Learning to Play  Violin: A Universe of Musical Knowledge

Yes, the violin carries the dubious distinction as the orchestra’s most difficult instrument, but as you take possession of the four-stringed demon, you must understand that it is just a wooden box with holes and strings.  You own it; you dominate it; you are smarter than the wood and the gut, and you will make music from this bedeviled thing you cradle beneath your chin.  Once you master the attitude, the rest is just learning and practice.  Yes, as you master learning to play the violin, you also will have to master yourself, finding precision to put your fingers exactly where they belong, to maintain your posture for producing perfect sound, and to keep practicing even when you would prefer walking through fire. You will discover, as you take command of your violin, it more and more willingly will give-up all its secrets, initiating you into the wonder of music and the orchestra.

Exercise great caution as you open the case of that bright and shiny new violin, because it contains not only a precious new instrument but also a whole universe of knowledge.  As you learn to play your new violin, you also will learn all about music history, music theory, pedagogy—that is, the art of fine instruction.  As you become proficient with plucking and bowing, you also will learn the rudiments of psychology, physics, woodworking, and textiles.  As you master the violin, you inevitably will learn not only to make music but also to read music and to appreciate melodies, harmonies, descants, counterpoints, and solos.  Most of all, in learning to play violin, you will learn about yourself, your motivation, and your determination. That small, innocent-looking lightweight case contains far more than a seductive little instrument; it holds an entire musical education.

 The violin, designed and built both for individual and for ensemble play, stands out as the orchestra’s most elite instrument.  You cannot believe it is just an accident or good luck that the principal violinist plays the tone by which the entire orchestra tunes as it prepares to perform.  You cannot imagine it is just coincidence that the principal violinist doubles as the orchestra’s back-up conductor.  The principal violinist, the one person who most completely has mastered the magic and mystery of this amazing instrument, naturally leads all the other musicians and their instruments through their many moods and melodies.  When you begin to study and learn to play the violin, you begin a journey that inevitably starts amid sounds far more like dying animals’ desperate screams than music, and which ultimately leads you all the way to performance of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces.  You will learn simple and chromatic violin scales in major and minor keys, you will learn to bow and pluck in all kinds of rhythms, and you will learn to make your instrument—and yourself—both cry and sing.  You cannot expect your study of the violin always will be easy, but you absolutely can depend on your lessons and practice always satisfying and rewarding your hard work.
 
As a great philosopher once said of baseball, so you will discover about the violin: It is hard.  It is extremely hard, and it is even more frustrating.  If it were easy, everyone would do it.  But it is the hard that makes it great.  When you master you violin, you will command…, and you will earn your place …

Be patient.  As you take your glistening new violin from its case, you begin a process which will challenge your patience and persistence as it teases and engages your intellect, imagination, and all five senses.  As you take your violin from its case, you may not even know the proper way to hold it or the right way to tune it; you may have no idea how tight to set the strings or how to adjust the bow.  The instrument does not make beautiful melodies right out of the box; but, even from the first tentative squeak of your fingers across the strings, you and your instrument have potential to dazzle, beguile, and delight.