your lessons from before you buy anything, they will have some good ideas for you and will know what to look for.
In short, taking up an instrument is expensive in the beginning, but if you find you like it and stick with it, it can be so worth it. I've been playing my flute for almost 10 years and it's about my favourite thing in the world to do. Good luck if you decide to go for it!
My beginning violin was £90 but that is very, very cheap and it sounded awful and did not last me very long. Fortunately my school loaned me a good violin for the first couple of years. My current violin cost £400 (so, $800) and is okay for a non-professional. It is about a hundred years old. I bought new strings for it, too. A $400 violin sounds like it'd be okay for you at first.
I really advise lessons for a violin - it's very hard to learn fingering and bowing from a book. I haven't had lessons in a few years but mine were about £8 ($16) for a half hour - probably more expensive these days.
How good are the resources on the Internet for Violin?
I know, for example, you can find guitar tablature for more or less any song under the sun, plus more.
How is it for the violin? I think lessons are a must for something like violin, but it's also great to have access to lots of free (or very cheap) resources from home, too.
Violin uses regular sheet music. I've never tried to find sheet music online although there is some available for free (i.e. all of Mozart's works are now in the public domain). Violin solos are tough to find in general because it's mainly an orchestral instrument or played in a quartet or duet with other strings/piano.
I find it only really worth it if you're part of an amateur orchestra or group. Playing for the local youth orchestra and working towards concerts was fun. Working towards grades was far more of a chore than piano.
Playing the violin alone is dull, but it takes a little while longer to learn than most other instruments to get to a standard where you can actually play with others. If you have lessons your teacher will most likely accompany you on piano.
I'd have liked to learn a wind instrument because they sound better solo, and are perhaps literally easier to pick up and play. If I want to play my violin, I have to first tune it, rosin my bow, tighten my bow, clean the violin - I love the piano for just being able to sit down and instantly bang out a couple of tunes and not have it sound too bad.
Just for consideration. I'm not trying to put anyone off, but it's an expensive instrument to decide that you no longer want to play it after a couple of months. A woodwind instrument or brass instrument can sound much better for cheaper.
If you really like violin, you should go to a music store and tell them you're a beginner but would like to hold a violin and a viola to see which is more comfortable. There's less music written for viola as solo, but it's larger and may be more comfortable for a beginner.
As for picking it up, you don't need innate creative or musical skill, but for any instrument, what you get out of it is directly proportional to what you put into it. If you don't care about practicing or about the instrument itself, you'll likely get frustrated and give up.
Can you do it? Sure. I picked up upright bass about a year and a half ago, aged 6 years older than you are now, and have had a teacher and been practicing for the whole time. I'm lax about it some days because of how busy I can be, but I really love the instrument (even though mine's a "stick bass" and electric, so not as fancy as an acoustic upright bass) and I like how pizz and arco are distinct uses for the instrument.
If you want to just get your hands on a violin and want to see if you're even interested, you can usually find a cheap one on craigslist. The other thing about acoustic instruments is that a crappy instrument is likely to sound crappy, which while not that important when you're just starting, will limit you and make you feel that you sound bad. You could develop quickly but not realize it because the instrument is poor quality. I felt that way just changing the stock strings on my upright to some nice ones -- the instrument sounds much more full now. Of course, I'd only seriously drop the money on an upright now that I feel competent in playing one. You may feel the same way about violin, or whichever instrument you decide to pick up, so having a cheap one in your hands that you can experiment with and just get used to, with the intention of learning a bit and then upgrading once you feel better at playing the thing, isn't a bad idea.
Ultimately, though, don't pick up an instrument with the intention of sounding like [x], where x is a particular artist or virtuoso or band. You won't sound good at all when you start off, and it can lead to frustration and a feeling that it's hopeless. You need to want to play the instrument, not just "play something different cos everyone plays guitar." You can be a competent player even if you're only interested in one or two genres of music, but you need to have a desire to play the instrument you're learning.
If you are convinced that you want to try out the violin, I'd recommend finding a teacher that will go through the RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) course with you. There are 10 grades, plus a couple of addition teaching certifications that will essentially bring you through basic and advanced techniques, and most of the "great hits" of solo violin at various difficulties.
Now, if you can push through all of the frustration and annoyance at sounding like shit for a couple of years in the beginning, you'll reach a point where you'll be good enough to play with a string quartet or a community orchestra. There isn't a word or phrase that can really do justice to the joy that you can get from playing with an orchestra or chamber group - it can be tough and frustrating sometimes, but when everything comes together it's pure gold.
As far as instruments...Don't buy anything made in China. In the world of woodwinds, there are some decent Japanese manufacturers of brass and reed instruments (Yamaha, Yanagisawa) but they are still measured in relation to the quality of German or French makers. I don't know, but I imagine that strings are similar.
Goodluck!
Oh, and check out http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ for public domain sheet music. They have a small number of scores of some famous works.
Can one get good practice on a keyboard these days, without spending a ridiculous amount of money? I've not used a keyboard in a long time, and back then, it didn't seem to be a terribly good replacement for an actual piano.
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Second, although some people ( me included
Third, dont' worry about finger placement too much, becuase if you take lessons from a private teacher, you'll most likely get little stickers under the correct finger positions so can you can learn the ropes. Think of them as training wheels :P
Fourth, if you're looking for a starting string instrument, make sure to check out Glasel (sp?) which is a brand that a lot of people start on. They come in a wide range of sizes and qualities.
Fifth, just pick whatever instrument you love the sound of. Theres no equation or formula to use to pick violin, viola, cello, or base. This is what makes music and art so great.
