I’ve decided I want to learn how to play the violin. I’m 20 years old and have never played an intrument in my life. Am I too late?
I honestly believe it’s never too late. A friend of mine is learning the flute. She’s in her 60’s. The only thing that could be limiting is if you have raging arthritis in your hands, fingering certain instruments could present a challenge.
Research probably shows that the earlier you start the easier it is but give your brain and your creative drive some credit!! If it’s something you’re interested in you can learn it. IIRC, Eric Clapton was in his late teens before he ever picked up a guitar.
You are absolutely not too old to learn an instrument. There is no magic age at which one becomes too old to learn an instrument.
That said, it can be easier for children, for a variety of reasons, including the fun of learning an instrument together and playing in public, pressure from parents to practice, and less self-consiousness.
But if you’d like to learn to play the violin, you are not too old.
I know someone who became a ballet dancer at 19 and was recruited into a national troupe. You’re by far not ‘too old’.
20? Don’t be silly.
–Mal, who took up the trumpet at age 41.
My wife is 45. She always wanted to play violin, and finally bought one and started lessons 3-4 years ago. (I tell you, it takes a while to start sounding good! And man is it piercing - drives the dog crazy!) But I’m really proud of her for picking it up and sticking with it.
I’m 46. A couple of years ago I started playing mando and harmonica. Not great at either - don’t work hard enough. But good enough that I can participate in beginner-intermediate jams without embarrassing myself or being the worst person there.
Oh - and I was 19 or so when I first started playing bass, after which I had a lot of fun playing in some horrible bands for about 5 years.
I say you are never too old. In fact, to the contrary, I’d suspect that learning something as new as a musical instrument goes a long way towards keeping your brain young. Sure beats vegging in front of the TV.
Yep, you are never too old, but I will warn you that it is harder to learn to play well if you’re not a kid anymore.
I started flute lessons at age 10. Piece o’ cake. I’m pretty good.
I started piano lessons at 15. It was much more difficult, and I’ve never been good at piano, mainly because I didn’t want to put in all the extra work it would have taken to become as good as I am on the flute.
I started flute at age 39 after playing saxophone and clarinet since age 12. The going was surprisingly slow.
Old-line orchestral instruments like flute and violin are not designed around the player. They often pose serious technical problems right from day one, requiring extremely fine motor adjustments and/or major stumbling blocks in fingering and balance.
Violin teachers, especially, often won’t take on older students, because not only is the instrument itself so unforgiving, the methods of teaching tend to be likewise. Teachers often want a more malleable student who is willing to work on fundamentals until they shine, and adults are often too focused on wanting to make music.
After a year of flute lessons, I still have trouble holding the flute steady and maintaining a consistent embouchure, but can play at a fairly good “doubler” level.
I started playing the double bass (aka upright bass) at 32. I started right away playing in a band (I have been playing the guitar since age 10 and have been playing the drums and piano as well), it was hard at first but now I feel pretty comfortable on it. I think if you can find a good teacher and people to play with (i.e. chamber music or an amateur orchestra) it would help the process a lot.
I agree with everyone above, by no means is 20 “too old”. I bought myself a banjo for my 32nd birthday and signed up for lessons and am a fairly decent ‘picker’ now, 2 years later. And believe me when it comes to difficulty to learn, the banjo is right up there.
I think the keyword here is “learn” and much depends on how deeply you want to learn. I had piano and violin lessons in my pre-teen years and never developed ability with either beyond rudimentary exercises. I was still marking the violin fingerboard with chalk to simulate frets when I persuaded Mama that I was never going to practice enough to make it worth her money.
At about age 19 or 20 I bought a guitar and proceeded to “teach myself” by way of books as much chord theory and music theory as I could on my own, but I never progressed beyond strumming chords and singing along with that.
Several years ago, I took a dozen or so lessons in jazz guitar before I realized my fingers were just not going to adapt to the task unless I spent way more time practicing than I had the desire to do. I spent oodles of money on books and spent a lot of time reading about music, but I haven’t gotten any better.
