Learning to play violin in your 40s

Hi Guys

Three years ago, when I was drowning in my tedious government job and former marriage, I decided to learn violin. At the time it seemed to be a bit of a crazy idea, particularly as I was unable to read music. For decades I had bemoaned my lack of classical education and had sought to remedy this in various ways (University, adult education et al)

I rented a student violin from Better Music in Canberra and got my hands on some introductory music texts and watched a lot of You Tube videos. After a few months I got a music teacher. By that time I was learning to read music. Initially it was very difficult to learn how to hold the violin in terms of posture and just feeling comfortable with the instrument. It took a while to develop any degree of confidence.

My first violin teacher Miss Helena was excellent but she was used to teaching young children so after a while I had to find another teacher who was accustomed to adult beginners and I also wanted a more "hard ass" teacher. I called her "Miss Helena" as I took my 9 year old son to see her for piano lessons as well. She was so patient with him. He has a poor working memory and learning musical notes was excellent for his reading. Reading music is making sense of symbols and signs and my child was struggling to read words - so learning piano, I thought would help him. It did initially, but he decided to discontinue his lessons.

However I found Miss Helena to be too "nice" to me and I wanted a "bad ass" teacher and I soon found one who used to yell at me a fair bit - she was effective and helped me to develop a lot of different techniques. I am still good friends with my first violin teacher, Miss Helena, and she is now also learning cello herself. She was super fun and wacky and told me I needed to name my violin (which sadly I never did) - it just felt too weird.

The second violin teacher Ms K I don't see anymore as she really was quite scary. Like Dexter scary, yet good.

I found a cool hipster violin teacher in the Blue Mountains near Sydney and she is a performance artist who she plays violin while walking on a tightrope, sitting on her husband's shoulders or standing on her head. You get the gist.

Pic of my violin and my viola - now I am learning a number of instruments including cello

Fast forward to three years later and by April this year I began learning cello and then viola (interchangeably). I have progressed through all of the Preliminary AMEB violin material and I am playing Level 1 material now.

So after commencing with no musical knowledge I was able to learn to read music on three separate clefs - treble (violin), bass (cello) and alto (for viola) and I found it was feasible to do all three. Although my new violin teacher in the Blue Mountains, where we live, said it not recommended to learn both cello and violin at the same time. For me, it works, I just have to adjust my bow hold. I had a wacky Austrian cello teacher - but that's another story. He was awesome but had some weird habits - like not changing his cello strings for 20 years?? I kid you not.

Learning cello was so much fun but initially I found so many aches and pains in my shoulders and back until I developed a better posture. Cello is a big, clunky instrument after violin and it took a while to find my own way of holding the instrument in a way that is both comfortable and functional.

But both violin, viola and cello are such elegant instruments and sound so beautiful - when you can get your intonation corrected. Mind you, this takes a while. I recommend while starting - get a good mute (they only cost a few dollars) and it saves your loved ones and your neighbours suffering from the scratchy sounds.

When I am playing music, I am in my "happy place". I am travelling at present and I usually bring a violin when I travel (with a mute) so as not to disturb other hotel/hostel guests - but this trip we are travelling light - and I am really missing my violin. Reading music is like reading computer code or doing math - and I suck at math. However I find reading music quite easy. I have just started playing Pachelbel's Canon and also Vivaldi's Winter - love those pieces - some days I get it right. Other days, not so much.

There are numerous neuroscientific studies on the benefits of learning music for the brain and in particular how the pleasure centres of the brain are rewarded when we accurately play a piece of music. I also experimented with a new product Halo Neuroscience headphones (quite pricey at about $800) which apparently helps you learn music - they provide electrical current in the scalp and you wear them for 20 minutes while you play music and this device will make you learn music or movement (they are also used for sport) a lot quicker than if unassisted - see link: https://www.haloneuro.com/ I haven't used it enough to test its effectiveness.

I will be home in 12 days or so, home with my three cats and our dachshund in the middle of the Sydney heatwave and bushfire season and can get back to playing some violin, viola and cello. All my instruments will be out of tune and sound "boxy" from not being played for three weeks - but that's okay. Music feeds the soul - even when you are making a bit of a racket.

Ultimately you have to be okay about simply starting from scratch, making lots of mistakes and feeling uncomfortable about being a beginner. You need to approach something like learning music as if you are a four year old kid. You also should only allocate about 30 minutes a day to learning music. Your brain needs time to process the material you learn. Your body and your brain fatigues quickly with novel material and concepts and fine motor skills. Your brain needs time to process the language and all the associated methodology. Its a bit like riding a bike, kind of. Music is a foreign language and you can dream in notes and arias. I do.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't listen to the haters. Just do it (to quote Nike).

Peace out dudes xoxo