Last, if you want to look into wind instruments, I would reccomend brass ( but that might be because I play french horn
A few things to note:
Rent from the music store. Don't buy your violin. If you rent your violin for long enough you will own it. You don't want to drop $400 on a violin that ends up just sitting around the house after 4 months if you don't like the instrument.
Take lessons. I can't imagine starting violin and playing violin without lessons, especially if I'd never played an instrument before.
How good you get and how fast will depend on how much you practice. Within a few months you should probably be able to play things like Jingle Bells and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
I think they are, too
You'll never get good practise on a keyboard unless it's weighted. I have no idea what they cost these days, but I imagine that you'll still find a cheaper second-hand upright that sounds and plays better than a quality weighted keyboard.
Uprights don't take up too much room, and I often see them going very cheap on ebay and local listings because people move and can't afford to take the piano with them. It's so bulky that if they're not in demand in your city you may find a surplus.
A good way to get at a piano to practice on is through a local college (junior or university). I know my university has a beginning piano class for people who have never played, and several others after that, it's only a 1 hour course so it doesnt cost much at all. The course is basically a private lesson once a week for an hour.
THE BEST THING about taking the course is that you get access to the college's practice rooms, our practice rooms each have a piano in them. Generally there is some rule about music majors getting priority but if the music department or college is a decent size at all you shouldn't have problems with getting into a room 9 times out of 10, just like with a gym it's all about the time you go and try to workout.
I took a couple fiddle classes, and they were pretty darn fun.
I mean, obviously any previous experience with the violin would help, but classical music is pretty different from fiddling music. Fiddling stuff is generally more complicated as well, with faster shifts and multiple-string passages that go on for pages.
God, I need to get my violin out and get it tuned up.
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You've got something there. Whereas with a guitar you can get lessons from various genres of style including the blues, jazz, classical, metal, whatever. But, with instruments like the violin it seems like fiddling is something you need to pick up along the way. If you've not played before then you should go through the classical method. It, in my opinion, makes playing harder on the musician in a way that eventually makes them the better for it. Once you've gotten proficient on your etudes then you could probably look around for some blue grass musicians to jam with. By then you should have a base to learn off of. I mean, I used to play french horn in high school and in the campus band in college and I learned how to play "jazz horn" by just jamming with a guitar major I knew.
Go to the classical methods to learn. Go and play with others to have fun and get into the particulars. Also, you just get better playing with good musicians. Just like runners run better with good runners.
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The easiest thing to do when starting out is find the correct figure positions and then put a small strip of masking tape under the strings on the neck. Eventually you're hands will remember their position on the neck and you wont even notice when the tape just falls off.
If you are serious about playing, and willing to work hard and get slowly better, you will love it. Practicing is actually a great way to wind down, and playing with other people is one of the most fun things I have ever done. It can be incredibly daunting and frustrating at times, though, especially when you start listening to recordings...
Can anybody back that up?
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That won't make actually developing the muscle memory any easier, although you'll be able to tell if you're doing something wrong almost immediately. The ability to read music, understand some theory, hear notes well, understand and respond to tempo and rhythm, those are the main aspects of playing music that you maintain when you move from one instrument to another, if they're different types of instruments. Going from, say, piano to harpsichord or organ isn't that different, while going from euphonium to clarinet is going to be a little weird at first.
You know, I never really think of things in these terms. I think that is because I started out on the french horn where the valves are essentially superfluous, if you don't want to use them. This is important, of course, what you're saying, but maybe I am more of a "make things difficult in the beginning" kind of fellow due to my beginnings with the horn. It forces you to listen a bit more, whereas, I think, were I to have started out on Piano it would have been an entirely new and frustrating realm of musicianship I would be forced to learn when I suddenly realized that I was one who was out of tune, not everyone else.
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The major differences between upright bass and violin, that being the size, is both a positive and negative. For bass, the spaces between notes is significantly greater, especially for the low notes. That also makes it more physically taxing. For violin you have quick access to a lot of notes without a lot of shifting or difficulty, but being off just a little bit can make you play a completely different note. That's why orchestras tend to have violin sections, mind -- having a lot of violins playing almost the same note can have somewhat of a "shimmering" sound quality that can be appealing. But everyone needs to basically play a correct note, and only have minute variations.
For the horn, and other valved instruments, it's true that the valves only take you so far, and I also agree that by starting off on a more difficult instrument can lead to a more developed and aware player. That can also lead to a lot of frustration for a new player too, though, which is why everyone's saying the OP shouldn't learn violin unless he really likes violins.
I think that Piano is an excellent starter instrument if a person has no experience with music theory or reading music, because piano is an excellent way to be introduced to scales, key signatures, chords, intervals, and all of the music theory that goes along with that. Since it's a very visual instrument (since each note has a key), a beginner can pay attention to what all of those notes are doing, rather than focusing so intently on getting their notes exact. It's an important distinction, in my opinion.
Of course, ultimately the key is to find an instrument that appeals to the player and encourages them to practice and play and learn the thing. If you really love the instrument, you're going to learn how to play it no matter what.
I think this is really the whole point. If OP just wants to learn an instrument for the sake of playing music then he probably could start out with something that will let him get playing and sounding decent enough in a short while, just for the sake of learning and confidence. But, if the OP is the kind that can deal with frustration and has their heart set on the violin then the OP will learn eventually and be happy once the frustration is all cleared up.
So, OP, I think it comes down to how committed you are to learning the instrument. Clearly it can be done, but if you are intending to be casual about it then perhaps it is not the best place to start.
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