One thing I've always wondered is:
'Why did the viola players on these forums start playing the viola?'
Did you start on the violin and move to the viola or was the viola your first string instrument?
I started violin when I was 8 and moved onto viola earlier this year at the age of 14 because my teacher thought that I was better suited to the viola. I'm really glad I did change instruments because I much prefer the viola.

I'd be really interested to hear why other viola players started playing.

Hi, Rainbow!

I started a couple of months ago because I was playing violin in a string orchestra with over 20 violins and between 0-2 violas. The orchestra has a mixture of children and adults, and I think because of its larger size the viola is often a less attractive option for children to play, which gives an extra reason for the adults to consider playing a bit of viola. There's another guy who learnt on viola but won't now play it because he bought a Lionel Tertis monster model and injured his shoulder.

I initially thought of it as a bit of a sacrifice changing to viola in the orchestra, but I really love it now. Walter Piston states you don't need an equal number of violas to balance the violins, because violas are more sonorous. Even with 2 sections of violins, the viola chords are often written "divisi" to reduce volume in order to balance the sound. Like Michael Caine and his Welsh Guards, singing away despite being outnumbered by Zulus, we violas tend to make ourselves heard!

Part of what persuaded me to play viola was I'd already bought (and had a go on) a lovely Gliga viola for my wife. I wouldn't say I've "changed over" generally though, I still like my violin as well.

David

I was 5 foot 8 tall and 11 years old and asked to learn the violin at school .... so i didn't stand much chance really!!

Liz

I started playing the viola after I had had 3 violin lessons, at the age of 12.

My truly horrible teacher said to me "You'll never be any good at playing the violin....why don't you play the viola?"

Actually I did like it!

Many years later I started playing the violin again and now have taught many many kids to play - some of my students have won places at Junior Conservatoires and Music Schools here in the UK as well as many who play with the National Childrens Orchestra!

When I met my old teacher last year I just smiled and remembered some great advice (from Sesame Street!!) - "Don't walk away angry.....just walk away"

Thanks everybody, this is really interesting... keep them coming!

I used to play the violin in school about 20 years ago, but always preferred playing on the lowest string (G) and didn't like playing on the highest string (E). So when I went back to the violin years later, I realised that I had a yearning to play the viola instead. I love having a C string!

On the violin I've always been fairly competent and I've been playing since I was 11, but I've nevere really enjoyed it, I didn't like the sound and it seemed like so much of chore to practice. Then earlier this year my teacher suggested the viola after I had told him what I didn't like about the violin, and I have never looked back!

I took up the violin at four and the viola at fourteen. Of course, having played the violin for ten years I didn't want to give it up!! So now I play both!

I wanted to play the viola because I liked the sound and also because it is unusual.

All my friends that took up an instrument in year 5 (when i started) decided to play the violin, and the teacher that came in to show us said how few people chose to play viola, so I thought 'Right, I'll be different and play the viola then!' Im very glad I did!
jess

My teacher is a viola player, he started on the violin at 7 and grew to be 6 ft 6 - hence the change!

I started because I was forced to on a music course, and though i complained for days I found I'd rather have a C string than and E string. Conveniently enough my teacher also taught the viola. I've played the violin since I was 5 and I'm not bad (obviously there are loads of people better than me but I comfort myself that by the times we're older I'll have caught them up).
I find I enjoy playing viola more in quartets than the violin because you don't get those annyoing people who think they are way better than you so have to play 1st violin when actually, they aren't . Either that or you're the one being annoying but everyone likes to think they're right, don't they.
saskia

I also started on violin, but my violin teacher was (and still is!) a violist at heart, so she suggested to me that I try viola, and I did! I'm so happy I did, because I didn't have to audition for the Merseyside Youth Orchestra because they were so desperate for violas!
But I will admit I'm diabolical at vibrato because the instrument is so big! This is one downside but I agree I prefer the C string to the E, and when I see a bottom C in a piece I will smile for the whole piece and milk the low notes as much as possible!

Oh well, it works for some !

