hello i play the violin and want to learn the cello too. is there anyone else in my position who can play both? is it similiar or easy to play? Becuase my music teacher wants me to start playing but my violin teacher isn`t too keen, can i teach myself??????? i`m so confused!!!

Hi Becki,

I play violin and viola and taught myself cello and double bass to an intermediate standard (quite good enough to play in a school orchestra, for example, if I was still young enough!). I have a friend who is a professional violinist and taught himself double bass to the level where he is good enough to be paid for playing that too.

The cello bow hold is slightly different, that`s the main thing. I don`t see why it should cause you any problems.

Liz

I`ve been playing the cello for a long time and I`ve tried the violin before. I would say that the violin is more uncomfortable to play and that the cello is much more comfortable. Cellist have to read 3 clefs including bass clef, tenor clef, and treble clef. (Try playing violin music on a cello!) Cellists also have much bigger stretches on the instrurment considering its bigger, and much more positions including thumb positions. I would say that cello is one of the hardest instrurments to play and if you start there is going to be a lot of practice. It would be great if you learned the cello, but there needs to be a lot of dedication and work. You really need a good private teacher or else you`ll learn bad habits. Cellos are also really expensive and are very high maintence with a huge case that`s also expensive and everything that`s cello is 4x as expensive as violin. Well, I hope this helped and good luck deciding!