How hard is learning to play the violin/viola?
- Thread starter djh101
- Start date
A lot of people would claim that the violin is harder because it has no frets. I disagree. Both guitar and violin are hard to learn WELL.
The biggest thing in my opinion that makes guitar difficult is playing clean and getting really good at articulation.. There are just so many different styles and techniques with the guitar than it takes a LONG time to master it.
The biggest thing with violin/viola is not that they're somehow any harder to play technique wise, in fact since they're tuned to 5th, small, and have only 4 strings, I'd argue that they're much easier to navigate than the guitar. The problem with learning violin/viola is that they have no frets, and so unlike guitar, you need a very very good ear to be able to get the right intonation. Having perfect pitch is great for violin/viola, but not necessary. But having a great ear is necessary, and get be trained. If you've got a really good ear and can get good intonation, I think a guitarist shouldn't have a whole lot of trouble learning the violin/viola.
(My source on this is that I used to play violin a long time ago when I was a kid; never got that good, but good enough to understand how it works and why it may be hard for some people)
The biggest thing in my opinion that makes guitar difficult is playing clean and getting really good at articulation.. There are just so many different styles and techniques with the guitar than it takes a LONG time to master it.
The biggest thing with violin/viola is not that they're somehow any harder to play technique wise, in fact since they're tuned to 5th, small, and have only 4 strings, I'd argue that they're much easier to navigate than the guitar. The problem with learning violin/viola is that they have no frets, and so unlike guitar, you need a very very good ear to be able to get the right intonation. Having perfect pitch is great for violin/viola, but not necessary. But having a great ear is necessary, and get be trained. If you've got a really good ear and can get good intonation, I think a guitarist shouldn't have a whole lot of trouble learning the violin/viola.
(My source on this is that I used to play violin a long time ago when I was a kid; never got that good, but good enough to understand how it works and why it may be hard for some people)
This is true, although I do believe they make fretted violins if you really wanted to cheat. But true violins are fretless.
With the violin if you don't know what you're doing, it's gonna sound like a screeching sound rather than a singing sound, true. But also you have to remember that with the guitar, it sounds different depending on where you pick it, there is alternate picking, economy picking, sweeping, tapping, legato etc. etc. whereas with violin it's essentially just legato and bowing each note (I'm not sure what that is considered.. Staccato maybe?) So on a violin yes it takes longer to get a good tone, but once you get a good tone you're set. With a guitar once you get one technique sounding good, there's also 100 billion other ways to play it and other techniques to use.
Bottom line I guess is that they each have some things more difficult and some more easy, but it's a fact that if you play guitar you have the advantage of fingers that are already somewhat trained. If you're interested in the violin then I definitely say go for it. It's a great instrument and unfortunately there are very very few violinists in the rock/metal scene.
