Johannes earned a living to support his family as a candle-maker [1] while seeking paid gigs, and teaching and working with amateur musicians.
Soon after their arrival, Pieter's outstanding talent as a violinist came to the attention of the Amsterdam city Secretary, Mattheus Lestevenon, who arranged for him (barely sixteen) to study in Italy where he stayed for six years (1737–1743).
For two years of this journey (1740–1742) he studied in Padua at the Scuola delle nazioni with Giuseppe Tartini, the most famous violinist of that time.
Self-publishing his own works, including widening his market with extra directions to support performance by amateur musicians, became a hallmark of his life until his death.
To support his family despite not having found an established musical job, Hellendaal free-lanced, seeking gigs in The Hague and Leiden.
In The Hague, the capital of the Dutch Republic, he performed regularly in the noble court of the Governor, or "Stadtholder", sometime translated as Lieutenant, an office which eventually became the Monarch.
Perhaps Anne put in his mind to better his finances by moving to England where much of society was similarly enthusiastic about music, and thus there were for better prospects for a better money as a musician.
In 1752, at age thirty, Hellendaal gave up the sporadic pay of the free-lance life, and moved his family to England where great numbers of the newly prosperous middle-class—as well as the nobility—were music enthusiasts as well as amateur players, and much work was available as a teacher and performer for musicians of notable ability.
His prominence gained the attention and the acquaintance of George Frideric Handel, who on 13 February 1754 helped Hellendaal be paid for violin solos between the acts of Acis and Galatea (HWV49a/b).
At the age of forty, in 1762, Hellendaal moved to Cambridge, where the musical enthusiasm in academic circles around the University allowed him to settle down for the rest of his life.