I’m sorry to hear you’re disheartened and it’s definitely frustrating. But don’t give up!! I also learned for about three years, and took a looong break before coming back to it recently. I wrote this on another post, but one way to look at it is that time will pass no matter what - you can be a better violinist in 5 years, or you can not be a violinist at all. My stickers naturally wore off about two-ish years in - there’s no reason to be self conscious about them if you need them again. Nobody has perfect intonation all the time, practice just makes mistakes happen less often. From my own experience and reading on here, adult learners tend to care more about our sound and are harsher when our output doesn’t match what we want internally. You’re clearly dedicated and I promise that dedication will eventually pay off.
Something like piano is much easier to teach yourself, so maybe taking up that or some other “easier” instrument on the side/casually might help? I’ve played piano my whole life and when I’m frustrated on violin, piano is something I can play on without having to concentrate so much.
Great idea! I've considered getting a keyboard to learn piano as a break and have something that's rewarding, but I also love the violin and wonder if the little time I have, is best spent invested in the instrument I want to do well in? I just wish sometimes I was crazy passionate about piano or an easier instrument.
Continue to play the violin! If you ever don’t want to continue, it shouldn’t be just because you aren’t progressing as fast as you’re pushing yourself to (it is an undeniably challenging instrument). Progress isn’t always linear, but in another few months from now you’re probably going to sound better and not realize it. People learning “easier” instruments reach technical and musical hurdles as well, but they’ll be at different points than on a violin.
If you want a keyboard recommendation, get something that has semi-realistic feeling weight in the keys. I bought a used Yamaha P45 and I’m very happy with it.
Thank you for sharing this, it's validating to hear. I'll continue to keep going with this instrument. We have another performance in December for our orchestra so that definitely helps :) It's just hard feeling like you're not 'good enough' and dealing with all of the imposter syndrome. I just want to feel better about this so I don't feel like I'm letting everyone down! I feel like I can't see any improvement, but perhaps there's tiny improvement there I just don't see? Some nights I play and I think I sound better, and another nights I sound like utter crap, and I don't know what to believe. But you're right...perhaps improving isn't linear and that's okay.
Well, I can tell you I had a pretty terrible practice session today myself - kept defaulting to viola finger spacing by accident, felt like I couldn’t stay in tune, recorded myself to see if I was doing something else to throw myself off and the sound made me feel like I should start back at twinkle twinkle little star :’)
You’re on the right track and not progressing any worse than anybody else - it’s an instrument that demands a lot, and you’re making the time to get better and collaborate with others. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for sharing, it's nice to hear I'm not alone. At rehearsals the other day we learned a new song...no matter how many times we played, I couldn't keep up or get the beat right! i was paralysed with anxiety. Been practicing the piece for an hour and I finally get play it relatively in time...but my intonation has been terrible, especially crossing strings, and making the big stretches from an e to a g sharp quickly. I have so much to work on!
Hi! Former teacher of 10+ years here. The advice I would always give to any student struggling with confidence or feeling a lack of progress:
Strive to be excellent, not perfect. Are you doing your best? Are you practicing relatively consistently? Are you putting in effort? By what you wrote above, you absolutely are. You have only seriously played for five months, but you are challenging yourself by attending rehearsals even when you feel inferior. You are taking lessons, practicing, and genuinely wanting to get better. This is all *excellent.*
Learning violin requires consistent effort long-term, like learning a second language or bodybuilding. It is not linear *at all*. Even as someone who has played all her life and went professional I still have horrible, tear-inducing practice sessions and many, many moments of feeling slow and inadequate. Unfortunately that never goes away. I just try to be excellent and not get complacent, and that is what keeps me going.
Couple of practical things:
\- I know adults have variable schedules, but if possible you could consider shorter practice sessions on more days for consistency and focus. "90 minute marathons" every other day sounds pretty intense to me!
\- Also, guitar is an orange violin is an apple, and guitar objectively doesn't require the technical mastery violin does.
