Hi, everyone - I've reached mid-life and I'm clutching at straws trying to regain the musical success of my youth! (By success, I mean surviving High School Band and managing to snag a consolation seat in the local symphony when their bassoonist went AWOL one summer- yes, I played one of *those*)

Anyways, I recently came into possession of a student violin (it's a Skylark MV005) that appears to be in pretty good shape and I thought it would be a neat thing to pass the time learning to play this thing. "Scratching out a tune" doesn't even begin to describe the horror of how bad I sound right out of the gate, but I'm hoping that time and effort will remedy that situation. I have no illusions about being anywhere close to good, but I want to at least be 'competent' so I can sit in with some of the local folk/bluegrass groups that mysteriously appear in my area.

You'll notice my name says "Violanoob"- well as even a full-size violin (the one I have is a 4/4) is a bit teeny-tiny for my hands, I intend to learn to play the viola- it's more mellow sound and larger size actually appeals to me more but until I can obtain a CVA-400 outfit I'm learning the basics of tuning and bowing on my low-rent fiddle.