Begin by picking out a quality instrument. Violins are expensive but you don't have to spend more than necessary. There are a lot of good used violins on the market. And honestly they oftentimes sound as good or better than new ones.

Next find a good teacher you can take individual lessons from, or you might know of a relation or friend who plays the violin that could start you off.

Lesson one should be how to properly hold the violin. Do this wrong and not only will you be uncomfortable, you may even have a stress injury. To hold the violin properly, you place your left arm underneath the body of the violin and then hold the neck of the violin with your left hand, curling your fingers over the neck as you do so. The chin rest of the instrument needs to be between your chin and your left shoulder and your fingers and hand will be positioned over the strings. You grasp the bow in your right hand and bow or pick the strings with that hand.

With the instrument held correctly you can start to learn the notes. Unlike guitars, violins do not have frets. The way to know where every note comes on the fretboard is by ear.

For this, you will want to distinguish four locations on your instrument. The number 1 spot is located the furthest away from your face and makes low pitched notes. Nearer to your face and furthest up the neck will produce the highest notes. That is the fourth position. Lowest to highest, every string is tuned to a particular note. They are tuned at G, D, A, and E as "open" strings, whereby there are no fingers putting pressure on the strings when you play. Other notes are played when you finger the fretboard in other positions.

Notes are played in one of two manners. You can either draw the bow across the strings or you can pluck them. The latter method is named pizzicato.

In addition to learning how to play the violin, you'll also have to learn how to read music notes. If you don't know how to read music before you learn how to play, you can start out by learning music in a more introductory fashion either by taking classes, having somebody experienced in music teach you, or reading on your own to a particular degree by getting on the Internet and searching out various tutorials. Then get some good violin sheet music made for beginners and you are ready to go.