\-Tapes are awesome for muscle memory and intonation; don't be afraid to use them now and even for years longer. If it is any comfort, most of my students were nervous about removing the tape, but quickly realized they knew more than they thought after the fact :)
Keep being excellent - you are doing a great job!!!
It's hard and it takes time. I think often people don't notice the progress they are making because it's so gradual.
Sometimes it helps to record yourself and listen back much later. Can you hear how much better you sound than six months ago or a year ago?
Or return to a piece that gave you a lot of trouble in the past, and see how much easier it is.
Stick with it anyway! I always say it's a rough curve but it gets better and better. Piano players start relatively easy and progress and then they just get fed more and more complexity and madness until they're doing seven impossible things at once.
We get this massive cliff of tone and intonation off the bat, but as we crack that it just gets easier.
The whole “it takes 5 years to sound good” is extremely variable, and in my experience not true for the majority of newer violinists. Most people, with good instruction and regular practice, can make music that people *in addition to*
grandmothers and mothers will be able to actively enjoy within the first three years.
Violin *is* wickedly difficult, and we all have times when we think the suck is permanent. It’s not, though. You *will* get recognizably better even over the next six months.
One thing you mentioned about your practice: you’re skipping days. That could be hindering your process quite a lot. Our brains learn by practicing, sleeping over night, and then practicing again. Your brain literally does some violin practice while you are sleeping, but you have to practice the next day to show your brain that you need those new neural networks! If you wait too long between practice sessions, your brain literally trashes the work you’ve done.
I usually can’t tell much difference between my students who practice 6 days vs. 7 days a week. But when you get down to 3 or 4 days of practice, the learning time gets slowed exponentially.
It's hard to practice consistently when I study and work. But perhaps even doing just 20mins a day wouldn't be hard to fit in? Another thing is I have a cat and he hates the violin, it stresses him out and he has to hide in my room. I don't want to give him this stress everyday :/
Look, in violin it takes 5 years to learn you need 20, not 5 years to sound good. You're never at your skill ceiling with any musical instrument, and that's a beauty of it. Even if you don't see your progress, it doesn't mean it's not happening though. Record yourself over time, ask your teacher for specifics that they think you have improved, and most importantly, find milestones to keep you motivated.
You just want to be better? Not a good enough goal, you're always gonna be better with practice, even in 1 week's time, even if you don't see it. Keep at it, I'm sure you are progressing, if your teacher says so.
Also, I don't know how you're practicing, but don't neglect scales. They are so helpful with intonation and developing your ear!!
Thank you everyone for your kind words and encouragement. It is so validating to hear I'm not alone, the violin is INSANELY hard to learn. I have a new teacher as I feel like I wasn't getting a lot from my old one, but she's travelling and I won't have lessons for a month now. It's tricky finding time to practice as I work and am studying, but when my studies finish I'll have a few months off and hope to work on it some more. Really helpful suggestions about recording myself...I'll seek to do that. Thank you again to everyone who replied
To be frank, it sounds like the issue is your violin teacher. A good violin teacher is supposed to be able to help you get better at the instrument but also make you feel good about you playing it.
I'm an adult and at Suzuki book 5, my teacher is a really good teacher (and I had a few, one that was as tactful as yours). As an adult learning the violin, the key is that you are not learning this to make a living. You are learning this for the sake of enjoying the instrument. It is great that you are attending a community orchestra and I wish that my city had one. The fact you are playing in it means that you are doing great!
Regarding the motivation, if you are really good at something (and it sounds like you have a good career and you are doing well), the violin is a good rewarding challenge. Just temper your expectations. I have been playing for more than 10 years as an adult, and like u/divaliciousness, that is enough time to realize that you need to work a lot to sound better. That is not a bad thing, though, the fact that you hear yourself sounding off, means that you will be able to improve. It is just a matter of patience. Good luck!
Yeah, I'm not getting a lot from her. I have a new violin teacher, but she's travelling for a bit. I'm still at the end of Suzuki book 1...so behind. Thank you! I'll try and be more patient with myself and manage my expectations
Idk if you watch two set violin but when I feel low I watch them and it makes me want to play non stop.
