Ever known anyone to teach themselves the violin?

Question:I learned to play the guitar by fiddling around with it for a few years and using the internet as a guide. My friend has a violin that hes going to give me because he could care less about learning how to play it. I was wondering if it would be more difficult to teach yourself to play the violin than the same with the guitar?
Would knowing a good bit on guitar be a strong start for learning the violin?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I learned to play the guitar by fiddling around with it for a few years and using the internet as a guide. My friend has a violin that hes going to give me because he could care less about learning how to play it. I was wondering if it would be more difficult to teach yourself to play the violin than the same with the guitar?
Would knowing a good bit on guitar be a strong start for learning the violin?

*laughs*

If you teach yourself to play violin you'll most likely never get it right. It's not like guitar where the frets show you where notes are and there are a ton of lessons online and such. It would be tremendously more difficult.

You have to know how to hold the bow, where the place the bow, where to place your fingers, know if they are in tune or not, know the strings...tuning is a lot different, you can't just turn the peg, you need friction and it's hard (and really freaky) for a beginner to tune his own violin, it always feels like it's going to snap.

And the thing is, you might think you have that all down, but you probably don't. Professionals still find mistakes in their playing that is taught to them at an early age. Your bow has to be close to the bridge, your left hand can't be against the neck, where is your thumb? Is your right thumb bent?

And then if you don't know how to read music, you have to figure that out. And then once you have all of that down, you get to change positions and learn your finger placement all over again!

And I've only touched a little bit on the beginnings of how to play =D

I hope this isn't freaking you out, but it's a ton easier with a teacher there, knowing what pace you should learn and they can point out any errors you have.

And knowing the guitar would be a good start for learning the violin, you know notes, you have good callouses, you know a bit about strings.

I would go for it! But get a private lesson teacher or maybe someone from your school. If you're in college, students are willing to get paid at a very cheap good price to teach someone else. For high/middle school as the music director.

Hope that helped!

my cousin also the piano guitar drums and bass

Okay, so I taught myself to play the Violin, Viola, Cello, Guitar and drums. Alright, now...as for knowing a bit about guitar...I would say that knowing more on violin would help immensely with the guitar, but with guitar to violin? I suppose that it'll help a little, but you are going to have to be a lot more accurate about your fingerings on the violin, because on guitar everything is already mapped out for you. The violin however, will be a little more difficult because there are no frets. Just do your best and keep with it, the rewards are well worth the effort.

Actually, I played the guitar before I started viola, and let me tell you, they aren't very related at all.
Teaching yourself violin will be extremely difficult, because chances are (and this isn't an insult), unless you're super gifted, you will teach yourself incorrectly; there's a lot more to bowed strings than guitar.

Bowed string instruments have different positions, and you'll need to think of each string and where sharps and flats are (like, the first finger [in Position 1] on E String is F#, but the first on A string is B natural, so each string is a different scale, sorta).
Plus, you'll need to learn to bow correctly, which isn't as easy as it seems; plus if you do tremolos wrong, you can hurt your arm.

I really would recommend getting lessons. Good luck!

i basically taught myself, but its not a good idea, when i went to a private teacher, she said my technique was off, even though i sounded good.