Wayne Booth, emeritus professor of English at the University of Chicago, was so bitten by the music bug that, not only did he take up the cello at the relatively advanced age of 31, he also passionately pursued cello and chamber music for the next four decades, devoting the book For the Love of It: Amateuring and Its Rivals (University of Chicago Press, 1999) to the subject. “Just what is the purpose of amateuring, then, if full success, in the sense of winning, is always out of sight?” he wrote. “Well, the answer is obviously nothing like a hope for perfection. Though we amateurs are often driven, and even plagued, by the desire to do it better, the real drive is the sheer love of the playing itself—not just the music, but the playing of, with, through, in the music.”

"What causes an intelligent, accomplished adult to willingly subject him or herself to starting a hard-to-learn stringed instrument from scratch? The reasons are many. But a common one is that some people become reflective at significant junctures in their lives. They take stock of what they’ve done so far, but also wonder what they else they would like to accomplish."

“My 40th birthday present to myself was to do something I hadn’t gotten to do,” Ellen Ginsberg says. “As a child, I hadn’t been given musical opportunities and at 40 felt that it was the one thing I regretted. One Saturday, I saw that 1999 Meryl Streep movie Music of the Heart, about a violin teacher in New York. It just really hit home. On Monday I went to a music store, got a violin, and signed up for my first lesson.”

For violist Barbara Klain, a technical writer with math-teaching credentials, it was the memory of playing the oboe in an amateur orchestra many years earlier. “There was an older woman in the group who could no longer drive, but she played the viola,” Klain recalls. “She was the most valued player in that group and was always in demand. The conductor always made sure she would have a ride. When I get older, I want people to want me, too!

“Really, though, I went back to music because it’s something I really love, and as I get older I want to share it with other people who feel the same way. Just listening to music is not enough. I know what it’s like to be in the middle of a group—you get to take apart the music and find what makes it beautiful. A perfect harmony is enough to make my day! It’s worth the challenge—I had to make music again.”

For others, spouses or friends take a more active role. Many years ago, I got an unusual request from the wife of a Berkeley anthropologist: Could I show up at their house on her husband’s birthday to give him a surprise first ever cello lesson? Another of my students, a professor at Brandeis for many years, admitted to his colleagues that he had long wanted to play the cello. For his retirement, the members of the department gave him a six-month cello rental with lessons. He’s been playing the cello ever since.

Starting a stringed instrument can be a daunting task at any age. It may be harder for an adult than a child simply because an adult has an idea of what the instrument should sound like. “Adults know they are good at other things and it’s hard to start on something new,” says violinist Maria Benotti. “They tend to be tense, too, because they know that things sound awful—they are all too aware. Little kids starting out have no idea—they just are having fun.”

Also, as cellist Rebecca Hood, who teaches all ages of beginners, points out, “Children learn with their bodies first, but adults learn with their brains first.”

I prefer teaching adult beginners for exactly that reason: they understand what I’m talking about. Also, adults are motivated—they really want to be there, which isn’t true for all children. “One advantage we have as adults on strings,” Ginsberg says, “is that we have more stick-to-itiveness. Intellectually we can understand better what we’re going for.”

Fiddle master Alan Kaufman, who wrote the still-popular 1978 book Beginning Old-Time Fiddling, enjoys teaching adult beginners as well. “The bulk of my students are adult beginners—I love their minds. I think they are not at all disadvantaged by starting at a later age. My current students are in their 40s and 50s. They can understand things. It’s really exciting to teach beginners over a fiddle camp weekend—by the end of three days they’ve got a sense of the music and are learning fiddle tunes.

“It’s fiddling midwifery being at their fiddling birth.”

Mark O’Connor estimates that approximately five percent of attendees at his renowned fiddle camps are adult beginners; he expects that figure to continue to grow. “I’m always amazed myself at how many adult beginners there are,” he says.

Most of his adult beginners are in their 40s and his oldest student was 86.