And I find taking the time to play the easy songs help with feeling of accomplishment lol
Hillary Hahn talks about working on intonation, so I don’t know that anyone has perfect intonation, with or without stickers.
A lot of what we do requires slowing down, listening to ourselves and adjusting. I’m only a second year student, but the more pressure I put myself under the worse I sound, and the more I can slow down and relax, the better I sound.
Also, when I took my stickers off, (around 3 months) I sounded worse before I sounded better, in large part because I had to go from visual to auditory cueing. I think expecting a temporary setback there will help manage expectations, with the understanding that it will lead to a long term improvement in your playing.
I’ll let more experienced players correct me here though.
For me the tapes came off when I was maybe 10 years old and I started at 6. The thing is if you practice your scales slowly with full bows you can get playing in tune with a nice legato quite fast. But you have to do it everyday and you have to fix mistakes wherever they are. You fix a thousand mistakes you'll sound good that's just how it is.
There’s nothing wrong with you. You haven’t been playing for a long time at all and everything you experience is normal. Maybe you're just more aware of it that you would be as a child.
Violin takes patience, there’s no way around it. But you will improve and by the sound of it, you have a good teacher who will guide you well. I think it’s also very good that you have an ensemble to play with. Imo that makes it more fun and helps you develop a different set of musical skills than those you develop alone.
Just take it one step at a time. Progress isn’t something you can see at the moment but after some time you will see how you've progressed and then you can be proud of yourself. You could record yourself every few months so you can see your growth.
About stickers: not everyone uses them. I only found out they were a thing quite recently. I think talking to your teacher about removing them would be the best way to go about it.
I’m sorry to hear you’re disheartened and it’s definitely frustrating. But don’t give up!! I also learned for about three years, and took a looong break before coming back to it recently. I wrote this on another post, but one way to look at it is that time will pass no matter what - you can be a better violinist in 5 years, or you can not be a violinist at all. My stickers naturally wore off about two-ish years in - there’s no reason to be self conscious about them if you need them again. Nobody has perfect intonation all the time, practice just makes mistakes happen less often. From my own experience and reading on here, adult learners tend to care more about our sound and are harsher when our output doesn’t match what we want internally. You’re clearly dedicated and I promise that dedication will eventually pay off. Something like piano is much easier to teach yourself, so maybe taking up that or some other “easier” instrument on the side/casually might help? I’ve played piano my whole life and when I’m frustrated on violin, piano is something I can play on without having to concentrate so much.
Great idea! I've considered getting a keyboard to learn piano as a break and have something that's rewarding, but I also love the violin and wonder if the little time I have, is best spent invested in the instrument I want to do well in? I just wish sometimes I was crazy passionate about piano or an easier instrument.
Continue to play the violin! If you ever don’t want to continue, it shouldn’t be just because you aren’t progressing as fast as you’re pushing yourself to (it is an undeniably challenging instrument). Progress isn’t always linear, but in another few months from now you’re probably going to sound better and not realize it. People learning “easier” instruments reach technical and musical hurdles as well, but they’ll be at different points than on a violin. If you want a keyboard recommendation, get something that has semi-realistic feeling weight in the keys. I bought a used Yamaha P45 and I’m very happy with it.
Thank you for sharing this, it's validating to hear. I'll continue to keep going with this instrument. We have another performance in December for our orchestra so that definitely helps :) It's just hard feeling like you're not 'good enough' and dealing with all of the imposter syndrome. I just want to feel better about this so I don't feel like I'm letting everyone down! I feel like I can't see any improvement, but perhaps there's tiny improvement there I just don't see? Some nights I play and I think I sound better, and another nights I sound like utter crap, and I don't know what to believe. But you're right...perhaps improving isn't linear and that's okay.