Chodd-ee

QUOTE (Choddy @ Jan 4 2005, 11:45 AM)

because they were so desperate for violas! But I will admit I'm diabolical at vibrato because the instrument is so big! This is one downside but I agree I prefer the C string to the E, and when I see a bottom C in a piece I will smile for the whole piece and milk the low notes as much as possible! Oh well, it works for some ! Chodd-ee

Are you sure your viola is the right size for you? I used to have a viola that was far too big for me and I found vibrato near impossible, but now I have a smaller instrument, a much smaller instrument and my vibrato is coming on in leaps and bounds.

I started playing the fiddle some four years ago but even then was drawn to the lower strings, so two years later I took up the viola and now play in an amateur orchestra, but gues what, (as you can see from the username) I now am firmly hooked on the big'un, as, after all the lovely viola is often referred to as a baby cello.
playing viola in an orchestra is a character buiding excercise especially if you lead with the viola jokes!!
I'm sure you all know the old one............ what do you call two violas in a skip?
Who's got the best viola joke??

QUOTE

playing viola in an orchestra is a character buiding excercise especially if you lead with the viola jokes!!

Tell me about it... if the violas do anything wrong, guess who hears all the jokes and gets all the blame! Most of the viola jokes I know are not in very good taste, so I won't print them... I'll have to find some 'clean' jokes.

Mozart's Musical Joke, contains lots of jokes and jibes on the musician (violinists and viola), and on badly composed music -

A violin cadenza that goes out of control and ends up using a whole-tone scale at a totally inappropriate moment.

Two, four bar 'trills', in the viola part of the first movement.

Seven bar phrases, instead of eight bar phrases.

Misuse of appogiaturas.

Bad modulations.

Music that that doesn't go anywhere harmonically.

The list goes on............

it probably proves I have a weird sense of humour, bu that sounds very amusing...

There was a wonderful occasion when an orchestra I was in played something which required the violas to tune the C string down. So first rehearsal the leader stood up and asked the oboe for an A... and then for a B for the violas...

As for why I have just taken up the viola, I wanted a portable instrument that would be appreciated as an addition to an already full orchestra in the pieces which didn't have harp- so it needed to be a bowed string. Adding an extra flute to the row just wouldn't be popular, and while I occasionally get to hit things in the percussion section that doesn't occur all that frequently. 'Cellos sound nice, but are unnecessarily large and I didn't want to sound like a beginning violinist! Sitting right in the middle of the orchestra or chamber groups, both physically and musically, also appeals. A rather nice side advantage is I now get to spend my 143 bar rests giving myself viola lessons by watching the string players technique.

I started to play the viola at school, because I had got a bit stuck on a plateau with the violin. It helped my confidence with bowing, because it's harder to make a nasty sound on the viola. I'm rusty now, but the time I was best at the viola was when I had a job as the administrator at a Saturday music school, and offered to help with the chamber music. Foolishly I said I played a little viola... I ended up in a quintet with two diploma-level cellists and two diploma-level violinists. I got a lot better very quickly! I still struggle when it changes clefs... leger lines I can cope with, and playing viola on the alto clef I'm used to, but when I'm trying to play viola instead of violin on the treble clef, I find it immensely confusing!

I have no problem at all with playing in the treble and the alto clef. Havint the treble clef there when an orchestra part goes high calms me down, whereas having the alto clef with numerous ledger lines on the notes gives me a minor panic attack.

QUOTE

Havint the treble clef there when an orchestra part goes high calms me down, whereas having the alto clef with numerous ledger lines on the notes gives me a minor panic attack.

Me too. I know exactly what you mean!

QUOTE (isabelsmells @ Jan 10 2005, 04:39 PM)

I have no problem at all with playing in the treble and the alto clef. Havint the treble clef there when an orchestra part goes high calms me down, whereas having the alto clef with numerous ledger lines on the notes gives me a minor panic attack.

I'm the opposite way round... as a long-term violinist, and a flautist to boot, I'm used to leger lines. They don't bother me too much! But changing clef seems to require a whole whol of mental gear and I find it really hard. Partly because I am a highly inexperienced viola player, and until being in that quartet I don't think I'd ever had to deal with the switch!