I've been playing violin since January of this year and I'm curious as to how many years it typically takes to advance to a piece of the quality of The Prelude for Bach's Cello Suite No. 1

I have combined Suzuki and a few other methods to learn the violin and have been learning how to do Irish Fiddling simultaneously. Admittedly, I started working on the Prelude just under two weeks ago and I have about 3/4th of it down, more or less, smoothly.

I'm really just looking for a standard of comparison for where I am in relation to others that have been playing for 6-7 months. Am I behind, right on schedule, or ahead of the game?

If you are playing a violin then you are playing the wrong instrument to play the Bach cello suite, you will never be able to play it. If you want to play the unaccompanied Bach Violin pieces then they are very difficult and I would reccomend you don't even think about it for at least 5 years. Sorry to be such a downer but do try to be realistic. I have been trying for 30 years and I still would not dare perform them.

I'm playing a violin arrangement of the piece. Sorry, I suppose that I should have thrown that in there; then again, I didn't really think it would be assumed that I'm quite stupid. But, regardless, I've been playing since January of this year and I have all of the piece down except the last stanza. Took me about a month to get as much down. Thanks, though.

I don't mean to disrespect the man but 30 years is a long time. Several of my colleagues who've been playing for about 10 years have already added those Bach unaccompanied violin pieces and I too have played a few.

Difficulty depends on you entirely. If you want something you have to work for it. There is never a "I can't" or "I don't dare". There is only work and the amount you put in. If you want to learn that arrangement which really isn't something impossible to do, you simply have to work at it.

Patience and practice is the key to learning any instrument. Sure it may take your years but its better than accomplishing nothing.

The true measure of readieness of a piece is this: An Amature practices until he gets it right, a professional practices until he can't get it wrong.