Can i learn to play violin on net tutorials?

My daughter has played violin since she was in 4th grade - it is an exceptionally difficult instrument to learn. She has an undeniable gift for it - but still required a good teacher, and PRACTICE. I attribute the steep learning curve to the fact that this tiny, delicate instrument is simultaneously capable of generating the most beautiful sounds imaginable - and also the most nerve-grating racket this side of a cat in heat having its claws drug across a chalkboard. Without careful study and dedicated practice, the latter is pretty much all you are going to get out of it.

It can take you HOURS upon hours of struggling with videos, to end up sounding like you are torturing rodents, when a half-hour to an hour a week LESSON with a good teacher will give you excellent results. There are no short-cuts by staying home and self-struggling; the best and fastest way to get competent - then REALLY good - it s to work with a fine teacher. Period. No other way, despite what whining children and disgruntled amateurs say.

Everyone is capable of playing violin. I'm not sure where the myth that you have to find out if you have talent before you take lessons got started, but I have had numerous prospective students, after asking me about my rates, tell me the shop recommended they "start with Youtube" before deciding if they want lessons. Here's the thing. If a teacher is actually capable enough to teach in-person lessons, which is an on-going weekly source of income, why would they provide video tutorials instead? It is economically foolish to do so. I can understand live online lessons, but video tutorials, especially free video tutorials, provide little to no return on investment. The teacher also never gets the joy of hearing students perform and watching them progress, which means people who make these videos likely lack the passion to teach. Most of these videos I have seen are very dry and contain too much talking or simply a performance with no explanation. In a few of them, the technique they are teaching is absolutely terrible. The exceptions are those made to promote a studio by giving a sample of what you will learn, in which case even the maker of the video expects you to find a teacher (hopefully them) and pay for lessons. These videos are fine for supplementing lessons. I use them myself sometimes in search of an alternative way of explaining something to a student who just does not seem to understand me. My favorite is Loralyn Staples of Red Desert Violin. However, if you are not taking lessons, you have no filter to understand whether or not what you are seeing in the video is correct or if it is just some random amateur making a video. You can be led astray so easily. Learning the violin is necessarily a two-way process, anyway. No one has enough short term memory to simultaneously consider left hand position, left elbow position, fingering patterns, vibrato, right hand grip, right hand pressure, right arm speed, right wrist/hand/elbow/shoulder coordination, bow placement, sounding point, composer/period/style, key signature, time signature, tempo, rhythm, and intonation all at the same time. When you try, you inevitably forget something. Forget it long enough, it will always be wrong because your muscles will get used to the wrong way of doing it. The purpose of the teacher is to demonstrate proper technique and constantly correct yours. I do mean constantly, because that is what you will need for years. Every time you learn a new skill, the old bad habits will try to come back. You need someone to evaluate that and keep you in check. I encounter a lot of students on here who claim they have perfect technique after playing for (pick a single-digit number of) years. I guarantee you they are mistaken, without ever hearing them play. In my twenty-two years of experience, which has included membership in seven different orchestras and a few smaller ensembles, I have never met anyone with less than ten years of lessons behind them whose technique is anywhere close to flawless. I have met hundreds of talented violinists. Not one of them claimed to be self taught. Those who provide video tutorials are misleading those with limited resources but a strong desire to play the violin. Those who charge for it are nothing short of con artists.

To give you one example. A boy bought a violin and it came with a tuner and a cake of rosin. He read that you needed to rosin the bow. He thought he was rosining the bow. No one told him how to break in rosin, or that you needed to tighten the bow or how much to tighten it. He could not get hardly any sound. Then he tried to tune the violin. The strings kept slipping and he broke $8 worth of strings. He bought the new strings and could not figure out how to put them on correctly. After several tries he got them to stay. but the bridge fell over. He put the violin away for a few weeks and tried again. While setting up the bridge and trying to tune he broke another string and the bridge. It cost $40 to get a new bridge and have it fitted to the violin. He really wanted to play the violin so he started taking lessons. It was not easy but did pretty good.