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?
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.
Saw?