Free Violin Lessons for Beginner Violinists

Learn to Play Online from Scratch to your First Concerto


Hi, I’m Zlata!

Classical Violinist & your Online Violin Teacher

Free Violin Lessons for Beginner Violinists

Learn to Play Online from Scratch to your First Concerto


Hi, I’m Zlata!

Classical Violinist & your Online Violin Teacher

You’re NOT too old and it’s NOT too late!

You can learn to play the violin beautifully as an adult beginner

I’ll help you every step along the way. On this page you’ll learn to buy your first violin, tune your violin, hold the violin and bow properly, play scales and beginner songs. You can learn all online by yourself at your own pace.

What to look for when buying your first violin

What do you need to start playing the violin?

fiddlerman concert violin reviewYou need a violin (duh) with a chinrest and shoulder rest, violin bow, rosin, violin case and music stand.

Best cheap beginner violins to buy online

Most violins you buy online come with a chinrest, case, bow and rosin. You need to buy the shoulder rest and music stand separately (or play without).

As an adult beginner, look for a 4/4 size violin

From my experience working in a violin shop for over 12 years and teaching the violin for over 15 years, I’ve selected the best beginner violins:

Oh no, my new violin doesn’t sound!

No worries! First tighten your violin bow, rosin it and tune your violin:

How to tune your violin as a beginner

free online violin tuner

As a beginner violinist tuning might seem a bit intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.

With my free online violin tuner you can learn to tune your violin easily. As it has a microphone, it recognizes the string and tells you if it’s too high or too low. You can tune small increments with the fine tuners and if your violin is very out of tune you can use the pegs.

On this page I explain exactly how to do it. Also you can read all about other ways of tuning like with tuning notes or with a tuning fork and what the pros and cons are of each.

How to hold the violin

At first the violin might feel a little uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt. The violin hold is different for every body. However there are some general points:

  • The endpin of the violin should point to your throat
  • The violin should rest on your collar bone
  • The violin shouldn’t point too much to the the middle, but also not too much to the left
  • Hold the violin with the strings parallel to the floor, not with the scroll pointing to the ceiling or to the floor. It will be easier to bow straight
  • Pick a chinrest and shoulder rest that fit your body and adjust them accordingly 

How to hold the bow

Holding the violin bow properly has a great impact on the sound you make. If you have a scratchy squeaky sound as a beginner violinist, this might just be because your bow hold is too tense.

The bow hold is very personal and there are different ways to hold the bow, like the Franco Belgian bow hold and the Russian bow hold.

For every bow hold it’s important that you keep your fingers a bit curved and very flexible and relaxed. The wrist and fingers should be able to move along with the bow strokes. In that way it’s easy to bow straight, bow smoothly and get a good sound out of your violin.

How to bow smoothly on the violin

Bowing smoothly on the violin will give you a great resonant sound. Without bowing smoothly you’ll get screeching and scratching sounds: the typical beginner sound. You want to get rid of that as soon as possible to be able to enjoy making music.

Train the movements of bowing on the violin separately with a pencil or a stick: keep your fingers nicely curved and relaxed. On the up-bow (the bow stroke from tip to frog) you curve your fingers and bend your thumb. On the down-bow (the bow stroke from frog to tip) your stretch your fingers again. Never overstretch your fingers, because this will give a jerky sound.

Play your first scales, pieces and songs on the violin!

I’ve made a complete beginner violin course that teaches you step by step from scratch to your first concerto including video lessons, sheet music and violin tabs.

You’ll learn Mary has a little lamb, Father Jacob, Twinkle twinkle, Old MacDonald, Lightly row and the Ode to Joy theme by Beethoven. Also I teach you scale exercises, so you can play them all beautifully in tune.

Tips for self learning the violin

Yes, you can learn yourself to play the violin

Not everybody has access to a private teacher. Sure, a teacher gives you faster progress and can prevent you from learning bad habits. As a private teacher myself I want the violin to be accessible for everyone, so I do my best to teach you with my free online violin lessons.

