A Place to Play Violin
Posted on January 19, 2019
I’m going to jump around a bit this week because I wanted to give an update rather than just talk about the process of getting started playing violin! I’m taking all of this super slow, watching a lot of videos, and soaking up as much information about the process of playing as I can.
The first day I actually broke out my violin, I saw immediately that there was an issue — my cats. My older cat, Sebastian, has gotten a bit skittish about loud sounds over the past year. He pitches a fit when someone calls me on the phone and I put them on speaker, for example. So, the moment I put the bow to the string to learn how to squeak out sound, he was a mess.
I spent more time trying to chill my cats out than I actually could focus on my instrument. And this instrument needs a ton of focus.
So I decided to make a place to play. I have a small desk in my bedroom, where the cats are not allowed, that I really haven’t been putting to much use with anything else. I cleaned it up, organized the area a bit, set up lessons on my my laptop and placed my learning books. The past few days, I’ve been carving out some time to begin the habit of practice, and I find the location both cat-free and distraction-free.
Trying to use my main computer for violin lessons would have probably been a bad idea — way too many things on there distracting me. This removes me from my normal gaming environment, somewhere more secluded where I will spend the time focusing on learning and not get pulled away by other things.
I think I’ve found a really nice beginner’s book. I’ll talk about that, and some of the resources I’ve found in another post though. Right now, my focus is on learning how to more comfortably hold the instrument, especially the bow, and the first few notes of the open strings. I remember doing this back when I played guitar, though the violin has a lot more things to get used to, so you can’t just pick it up and play like you do guitar.
I’ve got a lot to learn, but at least I’m making a tiny, tiny bit of progress.