Violin for 10 years, and it was fucking hard. It starts sounding decent around year 7-8. Effectively matching the tone of the instrument to the components you buy and pieces you play is a trick too. My violin had a super dark tone, basically only sounded good with new strings (wound only, except for a steel E), which meant it was always sliding out of tune because of the tension. But on the occasions it all came together, it was extremely loud and resonant, and made Bach’s partitas sound pretty awesome.