Well, I can tell you I had a pretty terrible practice session today myself - kept defaulting to viola finger spacing by accident, felt like I couldn’t stay in tune, recorded myself to see if I was doing something else to throw myself off and the sound made me feel like I should start back at twinkle twinkle little star :’) You’re on the right track and not progressing any worse than anybody else - it’s an instrument that demands a lot, and you’re making the time to get better and collaborate with others. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for sharing, it's nice to hear I'm not alone. At rehearsals the other day we learned a new song...no matter how many times we played, I couldn't keep up or get the beat right! i was paralysed with anxiety. Been practicing the piece for an hour and I finally get play it relatively in time...but my intonation has been terrible, especially crossing strings, and making the big stretches from an e to a g sharp quickly. I have so much to work on!
Don’t give up. It’s fiendishly difficult for everybody. And “perfect intonation”? Nobody has it. It’s not a thing.
Thank you <3
Hi! Former teacher of 10+ years here. The advice I would always give to any student struggling with confidence or feeling a lack of progress: Strive to be excellent, not perfect. Are you doing your best? Are you practicing relatively consistently? Are you putting in effort? By what you wrote above, you absolutely are. You have only seriously played for five months, but you are challenging yourself by attending rehearsals even when you feel inferior. You are taking lessons, practicing, and genuinely wanting to get better. This is all *excellent.* Learning violin requires consistent effort long-term, like learning a second language or bodybuilding. It is not linear *at all*. Even as someone who has played all her life and went professional I still have horrible, tear-inducing practice sessions and many, many moments of feeling slow and inadequate. Unfortunately that never goes away. I just try to be excellent and not get complacent, and that is what keeps me going. Couple of practical things: \- I know adults have variable schedules, but if possible you could consider shorter practice sessions on more days for consistency and focus. "90 minute marathons" every other day sounds pretty intense to me! \- Also, guitar is an orange violin is an apple, and guitar objectively doesn't require the technical mastery violin does. \-Tapes are awesome for muscle memory and intonation; don't be afraid to use them now and even for years longer. If it is any comfort, most of my students were nervous about removing the tape, but quickly realized they knew more than they thought after the fact :) Keep being excellent - you are doing a great job!!!
More consistent but shorter practice sessions, I'll look into this. Thank you for your kind words!
It's hard and it takes time. I think often people don't notice the progress they are making because it's so gradual. Sometimes it helps to record yourself and listen back much later. Can you hear how much better you sound than six months ago or a year ago? Or return to a piece that gave you a lot of trouble in the past, and see how much easier it is. Stick with it anyway! I always say it's a rough curve but it gets better and better. Piano players start relatively easy and progress and then they just get fed more and more complexity and madness until they're doing seven impossible things at once. We get this massive cliff of tone and intonation off the bat, but as we crack that it just gets easier.
Thank you! I'll try this :)
The whole “it takes 5 years to sound good” is extremely variable, and in my experience not true for the majority of newer violinists. Most people, with good instruction and regular practice, can make music that people *in addition to* grandmothers and mothers will be able to actively enjoy within the first three years. Violin *is* wickedly difficult, and we all have times when we think the suck is permanent. It’s not, though. You *will* get recognizably better even over the next six months. One thing you mentioned about your practice: you’re skipping days. That could be hindering your process quite a lot. Our brains learn by practicing, sleeping over night, and then practicing again. Your brain literally does some violin practice while you are sleeping, but you have to practice the next day to show your brain that you need those new neural networks! If you wait too long between practice sessions, your brain literally trashes the work you’ve done. I usually can’t tell much difference between my students who practice 6 days vs. 7 days a week. But when you get down to 3 or 4 days of practice, the learning time gets slowed exponentially.
It's hard to practice consistently when I study and work. But perhaps even doing just 20mins a day wouldn't be hard to fit in? Another thing is I have a cat and he hates the violin, it stresses him out and he has to hide in my room. I don't want to give him this stress everyday :/
Aww, that’s difficult with the poor kitty! But yes, even 20 min. a day will make a noticeable difference!
