Primavera 200 - notes

Barbara, since you are already a piano and guitar player, I would suggest that you proceed for the time being by trusting your own intonation judgement, over the plethora of crap (particularly from all the wanna-be violin experts on youtube).

I don't see any other way to explain this discrepancy.

It's not a massive problem for an absolute beginner, as long as other aspects of playing it feel reasonably comfortable, but if after a few months you still enjoy playing it, you can start saving up for something better (at least double your money for each upgrade).

If I Google Primavera 200, I get mostly British sites, so if you are British, you could think about getting something like a Stentor Conservatoire or better from thestringzone.co.uk.

One of the ways you can verify the nut issue is gently to touch, say, the A string around where the D should be until you get a harmonic A, then stop the string. You will hear something closer to D# if the nut is high, D if the nut is good.

Erin, use your ears, and relative pitch - you can't really be a musician, least of all a violinist, without it. All musicians have to use their ears, but I was fascinated by the difference between ear use on piano and violin. I found my ears needed very specific training to hear exactly what sound was coming from the violin.

Sorry Gordon I'm not able to do the harmonic you mentioned. I'm just not very good. Thanks for the help

I'd recommend playing through the scale, up and down, on the piano a few times so you can "sing it" either out loud or in your head and then play that on the violin using just your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingers and then the open strings, etc. up to the 2nd finger G on the E string. Just remember that F# on the D and E string will require a "high" 2nd and 1st finger, respectively.

This could be a basic fingering pattern on all 4 strings for high 2nd finger. If you want to experiment with low 2nd finger after that , play a C major scale, starting with the 3rd finger on the G string.

The Suzuki program (and the Suzuki books) start violin in A major and only on the A and E strings to give a basic feel for the high 2nd finger and they start it with the song "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" beginning on the open A string.

These last 2 paragraphs are just ways to try to get your mind and fingers in tumne with the instrument - when it is in tune.

Just as on a guitar your fingers are never placed where the note would sound in tune were it not for the frets, so on the violin (and other bowed unfretted string instruments) your finger is not actually placed where the note sounds in tune, it is only the "edge" of the finger closest to the nbridge that sounds the note. SO when "tapes" or other markers are put on the fingerboard to guide the fingers they are not actually on the spot that creates "in-tune-ness."

Learning to play violin without a teacher is a tough go! At some point you should get guidance. I cannot say it is impossible, because my son got into violin playing in his 40s without a teacher, other than during a brief visit with me, but he eventually got involved with a (paid) on-line violin course. Most of his playing is folk-type music (and he doses perform in public and in groups), although he has been a (note-reading) musician all his life (piano, trumpet, guitar, bass, vocal) and he did go to recording school for a year and now has his own (not attached to his house) recording studio. Music has always been his thing since he first blew Taps through the handlebars of his tricycle. But it is not the way he has earned his living since he was about 20, 36 years ago, now.