Hello everyone,

My name is Tam McLaughlin and 38 years old from Glasgow.

I started the violin around the age of 10 and got to about grade 6/7 standard. I stopped taking lessons once I left school and did not really progress. After I finished uni, I took some lessons from a fantastic teacher who plays with the BBC SSO. He corrected my posture, bowing, fingering and I was making progress but for some daft reason or other I stopped lessons and over the last 10 years have only picked up the violin a few times/year.

My kids (boy/girl twins) are almost 6 and I have been thinking about introducing them to music and would love for them to take lessons on something in the next few years.

About this time I also bought the Stagg electric violin which was selling for £49. As I am a semi-pro children's entertainer, I plan to use this in my shows. This has led me to rediscover how much I love the violin and how much I have missed out over the last several years. Although I have been listening to classical music all my life have started to expand my listening experience which has included many of the less common violin concertos and a number of soloists.

I have started playing again and have found that I have not lost as much technique that I had expected.

I still have an old conservatoire violin but bought a new bow which has helped a great deal.

I am not sure what I want to achieve, but I am back to playing Meditation, Czardas etc and starting on some scales and studies and hope to take some formal lessons, possibly once a month as time is limited.

I would love to work towards G8, just for my own personal achievement and to give me something to commit to, but not sure if this is a good idea or I should be doing G7 first (and G5 theory although I did do H grade music).

I checked out a few forums before stumbling across this great forum. It seems to have a mix of players at different standards all willing to share and help.

Tam

Hello and welcome to the forums!

I don't know much about strings, but I'm sure you'll find everyone very friendly (if a little crazy ), and willing to help. The Viva Strings forum will have answers for your violin-type questions and things, and the Forums Cafe is great for chatting, arguing , or anything else really.

Nick

to the forum, hope you find it both fun and educational!

Hi and welcome - I can vouch for the helpfulness of everyone here - especially on the string forum which has been a huge source of useful info.
I restarted viola in January (although with only 6 lessons as a teenager I had barely started in the first place) and do wonder now why I left it so long to start again (I'm in my 40s)

Looking forward to getting to know you

Thanks everyone.
This does sound like a friendly and helpful forum and plan to stick around.

I have been reading the strings forum where there are some fascinating threads.

I have just been enjoying playing some pieces again before I start the hard work on scales and studies.

I was playing Pachelbel's canon last night with the CD and Meditation and found that I can get a much better and fuller sound coming out that I ever could (the new bow helps). I just need to learn to not run out of bow

The point is that I have the confidence now that I can improve and I am not too far behind from where I left off all those years ago.

Welcome!!!!

Hey

Welcome to the forum from another newbie

, Mini_mo!

hello all.im new today