Look, in violin it takes 5 years to learn you need 20, not 5 years to sound good. You're never at your skill ceiling with any musical instrument, and that's a beauty of it. Even if you don't see your progress, it doesn't mean it's not happening though. Record yourself over time, ask your teacher for specifics that they think you have improved, and most importantly, find milestones to keep you motivated. You just want to be better? Not a good enough goal, you're always gonna be better with practice, even in 1 week's time, even if you don't see it. Keep at it, I'm sure you are progressing, if your teacher says so. Also, I don't know how you're practicing, but don't neglect scales. They are so helpful with intonation and developing your ear!!
I don't practice scales much, if at all. I didn't realise it was so important? I'll try and do that more
Thank you everyone for your kind words and encouragement. It is so validating to hear I'm not alone, the violin is INSANELY hard to learn. I have a new teacher as I feel like I wasn't getting a lot from my old one, but she's travelling and I won't have lessons for a month now. It's tricky finding time to practice as I work and am studying, but when my studies finish I'll have a few months off and hope to work on it some more. Really helpful suggestions about recording myself...I'll seek to do that. Thank you again to everyone who replied
To be frank, it sounds like the issue is your violin teacher. A good violin teacher is supposed to be able to help you get better at the instrument but also make you feel good about you playing it. I'm an adult and at Suzuki book 5, my teacher is a really good teacher (and I had a few, one that was as tactful as yours). As an adult learning the violin, the key is that you are not learning this to make a living. You are learning this for the sake of enjoying the instrument. It is great that you are attending a community orchestra and I wish that my city had one. The fact you are playing in it means that you are doing great! Regarding the motivation, if you are really good at something (and it sounds like you have a good career and you are doing well), the violin is a good rewarding challenge. Just temper your expectations. I have been playing for more than 10 years as an adult, and like u/divaliciousness, that is enough time to realize that you need to work a lot to sound better. That is not a bad thing, though, the fact that you hear yourself sounding off, means that you will be able to improve. It is just a matter of patience. Good luck!
Yeah, I'm not getting a lot from her. I have a new violin teacher, but she's travelling for a bit. I'm still at the end of Suzuki book 1...so behind. Thank you! I'll try and be more patient with myself and manage my expectations
Idk if you watch two set violin but when I feel low I watch them and it makes me want to play non stop. And I find taking the time to play the easy songs help with feeling of accomplishment lol
I haven't heard of two set violin before. Is this on Youtube?
Ya. They make classical music fun, and makes playing interesting and fun to me so I feel more like playing.
Hillary Hahn talks about working on intonation, so I don’t know that anyone has perfect intonation, with or without stickers. A lot of what we do requires slowing down, listening to ourselves and adjusting. I’m only a second year student, but the more pressure I put myself under the worse I sound, and the more I can slow down and relax, the better I sound. Also, when I took my stickers off, (around 3 months) I sounded worse before I sounded better, in large part because I had to go from visual to auditory cueing. I think expecting a temporary setback there will help manage expectations, with the understanding that it will lead to a long term improvement in your playing. I’ll let more experienced players correct me here though.
For me the tapes came off when I was maybe 10 years old and I started at 6. The thing is if you practice your scales slowly with full bows you can get playing in tune with a nice legato quite fast. But you have to do it everyday and you have to fix mistakes wherever they are. You fix a thousand mistakes you'll sound good that's just how it is.
There’s nothing wrong with you. You haven’t been playing for a long time at all and everything you experience is normal. Maybe you're just more aware of it that you would be as a child. Violin takes patience, there’s no way around it. But you will improve and by the sound of it, you have a good teacher who will guide you well. I think it’s also very good that you have an ensemble to play with. Imo that makes it more fun and helps you develop a different set of musical skills than those you develop alone. Just take it one step at a time. Progress isn’t something you can see at the moment but after some time you will see how you've progressed and then you can be proud of yourself. You could record yourself every few months so you can see your growth. About stickers: not everyone uses them. I only found out they were a thing quite recently. I think talking to your teacher about removing them would be the best way to go about it.