#1 Spend plenty of time on proper violin hold and bow hold

This will save you a lot of struggles and time in the future. The hold of your violin and bow determine if you can make progress.

#2 Practice on open strings

Don’t move to placing your fingers on the strings too early. First make sure that you can get a good sound from the violin on open strings. This is hard to correct if your attention is divided. Lots of self learning violin beginners get stuck, because they move on too quickly. Hold your horses!

#3 Follow a step by step plan with scales, exercises and songs

You can find thousands of violin lessons online on YouTube, but if you don’t know in which order to take them, you’ll only feel overwhelmed and stuck.

In my free online beginner course I give you a step by step plan from a century long European tradition. It teaches you from scratch ALL the way to your first concerto. Click here to join 12,500 students from 50+ countries in my free beginner violin lessons.

More practice tips:

Easy Violin Lessons for Beginners

Play your favorite songs on the violin:
Violin, rose, coffee

Easy Beginner Concertos

Yes, you can already prepare for big violin concertos by diving these easy student concertos!

How to Play Amazing Grace on Violin: EASY Beginner Tutorial

Amazing Grace

You just need two fingers and reading notes is not required to play this beautiful melody!

Bowing and beautiful sound tips for beginner violinists

Bowing and Sound Tips for Beginners

Get rid of that beginner sound as quick as possible

Watch more beginner violin lessons right here!

How to Play SILENT NIGHT on the Violin | Easy Christmas Tutorial for Beginners

Easy Christmas Songs

Get violin lessons and free sheet music on your favorite Christmas songs, like Silent Night, Jingle bells, Oh holy night and more!

Learn to play Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber with this violin tutorial

Music of the Night

Learn one of Broadway’s most beautiful melodies!

20 Tips to NOT Hit Other Strings and Sound Scratchy on the Violin

20 Tips to Stop Sounding Scratchy

Here’s how to stop hitting other strings and sound scratchy on the violin.

Mozart - Ave Verum Corpus _ Violin Tutorial

Play Ave Verum by Mozart

You can’t start Mozart too early 🙂

5 Beautiful Unknown Concertino’s in the 1st Position

Unknown Easy Violin Concertos

Tired playing Küchler op 11? Here are 5 beautiful unknown beginner concertos in the first position.

Intermediate Violin Lessons Online

When are you an intermediate violinist?

You can continue with my intermediate lessons when:

  • You are comfortable with your violin posture and bow hold
  • You are playing with a decent sound and fluent bowing
  • You can play in tune in the first position with various finger frames
  • You want to learn vibrato, position play and more advanced bowing techniques

Side note: of course I can’t determine your level from here neither should you worry about it. Just see which of my violin lessons speak to you.

Also take a look at my lessons about bowing technique, intonation and vibrato.

As you are now perhaps looking for more specific topics, feel free to use the search bar on the top right of this website to find exactly what you’re looking for. Here are just some highlights for intermediate violinists:

Free Violin Fingering Chart

Explore the whole fingerboard of the violin:

5 Most Beautiful Intermediate Violin Concertos

5 Intermediate Violin Concertos

When you just learned the third position, you can move to intermediate violin concertos.

Downton Abbey Theme Violin Tutorial

Downton Abbey theme

Oh man, I’m a sucker for costume dramas!

Advanced Violin Lessons Online

You’re an advanced violinist when you’re comfortable with:

  • Vibrato
  • Shifting also to higher positions
  • Different bow techniques like spiccato and staccato

 

My online violin lessons sorted by style

Download my violin lesson library:

Click here to download your Violin Lesson Library

In this downloadable PDF you’ll find my online violin lessons sorted by style and level

including free violin sheet music

I’m adding new online violin lessons almost daily, so make sure to SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel:

Watch my latest online violin lessons:

4 Comments

  1. Robert Dairy

    I have been playing on my own for three years and need help getting to the next level.

    Reply
  2. Rebecca

    Hello,
    I used to play the violin as a child and have always wanted to take it back up. I have forgotten how to read music. Do I need to learn how to read music before I can begin again?
    Thank you for your assistance!

    Reply

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