Chapter 2 examines, often through the eyes and voices of aspirant learners, the varied paths that adults and children from a range of social classes took to learn stringed instruments, and the nature of the instruction they obtained. Through discussion of the violin trade, it addresses the affordability of instruments and accessories, arguing also that commerce powered the spread of violin culture geographically by creating a functional infrastructure. The chapter’s major concern is with the role of inexpensive group instruction in widening participation among the working classes through opportunities for learning in adult-education institutes in major cities, and in elementary schools, where the commercial “Maidstone” teaching program reached remarkable numbers of children. It highlights the persistence of Victorian values in these projects and reveals that group instruction subsequently became embedded nationally in many lower-profile string-teaching initiatives run by private teachers or as small academies. It further posits that the Maidstone movement had an impact on the subsequent development of classical-music audiences in Britain.

This chapter sets the scene for readers of the book by defining British violin culture and placing it in historical perspective. It traces the culture’s arc in time by tackling questions of numerical extent, patterns of activity, and related historiographical issues. It also discusses the societal positioning of string players c. 1870 and outlines the socioeconomic factors that triggered the initial surge in learning and playing, including the new availability of cheap instruments and crumbling assumptions about violin playing being out of bounds to women and girls. It ends by tracking Victorian values and activities that persisted from the 1870s into the 1920s – including socioeconomic aspiration, self-betterment, and beliefs in classical music as a meaningful leisure pursuit – to underline the coherence of the book’s periodization. The chapter counters assumptions that the popularity of violin playing was limited to the 1880s and 1890s and further argues that violin culture’s class composition resists generalization.