hey! violin first, or mandolin?

  1. TonyEarth
    TonyEarth
    i though it would be cool to know which of you guys played the violin before the mandolin or vice versa, and how long you've been playing each i started with violin, which i've playing violin for 12 years, and then i got into mandolin, which i've been playing for about one or two years.
  2. catmandu2
    catmandu2
    For me, both came about rather concurrently but long after guitars. But as fiddle is probably the most expressive instrument in the lot, I spend most of my time with it these days.
  3. mzurer
    mzurer
    Haha - see my post in the St Anne's reel thread! Compact answer: Violin 7 years or so (20+ years ago) and then 4 months recently, mandolin 1 year.

    [edit for guitar content] and 20 years of guitar playing in the intervening period...
  4. billkilpatrick
    mandolin first (tuning in 5ths was a eureka moment) followed not too long ago by fiddle ... but i'm an instrument hopper - who knows what tomorrow will bring ...
  5. farmerjones
    farmerjones
    Mandolin just a few weeks after the fiddle. Actually recomended by my first instructor. Yeah, guitar and banjar twenty years prior.
  6. Jim Garber
    Jim Garber
    Both almost simultaneously. Mandolin helped me transition to fiddle from guitar.
  7. Chief
    Chief
    I started on violin almost 50 years ago- and played classical for many years, until some friends of mine were starting a bluegrass band, and knew I played fiddle. That was some 33 years ago. I picked up the mandolin about 15 years ago, and have been hacking away ever since. Lately have gotten into niche mandos- resonators, banjo, etc.
  8. Susan H.
    Susan H.
    I started mandolin first, and was told by someone on the Cafe that I wouldn't be able to transition. Guess again. I play fiddle/violin well enough to play in our church orchestra. Am I any good, nope, but I'm learning and the orchestra is a great learning experience for me. It's forcing me to read notation better, and training my ear. Now, if I could just figure out that bow...
  9. Kadenza910
    Kadenza910
    I've been playing violin (classically) for about 12 years. I just started to really get into fiddle music in the last couple of months and I only picked up a mandolin less than a week ago.
  10. walt33
    walt33
    I went from guitar to mando and about six months after that, took some fiddle lessons. Two years later I started playing fiddle almost exclusively. Lately I've been messing with the plectrums (plectra?) again.

    Walt
  11. AnneFlies
    AnneFlies
    I started with mandolin about four years ago, added the banjo last year, and am now starting fiddle. The banjo was an easy addition because it's a tenor banjo, tuned GDAE for Irish. The fiddle has the same fingering, but it's the bow that's the hard part.
  12. Violingirl
    Violingirl
    Well, violin first and only for 40+ years and now mandolin - on day 3! I have played violin since I was 7 and just recently started again after a 10 year lapse due to severe carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists. Now I'm not working so I'm not on the computer day in and day out (she said as she sits and types away on her laptop...)my hands and fingers are much better off. Bought myself a lovely new violin here in Singapore as I didn't bring my other two with me. Went to participate in an Irish jam session at a local pub and found out that I really want to learn to play the mandolin as well. I had no idea (I am soooo dumb) that they were tuned the same as a violin. How about that! Anywho - went and searched and found one and here I am. :o) Violin is practiced first when my hands are freshest as I have 3 tricky pieces I am working on with my teacher and then in the evening it is mandolin time! Yay! I know 3 chords and I can pick out happy birthday which I did much to my niece's amusement over the phone for her birthday today.
  13. Mandopotter
    Mandopotter
    Violin as a child, then dulcimer, followed by guitar as a teenager.
    Back to violin as an adult, (maybe) finally mandolin.
    Fiddle is my favorite by far.
    Enjoy music and be blessed.
  14. Chief
    Chief
    Been sawing away on a violin for better than 50 years. You'd think I'd be better by now. Have only hacking away about 20 years on a mandolin. Again, you'd think I'd know what I was doing by this time.
  15. collingwest
    collingwest
    Violin/viola first via grade school strings and then picking it back up in my late twenties. I discovered the identical tuning quite by accident about ten years later, but at this point am finding mandolin more comfortable than violin/viola. That said, I'm currently saving up for a five-string viola so that I don't have to say "violin/viola" anymore.
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