If you're just starting out on the fiddle, there's a lot to consider:

• Should you take private fiddle lessons instead of trying to "teach yourself" to play?

• Are there good online resources for the beginning fiddler?

• Do you need to be able to read music?

The answers to these questions are Yes, Yes and No. Read on.

Do you need private lessons? Yes, if you can find a decent teacher.

That isn't always easy, especially if you live in a rural area. It can be hard to find a person who is not only a good fiddler, but who has the skills to teach someone else how to do what he or she does. Assuming you're a newbie and you can find such a person, you should sign up for fiddle lessons.

Why do you need private lessons? Because a beginner can get into all kinds of trouble at the start. The fiddle is not easy or intuitive. Chances are, if you don't have somebody looking over your shoulder and saying "No, not that way. Do it this way.", you'll develop bad habits that will really slow down your progress later on.

So how do you find a teacher?

• Try your local paper first. Sometimes teachers advertise their services in the want ads.

• If that fails, your local music store might provide a lead or two.

• Go to music events where there is fiddle music and ask around. Fiddlers and their friends know where fiddle teachers hide out, and they'll cheerfully tell you who to call.

• Try the internet. Just google "fiddle teacher" and include the name of your town or city.

Some combination of these should do the trick. Once you find a person or two, you need to find out what their musical background is. This is a broad generalization, but fiddle teachers come in three categories:

• Classically trained violinist with no experience of knowledge of fiddle technique or fiddle music (choose this person as a last resort);
• Classically trained violinist with some knowledge of and appreciation for fiddle technique and fiddle music (this person is first prize); and

• Fiddler, with little or no classical training and lots of experience in fiddling (a good second choice).

My recommendation is that you should choose someone in the first category only if you can't find anyone else. If you end up with this person, learn the proper left hand position and the proper bow grip from them, and start looking for someone else ASAP. Learning the classical left hand posture and the classical bow grip will serve you well no matter what kind of fiddle music you want to learn to play, but you are not going to learn the play fiddle music from someone who doesn't love it and play it.

A person in the second category (some classical training and lots of fiddle experience) is your best bet. He or she will be able to school you well in the basics and help you apply these fundamentals to fiddle music. That's what you want.

A person in the third category (fiddler with little or no classical training) might be OK as far as getting a feel for the music goes, but there is a danger that they won't stress the fundamentals (good bow grip, straight left wrist, good hand posture, etc.) enough in the early stages. Sometimes these folks take the view that "if it feels comfortable for you, it's right for you." In my experience, this can lead to trouble. If, however, you find a traditional fiddler who uses the entire bow, keeps a straight left wrist and minimizes finger movement (yes, there are such people), you have found a gem and it should work out great for you.

Can you really learn to play the fiddle online? Yes, it's possible. It's not easy, but it's possible.

There are lots of free lessons online these days. You can find them on YouTube and elsewhere. The format is almost always the same. The fiddler/teacher plays the tune through on camera a time or two, and then goes back through the tune, taking each part or section slowly and explaining the fingering. Many of these fiddlers are very good players, and the versions they teach sound great. But there are problems:

• This format usually doesn't get into any detail as to bowings;
• There usually is no music or tablature to go along with the notes being played on screen; and finally,

• there is no opportunity to repeat individual sections or groups of notes and and play them along with the teacher at a pace that a beginner or intermediate player can handle.

But hey, what do you want from a free lesson? As long as you recognise the limitations, these online lessons can be useful once you get some experience under your belt. There is one resource that has overcome these problems, and that's fiddlehub.com. This is my website, and it gets into a lot of bowing detail, provides onscreen tablature along with the video, and divides the tunes up into repeating, slow-motion, sections. It also has separate videos for both bowing and left hand. It's aimed at beginner and intermediate players.

Do you need to be able to read music? No. It's helpful, but it's not a necessity.

Of course, the usual method for presenting violin or fiddle sheet music is classical (standard) notation. That works great, if you can read it. If you can't, there is fiddle tablature. It is simple and easy to understand. Not all fiddle tab is the same, but most systems have these points in common:

• There are four lines or spaces, and these represent the strings on the fiddle, top to bottom.
• The numbers on the lines/spaces represent the left hand fingers in the first position. A "1" on the top line/space means you press down the 1st finger on the E string.
• The numbers have stems going up or down from the number. If two stems are connected, the two notes are eighth notes; if they aren't, the notes are quarter notes.

There is more to it than this, but you get the idea. It is relatively easy to get the hang of it, and it enables beginners to get on with the business of playing the fiddle and not slowing down to learn standard notation. Its main limitation is that it's hard to find tunes written in tab. The primary sources for written fiddle music are almost always in standard notation. If you can find a teacher who uses tablature to teach tunes and will write them out for you in tab, that's a big plus

These are just a few of the issues most people face when starting out with fiddle lessons.