okay so ive played the violin for say about 4 years now and in my school no one did grade 1 my freindplays the clarinet now shes been playing for about 4 years aswell ime about to do my grade 1 and shes about to do her grade 4 now my mums grade 8 clarinet but she did play violin for a few days she knows the basics but she cant master the violin now i no u need breath to play clarinet but on the violin theres a lot of string crossings and things like that does every one aggree violins harder

i do agree they are hard to play

thankyou

If you look, you will notice that grade one is not even offered for the clarinet or other woodwind instruments. It was explained to me that it was because the instruments are so easy that grade one is not worth it. I would look at it the other way and say grade 4 on the clarinet is equivalent to grade 1 on the violin and grade 8 on the clarinet equivalent to grade 5 on the violin. i.e. there is a technical limitation on the instrument i.e. there is piece that is so hard on the clarinet that it is impossible to have a harder piece because the clarinet simply cannot play such a piece and that hardest possible piece is grade 5. Hope that makes sense. On the other hand, because you have chosen the violin, you will have the last laugh over the clarinetist. When you grow up, there will be still more things to learn about the violin and it will be a rewarding instrument to play, not only that, but you will have a chance to play it because generally orchestras need lots of strings and not many wind instruments. Unless your friend is the best clarinetist in the area then soon your friend will give up because there is no need for clarinets. You have taken the hard road with the reward. Good luck.

I have never tried the clarinet so I would not know, I play violin and have never found it that difficult but I had a head start from playing guitar so a lot of the motor skills were there already.

i've been playin violin for 12 years and i mean....yeah i good....but my sister's been playing clary for like, 4 years and she's already pretty much first chair in all-state and stuff. i think its way harder to make a violin sound good as opposed to trying to make a clary sound good.