Hi all,

I am just really starting out on my violin playing journey. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with playing. At the age of 6, my class were marched out to do some finger exercises on the piano. After which 5 of us were loaned a violin and put into a class and the rest were given a recorder. I felt a bit special having a violin and for a brief time enjoyed classes with a lovely man with endless patience. Very sadly he died after just a few weeks and classes with a scary man commenced. I think he assumed we knew more than 'how to hold the violin and bow so it was a bit like he was talking a foreign language. Everybody dropped out pretty quickly except me. Mostly because I was too scared to tell him. Eventually after weeks of getting very stressed and anxious, I left with a bit of a violin phobia. 

Fast forward a few (Lots of) years and my step daughter came home with a violin. It brought back some tough memories and being the stubborn creature that I am, I decided to face my demons and get myself a student violin and have another bash. I managed to scratch out a few tunes (by ear as I never learned to read music) Obviously I quickly realised that the violin itself wasn't scary and slowly began to fall back in love. However I have learned that I should try to walk before I can run and am going right back to basics in the hope that one day some nice sounds may emerge from my violin. I have already found some useful tips on this forum and hope someday to be able to contribute with my experiences.