Thank you and best wish to you

So from Brazil, country having the best wood, pernumbuco, for bow, so amazing!

I think it's possible for self teaching as long as you define your scope.

For me, it's non-classical and would be some contemporary, popular music playing.

I am just about 4-5 month learning and I already get my intonation error within 3-5 cents in 1st position, managed to produce a wrist vibrato fairly easy, but it's doesn't have the depth and controlled frequency, so back to the beginning with fiddlerman with the basic, which is so WONDERFUL, the very best instruction out there. With that I also manage to do shifting back and forth between 1st, 3rd and 4th position.

With that much time into learning violin, I also do lot of research and I'm able to do some basic setup to my violins, making bridges and set correct dimension for bridge placement, thickness(for tonal adjustment), tailpiece/tailgut length, after string length, which my local repair shops refuses to do. The result is my violin strings are singing with lot of sustain/resonance/warm/depth. Not the very best yet, of course, but I'm so happy with it.

Violin is such a wonderful and amazing instrument the more I get to know about and it's such a experience for me.

Best wish to you and thank you for your encourage.

Robert

Thank you, HatefulPain, PaTooDoNaLD and cdennyb. Best wishes to you all.

"We're all one big global family that is so passionate about playing and helping each other". I really appreciate it as it's such a motive for learning. You don't know how much it means to me. I was "bowing" alone in the dark without any formal lesson or advise (oh well, I do have light on just to check my tuner...haha).

And to answer another thread, I'm an old fart (will be 53 in just few months) that just happens to recover from some serious crisis (health is one of them) which just allows me physically to start learning violin. It's also a form of meditation and exercise for retraining my brain of dedicate motion control.

@PaTooDoNaLD, teaching yourself is hard but I think it's possible if it fulfill your goal.

If you and others promise not to laugh and YELL at me then I like to share my learning method, for positive criticism and advise.

Without any formal lesson and advise I've just devised a method for teaching myself as my goal would be playing violin with some simple melodies (similar to Amazing Grace for example) at first, maybe some advance/technical challenged pieces later.

It may sound strange to you about my method (it does to me though) but to make it simple for my learning, there is no music sheet reading/no tune/no song, no tempo to follow (as I think carrying a smaller and lighter bag is a lot easier- divide and conquer, maybe). I spent those 5 months practicing violin with some basic improvisations (I had little music background from playing other instruments, including a couple that are based on non-tempered scales) of a scale (natural E-minor to be exact, as most of my would be playing melodies are written in that key) without thinking much about them musically, as long as I cover all fingers positions at 1st violin position with my chromatic tuner for correct pitch. That allow me to concentrate on controlling my violin to produce "good sounds" as I can pause, stop, rewind, fast forward (...haha) to correct for intonation, fingering, bowing mistakes etc.. Left hand for intonation and vibrato, and right hand for bowing speed, pressure, contact points as well as other techniques.

As the basic puzzle is closer and closer to complete then I will be more comfortably playing some tunes. I am so amazed looking at my violin though, as there were not any instrument which I bear in that much time without a tune/song. But it sounds so beautiful just to listen to it the more I play, so amazing instrument !!!

@cdennyb, 

"I too do part time work for an established luthier and have learned a great many tricks and techniques for making the violins perform to their very best. I even take it one step further and do a sound analysis to compare modifications and see which are improving the acoustics. Numbers never lie…"

I was almost dying for that sound analysis techniques as there are "bugs" in my violin (that two of the established violin makers' luthiers refused to resolve/gave me incorrect advises/answers. I ended up take the challenge myself and finally got it resolved, mostly). If you gave it to me a few month ago then it would be like god sent. It still would be though as I would love to learn about it, would be another very interesting project. I need to spent time for practicing first...haha.

I appreciate your tips/tricks sharing/sending toward my way and I definitely will learn a lot from your skill/experience and I am sure I will have lot of questions for you. Thank you so much in advance.

Best wished to you all,

Robert

Thank you, Pierre!

Very much appreciated. Those certainly cleared everything up.

I've just watch your vid introducing the Zyex strings and that is so good to hear them. I've searched and read a lot about them as I am looking for strings that replace my current Vision and Tonica. Something that is fuller, warmer and sweeter.

And yet, your shop have the very best price I've ever seen as they usually go for about $50-60. I head up there to get it real soon.

Thanks again for answering my questions.

Best wishes,

Robert