I'd very much appreciate suggestions on how to play the violin with very large hands/fingers.  I've posted a couple times before and received valuable help, so I thought I'd go to the well again.  I've just been playing/learning violin for 9 weeks; I have extra large hands and fingers and my fingers, no matter how tightly I squeeze them together, won't fit where they should unless I lift one or the other fingers.

My teacher keeps suggesting I switch to the viola; I played his for several days and it is clearly much easier for me, but it's a very sad/melancholy sound, and I really want to play the violin.  I know there are very talented violinists with large fingers and I'd very much like to know how they do/did it.  Is it merely by not keeping two fingers next to each other at the same time; how do they play double stops where one finger is on one string and the other string is open (my fingers can't just touch one string at a time).  To be clear, I don't have Shrek hands, but clearly they don't fit the violin easily.

What should I be doing/focusing on?  Any tips to make it easier to find the right location without using immediate proximity of another finger?  Thanks!

Springer – that's an interesting idea.  But my problem isn't with the size of the strings as much as it is about size of the fingerboard and how close the half-steps are to one another.  I only have this problem when playing half-steps.

And the viola I borrowed was 16.5" (significantly larger than the 4/4 violin); the viola fingerboard was a perfect fit for me.

MYGUITARNOW – thank you so much!  When I first went to the link I started laughing at the picture of fat franks on the bbq,  and thinking you were just being funny.  Fortunately, before I left the site I glanced at the header and saw this is actually a site/forum topic that addresses my question.  Can't wait to read through it; thanks again!!!

That sounds very cool!  If I could get the playability of a viola and a sound closer to the violin,,, man, best of both worlds, with maybe a bit warmer sound.  Can't wait to try it out!  Thanks everyone!

FM, I look forward to finding out if there's a violin E string that works on a viola.  Wait though,,,, I don't know much yet about the viola, but what do I use as a C string???

Well, my viola 'E' string arrived last week!  I re-strung the viola (16.5") as a violin, and it seemed to work fine and it sounded pretty nice, but not a viola and not a violin (or any that I'd heard before, lol).  But after a week of playing it, I decided to re-focus on the violin, and am much happier/comfortable with it.

I was going to vid/record it and upload it so you could hear it, but I was so disappointed in the outcome I forgot to do it before I returned my viola to the shop.  I don't know if it's because I'm so new to the violin and too inexperienced and was just not ready for the "experiment", or if because I'm so new, I just feel a strong connection/comfort with my violin, despite the fingering accommodations I have to make for it to work.

Anyway, it was an experience!