I purchased this violin for my 5 year old daughter because I wanted to sign her up for private instruction to get her out of her comfort zone im a pianist myself. Before that I did quite a bit of research online and decided to invest in this one. I was enticed by the pricing and the equipment it comes with. But before purchasing I went down to my childhood music store where I first learnt piano and asked my former teacher and owner of the shop what size I should get her. She advices to go for a 14 size. I looked at the cheapest violin she had and it was 200. So being my frugal self I opted for the melodic.It arrived while I was at work so my husband was the lucky one of opening the packaging. He had an issue with the violin not playing and it wasnt producing sound so I googledyoutubed and the issue was that we needed to add some Rosin to the bow. Because this rosin is hard like candy you need to scratch the surface with a coin until you get this white powder. This white powder is what helps play the sound on the violin. Just run the rosin on the bow a few times enough to cover the bow with some white powder and you should be able to play.Other issues 1 if your violin isnt producing sound it needs rosin 2 it your violin sounds scratchy its because it doesnt have enough rosin 3 the pegs move because you need to twist and push in slightly while your tuning so it wont go out of tune 4 if you keep pulling the strings to much or too fast you will snap a string 5 one youve reached the note ie E on the tuner but it sounds flat use the little dials on the bottom to turn clockwise or counter clockwise and adjust as needed. Avoid touching the pegs or removing the strings at all costs Melodic is a good brand to start with as a student especially for a child whose just starting out and will outgrow it within a couple years. Dont listen to the reviews a lot of ignorance going around that could have been easily solved with common sense and Google. Dont let them detur you from purchasing it. The violin is beautiful and I cant wait to see my daughter play me a piece in the near future.