I’ve dabbled with multiple instruments in my life
off topic celebration of playing by ear
but I’ve been acoustically crippled with a bad ear. About 2 years ago, I started working on playing by ear and, holy shit, it totally changed the game! Before, I had to laboriously read music and look up fingerings. Now, I know what it’s supposed to sound like and I keep pushing buttons (clarinet) until I get it right because I know what it’s supposed to sound like, and now I know if I want to flat that position it’s this button, and to sharp that note, it’s this button, etc. Quite painless and not laborious–even fun!
It seems crazy to me someone would learn all the fundamentals of music and not at least be able to play rudimentarily another instrument. I mean, why not? You already understand music, you just have to figure out the instrument, which is a pretty small investment relative to musicianship, and opens up a lot more possibilities.
What have you learned from your different instruments?
I play every instrument terribly but good enough to have fun.
Main is guitar.
Fiddle, its less effort to play notes quickly, but the technique is tricky. At first its like whack-a-mole: if I think about my bow, my left hand goes out of pitch. Think about the left hand, the bow gets wonky. It takes a long time to get things to be more automatic so you can concentrate on the tune, or more advanced techniques like vibrato. Also, the fiddle is really loud and its right there next to your ear. I use an earplug.
As someone who started as a drummer, but moved to guitar as a primary instrument (and can also play piano, or most anything given enough time) this is it. 99% of musical ability boils down to muscle memory IMO. Or at least 99% of improving at playing an instrument is based in improving muscle memory. Muscle memory is absolutely critical to your sense of timing and delivery of dynamics.
After playing guitar for like 15 years, it was very easy to learn to play a charango or a ronroco. In the musical/theoretical sense a ronroco is very different from a guitar in that its a reentrant tuned instrument instead of linear. But at the same time if you have the muscle memory from playing a guitar you already have most of the tools you need to play a ronroco.
I could more easily write music for someone else to play on a wind instrument than I could actually play one. Having the theoretical understanding of where it should fit in music or what would sound good means nothing in terms of actually playing it. I cant get used to how a wind/brass instrument feels on my lips. The fingering is a bitch. Theres lung muscle memory rather than just doing shit with your hands. All those different kinds of muscle memory are muscle memory I dont have. Could I develop it given enough time? Sure, but I doubt I ever will.
I’ve played the cello for most of my life and I like to think I’m quite good at it, but it’s transferred very little to other instruments - I can play the fiddle but only if I hold it like a tiny cello, and can pretty much get a tune out of anything else with strings but only just
No experience with blowy ones though so I wouldn’t know where to start there, and I wasn’t any good on the keys
Here’s my arsenal:
- Guitar: I started my journey with acoustic guitar and learned music theory using that. After that I learned to use electric guitar. I also learned how to create tones using guitar gears (pickups, preamps, pedals, etc. Tone wood doesn’t matter for electric guitar fite me!!)
- Bass: Even though both electric and bass guitars are fundamentally similar, bass has a different place in music. My favorite instrument to play is bass because it gives me more freedom of expression in songs.
- Drums: Drums are the best way to hammer down the rhythm to your bones. It’s very fun to play especially in metal music, but it’s hard to access to because it’s pretty expensive. I sometimes rent a kit in practice studios to play the real deal.
- Vocals: I don’t think my singing voice is good, but I can do brutal vocals for a long time. It taught me how to protect my larynx and utilize my diaphragm properly.
I’ve found instruments typically come on groups, where learning an instrument in a group will help more with another. Eg learning guitar will help more with playing a mandolin than a piano. Instruments that typically use the same clef are closer together etc.
I tried learning guitar once thinking that my skills at violin would translate well.
I remember how infuriated I felt when my partner explained that the guitar is more of a percussion instrument and that I wouldn’t really be able to hit all notes perfectly while playing hahahaha
I mean the left hand probably translates well. Hitting the notes depends more on the construction of your guitar, since if the neck bends, the strings have to stretch further. Unlike on a violin, you can’t move your finger in the fret to change the pitch much, so it will never sound that good. Not sure why your partner thinks that a guitar is like a percussion instrument though. Unless they only played tamboura haha.
Yeah as a violinist, hitting the exact note was very much drilled into me. So having the guitar be so loose and free with pitches threw me for a loop haha
Just play everything with vibrato and noone will notice ;)
Absolutely! But I think if you stay within in the same family, you’re refining the same skills more than expanding on new ones.
Have you tried mandolin? It’s just a violin with frets and doubled strings.
Yeah, equal temperment is sort of annoying. It’s nice to be able to just play the exact right note on strings. I think reed instruments are pretty good about intonation, too, but I’m not good enough to play with other people yet.
I have played the mandolin. I prefer to try to master one instrument than play loads, but piano is too useful not too know the basics. I still have a long way to go to achieve mastery of guitar…
Have you tried mandolin? It’s just a violin with frets and doubled strings.
Oh now that is tempting to look into. Thanks for the suggestion!
For me:
Voice: First stop for learning any melody. Not bad for learning harmony, either, theoretically–I still suck at singing and recognizing harmony notes.
Guitar: Rhythm and a bit of intuitive harmony. Most importantly it’s given me something to accompany and support my singing.
Clarinet: Really makes you think about what notes you’re playing because the layout is not intuitive at all! Also forces you to think about phrasing because you have to breath. Also gives you a lot of options with the envelope I don’t have on guitar without a pedal.
Piano: King of theory! Very easy to read and construct chords. Guitar: “flat 5? what is the fifth of this chord again? where is it? ok, so it’s this, and i move it down a fret, but now I have to move my pinky here, but shit, then I have to grab that with, what, my index finger? no, I need that there…” Piano: “boop! flat 5!”
Wish list: drums, accordion, lap slide guitar, saw, fiddle.
Off the list: most other single-note instruments; might mess about with more reed instruments like sax or some folk reeds, but I feel like I’d be investing a lot to duplicate what I can do on clarinet (expressive single note playing on wind instruments).
To my apartment neighbors: I’m sorry.
To the builders of this building: thank you for using so much brick.
Band in most countries.
What do you mean?
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N0 sticking to my kazoo
