I won't say much about my experience of learning the violin, just share the principles and methods of violin performance for discussion.

Setting aside general music skills such as notation and sight reading, violin playing is actually a technique of controlling the left and right hands separately. Of course, it also includes some non core content such as piano setting techniques and standing posture allocation. However, in essence, it is to control the length of the vibrating strings by pressing them with the fingers of the left hand to control the height of the sound, while using the bow of the right hand to produce various styles of vibrations on the corresponding strings to determine the loudness and timbre of the sound.

It can be said that the movement of the left hand's fingers to some extent determines the lower limit of performance, while the movement of the right hand's bow can determine the upper limit of performance, which is often the most difficult part to improve.

Before discussing the difficulties of each hand, let's first discuss the issue of holding the qin. With shoulder support, if the violin is only held by the chin, the head will naturally tilt downwards towards the ground, but this is not a suitable state for playing. In fact, in order to perform appropriately, the minimum requirement is to ensure that the fingerboard is parallel to the ground. This is because when the bow of the right hand comes into contact with the strings, only by applying force vertically downwards can it fully make contact with the strings and produce a full tone. As the left hand presses the string handle up, the head of the instrument should be slightly lifted accordingly. This is because when the left hand fingers press on the fingerboard, the strings will be pressed out at a slight angle. At this time, if the head of the instrument is slightly lifted, the strings can continue to be parallel to the ground, ensuring continuous full sound.

Next, let's talk about the difficulty of the left hand. To put it simply, playing with the left hand involves two elements: changing fingers and handles as sensitively as possible, as well as positioning issues. We will talk about techniques such as string rolling later, and here we will first discuss the most basic string pressing problem.

Many beginners, including myself, make the mistake of subconsciously assuming that the force of pressing the string is positively correlated with pitch, which is often the case for beginners. Beginners like to press the strings hard. After developing muscle memory, pressing hard in the same position is indeed beneficial for accurate pronunciation, but it can cause stiffness in the muscles of the left hand.

The most obvious impact of muscle stiffness in the left hand is the risk of tenosynovitis and a significant decrease in playing speed. When a person needs to play sensitively, it is impossible to do so with a stiff left hand. In fact, the fingers of the left hand only need to press down on the section of the string before blocking the fingers to participate in the sound production. Pressing the string too hard will produce overtones, and pressing it too hard will make the fingers tense. However, just pressing the string onto the fingerboard without further force is an excellent force. If you are not sure about this feeling, you can try using your exhausted fingers to press the strings after vigorous exercise with your left hand, and you will experience it to some extent.

Another widely mentioned issue related to the left hand is string rolling. At present, there are different opinions or practices regarding string rolling in different countries or regions, which can be generally divided into wrist, arm, and finger methods and are constantly debated among each other. When I was learning the piano in my early years, I only used wrist style string rolling. However, after going abroad to study, I was told by local professors that they preferred arm style string rolling, and I was corrected to some extent.