I'm a 32 year old software developer who has a full time job, a family and a very limited amount of spare time. I've never played an instrument, and have next to no knowledge of the field.
One thing that I've always wanted to do is learn to play violin. No other instrument holds any interest to me. What I need is guidance. Is this feasible? Where should I start? Any tips that can help me get going and avoid me wasting my time would be appreciated. Thanks!
To learn the violin, you’ll need to get a teacher. Learning alone is very hard and learning itself is going to take a long time. You need to practice a lot and train your muscle memory for fingering positions. Try not to get an expensive instrument (like a used one or you can rent one) because you don’t know if you will continue. Best of luck
You will need to find the time for regular practice. It doesn't have to be long - 15 to 30 minutes a day is far better than nothing.
Pretty soon, you'll need a teacher. Otherwise you will end up learning to play wrong. There is only so much that YouTube videos can do.
You will need a degree of grim determination. When you are faced with a piece that you just can't play, and the only solution is to keep doing it over and over again, maybe for a few hours, until you finally manage it.
If you haven't played before, then I guess that you can't read music either. That will also take some time, and more effort. Be aware that going from unable to read music to proficient sight reading can take a few years. Learning to play a piece of music when you have to decode the score note by note can be very slow.
The first place to start is to purchase a violin, if you have not already... You can't start playing music without an instrument ;p
That said, I will give you some of the advice that I gave in this question:
What is takes to play any music seriously is a drive and passion for playing music. Unless you are a prodigy, long hours of effort and practice are required... and perhaps, a certain thickness of skin in the instances in which you will inevitably be frustrated, burn-out, be negatively criticized, experience pain/injury, etc
I hazard answering this with a question but... what do you want to get out of it? If you are simply looking to recite your favorite songs, practicing those songs until you can replay them may be all that's required... If you are looking to write original music, some level of creativity and knowledge of music theory may be required. I say 'may be' because you can possibly write music without these skills/qualities but, you and others may not be so happy with the final results...
That said, it's going to be very difficult for you to practice anything without learning the basics... And if you have no spare time, then teaching yourself is going to be highly improbable, if not completely impossible... which means you will need lessons of some sort.
You mention you have a family, if you have children, and they show any interest in playing music (specifically violin since it will be very difficult to take a simultaneous lesson for two separate instruments,) then I would suggest that you and your child(ren) begin learning how to play together. It is always feasible to learn new things but, you will have to set aside some time in order to do so. Taking lessons together will teach you and your child(ren) a new skill and it will also give you an opportunity for quality time together.
I'd argue (based on my opinion) that learning new things is never a waste of time... But, again, it depends on your level of determination and what you expect to get out of your learning experience... You can't get discouraged easily (like if your child progresses faster than you or if you can't play Paganini after a single month of lessons.)
There are any number of ways to learn to play music. Children can learn to play just by treating their instrument as a toy and spending a lot of time playing with it. They become very familiar with what it can do and know exactly how to make it respond to their desires, even without knowing how to sight read music. Once in a while someone decides to try to learn by studying from watching video posts on the internet. This method can get you started but you'll probably find you have questions that don't get answered in the videos, and you might have to spend more time finding those answers than you are comfortable with. Working with a teacher works well for many because a personal relationship develops between teacher and student that helps nurture learning process with some praise for progress and helpful criticism about bad habits you may start to develop. I have found in my own experience that each and every way you may choose to learn, you can help your own development by spending additional time reading, taking notes, which helps the brain process what you are studying, even if you never refer back to those notes, and in general, learning to enjoy the whole sometimes frustrating, other times exhilarating process of growing and developing and accomplishing what you desire. The good news is you'll never be to old, or outgrow the enjoyment of these kind of accomplishments. Studying music is a social thing in that playing with others can greatly accelerate the learning process and increase the enjoyability factor at the same time. Often social factors (playing with others) can cause you to want to actually do the work required to improve. I hope this has been of some help to you.
