How many violinists are there?
Half of the kids at my university play the guitar while I only know of my teacher and one of her friends who plays the violin. That has me wondering, how many violinists are there in the world, or at least relative to other instruments?
Replies (18)
At least several hundred thousand and growing, judging from the monthly readership on Violinist.com and all our related social media sites! That was one thing that overwhelmed me in the years after starting this website in 1996 -- how many people were interested in the violin, and the fact that they are absolutely all over the world. The more the merrier, I say!
You can count on me!
This is interesting because you'd think there'd be a lot of violinists in theory but like you I haven't run into any in university outside of music related activities like orchestra and chamber music, while it seems like every other person I meet normally plays or played guitar/piano.
There's thousands of people who play the violin nowadays, but probably less than 20 or 30 that have deep knowledge of the instrument and have made their own unique contribution to violin playing and classical music in general.
Most of us (I'd say everyone here, obviously including me) are just "people who play the violin" rather than violinists, although it is not a happy distinction nor one that makes much sense if one defines violinist in the traditional sense - a distinction I usually make for the same reason nearly everyone in the academia makes a distinction between 'philosophers' and the millions of people who do research in philosophy but aren't relevant in any way to the discipline as a whole.
This said, your question open a new question - what is "us" for you? Do we count in everyone who just picked up a violin yesterday? Do we count only people who do it professionally? or do we count people who are influential as violinists?
Since we get so many people asking about their chances of working as a professional violinist, how many violinists graduate each year from say, the top ten music schools in the US? (I realize we could start another whole thread to debate which 10 schools would be the top!) How many full-time orchestra and college teaching positions come open each year?
On a slightly different question, if you want to know how many people play the violin at any level from beginner to advanced, I'd guess that fewer people take up violin than piano or guitar, but more people play violin than other orchestral instruments.
My impression is that overall, fewer kids take music lessons now than when I was a kid many years ago. Many people think it's musical enough if they have a keyboard that plays rhythms and fills in harmony when they press one key. Some people would rather play a video game by pressing 4 buttons on a piece of plastic shaped like a guitar, instead of actually learning to play a real guitar. It's sad.
@Demian
I would divide the question into "how many professional violinists are there?" and "how many people play/practice the violin regularly?"
@Amy
Video games does form part of the instant gratification culture where people get points or likes for doing relatively easy things that is unfortunate becoming more common.
Not saying that dynamic it's bad per-se but, one of the reasons that I picked up the instrument is to differentiate myself from others and I'm wondering how common/uncommon violin playing is.
Funny thing, I couldn't grasp the guitar or the piano. I tried to learn those before finally moving to the violin. The violin just seems easier to me and I have made progress with the violin whereas I didn't with the guitar or the piano. Many people have told me the violin is suppose to be hard to learn (some say the hardest) than the guitar or piano, but for me it was the easiest. I just chalk it up to how my brain is wired.
Not enough!
As long as there is more guns than music instruments, this world is doomed.
"Its nice to have a fiddle and not just a bunch of guitars" someone undoubtedly says as arrive at a jam session.
Wish someone had told me and shown me how many different types of people and how many musical genres this flexible instrument can fit into when I was younger and thought it was so uncool! While I think classical music and exercises are the basis for any player, I think it's a shame that mainstream teaching of this instrument ignores "alternative" styles of playing. People who aren't intrigued by classical music might be awed by a violinist in a hip hop duo, a jazz violinist, folk music, heavy metal. I do like classical music but knowing there were all these different directions, I would've had much more motivation...
There are 6.5 million violinists in the world according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Just to "scale" the problem, consider that if one person in 1,000 is a "violinist" (amateur, professional, beginner - whatever) then the United States could have on the order of 300,000 "violinists."
If this ratio held for the entire world one might project that there are 7 million violinists, but I think this is highly unlikely, although it does agree with Paul Deck's figure. If one were to use the same ratio just for the countries that are English-speaking, European, and China, Japan and Korea the figure would drop to about 2 to 3 million violinists.
My experience in the last small city/community I lived in for 30+ years was about that percentage of violinists (i.e., 0.1%).
I tried to google the number of violins sold each year but could not find a decent answer, but there "might" be of the order of 100,000 violins a year manufactured in China. Combining this with my fantasy figure of 2 to 3 million violinists, my estimated Chinese production rate could provide violins for the world every generation.
Does anyone have a better figure?
Andy
This is your typical Fermi problem . My home town has about 175000 inhabitants, and around 175 violinists. (people who play the violin, not professionals per se). Assuming the whole world is like Groningen in this respect, one gets seven million players. Somewhere between 3,5 and 7 million, I guess.
Paul, is there any rumor about a cure on the horizon?
some of us got inoculated by playing viola...
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April 15, 2016 at 04:44 PM · Too many! ;-)