Learn To Play The Violin And Enjoy The Experience

If you have decided to learn to play the violin, you will know by now that you have set yourself quite a challenge. The Violin  can be difficult to learn to play well, but gets more rewarding the better you learn to play. You can learn to play the violin while in high school or later in life. Either way you will need violin lessons from an instructor, at least in the beginning. You need to be shown how to hold it in order to play violin properly and to show you which strings are for playing which notes. In addition you must also learn the proper way to hold and draw the bow. All this is even before you learn to read the music from the stand sitting in front of you which holds the violin music sheets.

Should you learn to play the violin or fiddle?

 When you learn to play the violin,you will choose between the two main styles of playing the instrument. One is  ‘country style’ and when you play in this style your violin will usually be called a fiddle. There is a physical difference with the instrument that most people are unaware of until they learn to play the violin, and that is when you’re playing country music on the “fiddle”, the instrument actually has a flat wooden bridge instead of a round bridge. The reason for this is that you actually hit two strings at the same time when you play country, and the flat bridge allows the bow to hit the two strings more easily.

The more well known style is ‘classical’. When you learn to play the violin in the classical style you are preparing to be able to play in an orchestra. The bridge in the “violin” is rounded, so it keeps you from hitting two strings at the same time, thus hitting the one string at a time required by the violin music.

Some people learn to play the violin in both styles

Some people will try to learn to play the violin in both styles but most often a person wants to master one style or the other. Although it isn’t always the rule that you have to play either classical or country. Some musicians may play classical while working in an orchestra, but because of family upbringing, may love the country style. These musicians usually have two instruments, one the violin and the other the fiddle.

Whichever style you choose the reward is worth it

Which ever style you prefer, starting to learn to play the violin is challenging, but with a really good teacher, it’s amazing what you can do. Practice at least three times a week, if not five days, and don’t give up. You’ll make some awful noises with your bow from time to time and wonder how the teacher can say, “Well done” . Just remember it is a learning process and one of the most rewarding things anybody can do is to learn to play the violin successfully.

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