Fiddlerman said:

Learning speeds vary tremendously. It depends on:

• How much and often you work at it.  gordon said,not too much time.
• What you do when you practice, play. Quality vs quantity.  gordon says follow a set goal for practice.
• Type of guidance you receive or find.  gordon has a teatcher and lots of people here.
• Your mind set.  gordon said duh? what can you expect from a 71 year old just starting.
• And talent. gordon said none found, only trying because I love the music.

I was given a fiddle 11/02/2011 with a bad fine tuner on it, corrected after two weeks, I had no lessons to that point. 

Towards the end of November I had a lesson, then bought another bow, and 11/30/2011 I traded that fiddle.  I found another that was much better to hold the neck and my hand fit it better.

I have now had two lessons and make such horrible screeching sounds that all the neighborhood cats keep a distance from the house.

I do not get much time to practice, but when I do I try to set down and concentrate on what I am doing and make it correct, I have a teacher and the all the countless people here on Fiddlerman.

I fell in love with classical music when I started to sing in a chorus. It certainly was a great experience and still is. We used to sing accapella and with orchestras. Right there, from all the instruments that were being played, the violin was making eyes at me

So In August last year I made up my mind and bought a violin. It felt great when placed it on my shoulder and grabbed the bow. Of course I would only make the open strings sound hahaha.

Back then, it was sort of a hard task to find a violin teacher so I went in youtube and searched for violin tutorials. That is how I ran into Fiddlerman's site .

Now during all searching I found very interesting music styles for violin and fiddle like bluegrass and the Irish.

The greatest thing that will always amaze me is that I could play "barely", two tunes only using youtube . I do not know whether I have the talent for this instrument but I am very passionate about it.

Right now I am focused on practising and improving my bowing, my tone production and my left hand techniques. Although I cannot practise for that long otherwise my neighbors will join forces to kick me out hahahahaha

I believe that, you can excel at anything if you really have a strong will and your mind set on where you want to go.

Juan.