I believe each person has her/his reason for starting a violin lesson.  With hundreds of tutors advertising all over the world, online, youtube demo, facebook pages etc.  I understand how difficult it is to choose a tutor, and often one only finds out the type of teaching style or how good one wants to experience after trying a few teachers.

General types of violin learners.

1, Privileged learners: These are learners who were given opportunity to start violin lessons when they were as young as 4-6 years old.  The violin is one of most difficult if not the most difficult instruments in all the stages, in beginner stage, intermediate stage and advanced stage, there is never a moment that isn't challenging.  Very often the privileged learners have more chance to build up the basic techniques, when the parents are supportive in personal practice, if the learner is commited and gifted, he/she often chooses the music conservatories route in order to progress to the advanced level.  If you do a little search online, you find schools like Royal College of Music, Julliards School, Curtis Institue, Trinity College of Music, Guildhall College etc, and most the of world class artists were trained from these schools.

2, Hobbyist learners: These are people who are passionate about music or performing music on the violin.  These include the privilged learners, given violin lessons by their parents, but taking violin as one of the life passions, as it is obviously a lot more difficult when one tries to commit to multiple passions or subjects.  Lack of practice or commitment often leads to minimal progress or failure to build up muscle memory, as the saying goes, 5 minutes of performance on stage often means 5 years of hard work.

From my 15 years of teaching experience, there are about 20% of privilged learners, and 80% of hobbyists in this world.  This blog is more of an advice for the hobbyists. 

To take full advantage of any violin lesson, it is important to start some kind of self preparation.  There is no rule about one must have a violin before a lesson, or can already play something.  However it is important to have a clear expectation, and for a total beginner, I would suggest avoiding online lessons. 

I play the guitar myself, I have to say some instruments are more forgiving than others, violin is not the most ergnomic instrument, it takes one bad posture or tension in one part of the arm, to ruin the sound or bow stroke, wrong way of holding the violin could result in inability to remember the finger spots on the finger board, or finger flexibility, one simply can not play fast notes. 

I offer one off free trial lesson, so I often ask what their expectations are.  Regardless of age and ability, I believe an open mind plays an important part of violin study.  There might be moments when you are asked to do really silly exercise, learning how to hold a pencil before moving on to the real violin bow etc.  Playing a small instrument like the violin requires a lot of micro movements, hence building up techniques can mean many little steps, starting slow, from figuring out where those finger spots are, to executing those notes beautifully, and then speed them up to the concert speed.  Some people get very frustrated and didn't expect violin to be so time consuming when it comes to practice.  

Therefore I always encourage as much communication as possible prior to the lessons.  Ask the right questions! What is the right size of violin? Do I need to apply Rosin on the bow hair? Why is it sounding squeaky? Do I buy a violin online? 

All these questions are part of the lesson, because you will want some answers during, if not before the lesson.  And what you find out before the lesson can boost your interest and passion as well.  I like it when my student comes to me with his/her violin and the music sheets, saying I can't read this note...why didn't I sound like the recording? This kind of preparation will bring answers and instructions.  

So all I was saying is if one thinks result will magically happen simply from paying someone, then the trial is normally an hour with the teacher trying to figure out what you need, where your ability is, I believe that is not productive at all.  And a toally unprepared student often don't go back to the same teacher.  They often not know what they want and just waiting to be spoon fed the knowledge instead of trying to figure something out as well.