Hello @Kahlya ,

Welcome to the violin and to the forum! You will find much to enjoy.

The Suzuki books could be good for self-learners because there is a great deal of material available on youtube to go along with them. You can watch tutorials from violin teachers and watch many people play the pieces. Having said that, I do not really recommend learning completely through self-learning.

I also played piano and brass (trumpet) before coming to violin, and the violin is a very different instrument. All instruments take tremendous work to master, but the violin can take a long time before you can sound good playing a very simple song. You can play Twinkle in tune on the piano very soon after you start learning, but it can take months to really learn Twinkle properly on the violin. Also, there are so many things about holding the violin that it is all too easy to pick up bad habits early on that will make it difficult for you to play the instrument. It is much more difficult to unlearn bad habits than to learn the correct way in the first place. Far better to start out with some lessons with a teacher. I wish I had done that, instead of trying to teach myself at the beginning. Now I am taking lessons once a month from a teacher, and my progress is much better.

Now, you will find people on this forum and elsewhere who can prove me wrong. They taught themselves using youtube and similar videos, and within a few months they are playing concertos and other challenging pieces very beautifully. Maybe you can do this too. But on the other hand, maybe you will be like me and will learn things incorrectly by yourself and will then face much frustration trying to unlearn the bad habits and learn correctly. You won't really know which experience you'll have until you try, and by that time you may have developed some bad habits to unlearn.

For this reason, I really suggest you start out at least by scheduling a few lessons. You can always drop them to once a month later, or drop them altogether if you find that they are not helping. But in my opinion it is well worth the cost to get started properly. A teacher will provide the feedback that you will not get from youtube.

If you live in an area where it is impossible to find a teacher, you might look into online lessons using skype, etc. And yes, posting videos on this forum will also give you a certain amount of feedback. You can cut your upper head out of the video if you like, but it is helpful to show the rest of your body if you want to get fuller feedback, so people can see how you are holding the instrument and moving the bow. But a teacher will give you more focuses and individualized attention that will benefit you greatly at the start.