Is it Too Late to Discover How to Play the Violin

Are you one of those people asking 'Is it too late to learn how to play the violin'? Perhaps you are worried that if you didn't begin an instrument at a very young age then you are never going to be a good player, or you simply wont pick up the skills fast enough.

Well in my experience as an instrumental teacher, yes, some children do learn a lot faster than adults. However this doesn't mean to say that adults don't learn quickly or cant learn an instrument in their more mature years. It simply means that the learning process is a little different.

With a good experienced teacher and player you should have no trouble in mastering the violin, providing that you do your daily practice!

There is one concern that I have when adults learn any instrument. If you can avoid this trap then your playing will develop a much stringer foundation:

Adults don't learn to read music as well as children do. Being a fluent sight reader is vital with any instrument. It allows you to play more confidently, learn more challenging music and play any piece of music you like. If you don't have this vital skill life can become difficult and you will have to rely on a teacher spoon feeding every single piece of music to you.

Why does this happen?

I think it is the fact that adults have much more developed ears and listening skills than children. So when they study a new piece of music they often pick it up by ear and memorize it, thus they don't need to read every single note on the page and in the long term their sight reading becomes a little poor. Children on the other hand often do not ave this kind of aural skill. They can't remember a whole piece so they are forced to read every note and as a side effect of this they become very good at reading music.

So if you are wondering if it is too late to learn how to play the violin. Then my answer is a resounding NO. It is never too late. You can learn now just as well as you did when you were 10. Just remember not to fall into the poor music reading / sight reading trap!