Are you an adult who has decided to learn to play the violin? Or maybe you’re looking for information about lessons for children. Either way, this post shows you what to look for in online violin lessons for beginners.
Can Beginners Learn to Play Violin Online?
No question about it: the best way for a beginner to learn to play violin is with a very good, in-person teacher. But if that is not an option for you, then you’ve probably looked to the internet and wondered if online violin lessons are any good.
Six traits of effective online violin lessons
They can be, but you need to be careful and know what you’re looking for. Beginners can learn to play violin online, but the lessons are most effective if they:
- Follow a specific method, rather than just being random or unorganized collections of content. Lessons that follow a specific method, such as the Suzuki Violin Method, will tend to be more organized and follow a logical progression, allowing you to build from one skill to the next.
- Are flexible. Life happens! People are busy! Everyone goes at a different pace, and it can be a real lifesaver when you hit unexpected trials in life to know that you won’t be charged for a lesson you can’t ever watch, or that you won’t be jeopardizing your good standing with a private teacher.
- Offer access to your teacher. No lessons can cover every possible bump and hiccup that a student will encounter. If you are viewing pre-recorded lessons, you will develop questions that you need answers to. It is important to be able to ask a question when you need to.
- Are extremely well organized, with multiple tools to support different styles of learning. Some of us learn more from audio materials. Some of us MUST be able to see what is being discussed. Some of us need printed materials to review away from the computer. For online lessons to be effective and successful, they need to offer versatile tools.
- Offer peer support and communication. It can be lonely in the practice room, especially with online violin lessons taken from home! It is incredibly helpful to meet other people who are in your class to exchange ideas, offer support, or even constructive criticism. Again, this is best in person, but online groups such as discussion forums and Facebook groups can be a good substitute.
- Have a controlled feed of information. Students often jump into the deep end before they can swim…and alas, they find themselves drowning! It is extremely important for certain concepts in violin playing to be introduced in certain orders, and for certain skills to be mastered before other skills are attempted.
Why I Recommend the Suzuki Method
Because it has been proven effective in every country, with every age group. See my recent post about Suzuki method for adults here. See my comparison of the Suzuki method and traditional method here.
There are alot of great violin methods out there, and many wonderful violin teachers. There is more than one way to learn the violin. But if you are attempting to learn the violin online, or to teach yourself to play the violin, I don’t know of a better method to help you along your way than the Suzuki Violin Method. (Technically, it is not a method. It is just a collection of pedagogical “tunes” used by Dr. Suzuki to teach concepts on violin in a certain order. But the repertoire was put together with such genius and with such great success that it has grown and morphed into a “method”, so I will refer to it as “The Suzuki Violin Method”.)
Online Violin Lessons that Meet These Requirements
Mine do, if I do say so myself.
But I have to be honest: the results my online students have achieved have truly surprised me. I knew the lessons would be good because they follow the Suzuki Violin Method. But I honestly did not know they would be as effective as they have proven to be.
Having been offering these online violin lessons since 2010, and listening to the feedback from my students and their individual needs, I have come up with a wonderful delivery method that is convenient, flexible, affordable, and effective.
Read all about my online violin lessons for beginners here, or contact me in the comments section if you have questions.
How Many Students do you have in total Lora?
Melanie
I never can tell how many students I have, because I don’t hear from all of them!
And some students are past, some are present…..so it’s really hard to get a count. But I have had students in 35 countries and counting!
Hi Lora,
I came across your website and would like to find out more!
My daughter is 3 and we have just started violin lessons with a Suzuki teacher, going very slowly as she is quite young. So we do a lesson every two weeks.
I was trying to practice the violin at home between lessons and realised that I am not of much help to my daughter, so I began to think of learning it myself. But I am a complete and absolute beginner…
I like your approach and your videos, and it would really suit me to start Suzuki Book 1, this way I will be doing the same thing as my daughter. But my question is: what if I don’t have enough time to complete it in 7 months. I have several other things going on, and while I do want to commit to regular daily practice, it’s probably going to be 10-15 min, rather than half an hour.
What would you say? Can I take longer than 7 months? Can it be up to a year or more? My daughter will start Book 1 at some point, if she continues, but it won’t be for at least another year.
Thank you,
Lyudmila
Hi Lyudmila
Nice to meet you. Yes, absolutely, you can take longer than 7 months for no extra charge. Most people need more time to complete it. It is self-paced, although I do control the pace from going TOO fast, but there is no penalty for going slower.
That is the best thing you could do to help your daughter, learning violin yourself. Plus, she will get the tunes in her ears, and she will want to be just like “mom”, and it will make her very excited to do what she sees you doing! The pure Suzuki method requires a parent or guardian to learn half-way through Book 1 at a minimum, and I can totally see the wisdom in that.
My Suzuki Book 1 course teaches beginners from ZERO, so you don’t need to know anything to get started.
Talk to you later!
Lora