If you've always desired to study how to play the violin, you can. Naturally many people believe that it's better to start when you are quite young, but truthfully, you can learn how to play the no matter how old you are.

Start by picking out a quality instrument. This could be costly but it does not need to be. There are a lot of quality used violins on the market. And you might be surprised to discover that a pre-owned instrument generally sounds better than a new one.

If you have a friend or relative who plays, they can assist you with initial lessons. Or you can start out with a paid teacher.

Lesson one will be how to properly hold the violin. If it's uncomfortable you may stop before you get going, or worse yet, you may even pick up a stress injury. To hold the violin the right way, you put your left arm underneath the body of the violin and then hold the neck of the instrument with your left hand, curling your fingers above the neck as you do so. The result needs to have your fingers and hand over the strings and the chin rest will be between your chin and left shoulder. You need to use your right hand to bow or pick the strings while grasping the bow in that hand.

With the violin held the right way you can begin to learn the notes. Unlike guitars, violins do not have frets. The way to experience where every note falls on the fretboard is by ear.

For this, you will want to distinguish four positions on your instrument. The number one spot is located the furthest away from your face and makes low pitched notes. The final position is the highest notes and is the furthest up the neck. The strings themselves are tuned to specific notes, lowest to highest. The strings are tuned at G, D, A, and E as "open" strings, when there are no fingers putting pressure on the strings when you play. Other notes are played when you finger the fretboard in various locations.

There are 2 ways to play the notes. The first is called pizzicato which is just by plucking them. The other is by drawing the bow steadily across the strings.

Learning to understand music notes should be the next item on your agenda. If you do not know how to read music prior to learning how to play, you can start by learning music in a more introductory manner either by attending classes, having someone knowledgeable in music instruct you, or studying on your own to a particular degree by going online and looking for various tutorials. Then obtain some quality violin sheet music made for beginners and you're ready to go.