Product: Mel Bay Anyone Can Play Violin (2002)
Rating: 4.0
Anyone Can Play Violin
(This is a review of the VHS version)For beginning adult violin players who don't have a teacher Anyone Can Play Violin, presented by Coral White, is an introduction to the basics.Topics covered include:Care of the instrument and bowApplying rosinTuning the stringsPutting fingering markers on the neck of the violinPostureHolding the instrumentBow holdThe left arm and hand: first positionPlaying pizzicatoPlaying with the bowEtc.There are seven songs taught:Au Claire De La LuneMary Had a Little LambOld MacDonaldTwinkle, TwinkleLittle Brown JugLightly RowGo Tell Aunt RhodyPlus some major scalesIf you do not read music, and want to learn, you will need some other sources (the introduction to note-reading is very brief), but you shouldn't really need to be able to read music to follow these lessons. Before playing at full speed, Coral teaches each new song by going through note by note, saying which finger to place on which string. (The music notation appears in the bottom half of the screen, but it is not imperative that you follow it.)The style of the video:Coral is straight to the point in her delivery of the lessons. She presents as fairly strict/severe, though she does seem very natural.This isn't a course for learning tunes. The songs taught are ones that, if you've learnt an instrument before (or if you're familliar with nursery rhymes), you'll probably know back to front. Given that the running time is only 65 minutes, a few extra, (and more interesting) tunes could have made it more fun.Some topics which seem important are not included (such as how to change strings.)Another problem I found with the VHS version was with the sound quality. The pitches meant to be tuned from wavered a lot and sounded more like burgular alarms than notes. Hopefully the DVD is better in this. But you'll probably want some other pitch reference for tuning your instrument anyway.All in all though, this is a good intro.