If you aren’t really serious about the practice part, and can’t force yourself past the discomfort and disappointment with slow progress, age is not the issue as much as patience is.
Another point: my two oldest kids took guitar lessons in their pre-teen years, with much the same story that I had: not much practice, not much progress. They both quit after a year or less and neither is worth a shit on guitar. The youngest claimed he wanted lessons, too, but I had had it with watching them go to a lesson and do nothing afterward and just toss money into the trash. So I refused to pay for the young one’s lessons. However, he had a genuine interest, bought a couple of guitars for himself, found his own teacher, paid for his own lessons and is today, at age 36 still seeing a teacher, still practicing daily and is a competent guitarist. I don’t really know how much of his progress was in the “I’ll show you” mode, but he has what it takes to learn the instrument.
Lots of true words spoken here. There’s no getting around the fact that learning the violin takes years, and being a grown-up doesn’t provide any short cut. And it can be more difficult, because you’ve got just as much need for regular practice as a kid, but probably fewer suitable spaces in your daily/weekly routine. However, it’s certainly worth it (but then I would say that, wouldn’t I 
)
I bolded the part about self-conciousness. This can be a major sticking point - even with older children it can be an issue, whereas seven-year-olds are quite happy to play every rhythmic game and sing every song, without necessarily worrying why they’re doing it all.
They’re also at a stage where they’re developing general aural discrimination, and you can give them the ability to discern the important aspects of the noise coming from the instrument from those which are at that stage irrelevant. In other words, to look beyond a few squeaks and squawks and to know what sounds they’re aiming for. This is something else you’re probably going to be acquiring with from scratch (no pun intended 
)
I hope this isn’t all too offputting: I say go for it, looking on it as a long-term hobby, which will be very rewarding further down the line.
Hooray for you! I love the banjo and always thought it would be cool to know how to play.
My personal anecdote echoes many of the above posts. I started piano lessons last fall at age 49. Never played any other instrument, never had any sort of musical training. It is hard, but I love the feeling of accomplishment when I make progress and can summon actual music from my piano.
As for the self-consciousness factor, hell, I’ll play for anyone willing to listen. Including the music teacher at the school where I teach AND my class of 5th graders!
Robardin’s spouse here: as a kid I played music quite well in the sense that by 12 years old after 5 years and lots of practice, I was told I could be promoted from the teen chamber ensemble to the adult chamber ensemble. The adults in this group had all played instruments since they were kids and although they were technically more skilled, the group really floundered. Adults often missed the meetings (leaving us with a missing instrument) and often it seemed that none of them had practiced their parts for the whole week. Now that I am an adult I sympathise with their excuses: there are just so many priorities that go before your hobby! It is impossible to tell your boss you can’t work late because of a music lesson and if you have to clean the house and host guests you miss your Saturday morning one hour practice.
So I don’t feel it is so much that adults cannot start learning an instrument but that even adults who already play instruments have difficulty putting in the time to play well. I think some teachers turn away adults not because they don’t think they can learn but think they will miss lessons and expect them to be rescheduled rather than just paying for them. Try offering a fixed payment paid ahead of time for ten lessons which must be at a particular time and no rescheduling. Then remember the teacher is your superior and you must do as they say practicing the pieces they suggest and doing all the scales. That means five hours a week of practice including annoying technical workouts.
Retired people and parents who are taking lessons with their kids do seem to have more success at putting in the time and learning an instrument (at least at the school I went to as a kid). I’ve also recently seen some graduate students successfully pick up instruments although they may well have slowed down their graduate degrees by taking up such an intensive hobby.
As far as physical ability to learn, I read once that there’s a neurogical “window of opportunity” that closes around the age of 13 or 14, relative to developing optimum motor skills. So starting at 20, you won’t get as good as you could have if you’d started at 10. But if you the inherent talent, you can still get quite good. Plenty of late starters have become very proficient.
As far as the drive and discipline to learn, that varies a lot with the individual and isn’t necessarily age-related. Some aspects of it can be - youthful passion, mature self-control, etc. But probably the most helpful thing is to have a clear idea of what you want and be committed to achieving it.