With all the extra time at home, I was wondering if anyone has picked up any new instruments lately?
At the start of the pandemic I decided to finally learn Logic properly. After that I sold off a bunch of hardware and got pretty heavily into sample libraries, including orchestral stuff. That ended up with me starting to take private music theory/harmony/composition classes with a film/tv/game music composer. I’m learning a bit of piano as part of those lessons, but I recently crossed a new line. I’ve always been super into 1970s jazz and funk records, but living in the city I’m limited as to what instruments I can play besides guitar and bass (which I already dabble in). Anyway, long story short, I bought a flute last week.
Anyone else pick up any new instruments these days?
That’s awesome! The clarinet is killer. Aside from loving the sound of jazz flute and the small size of the instrument, not having to deal with reeds was a big selling point. Props to you!
I started playing Fortnite with my son. I got a victory royale in my first game! (Admittedly, it was on Switch.)
Back on topic though, I’m going to buy my first electric bass soon. Been getting back into the guitar a bit during lockdown, I would really like to have a go at the shoegaze/dreampop ‘project’ I wouldn’t have had a clue where to start with as a teenager.
Bass is super fun. I highly recommend getting one, especially since you play guitar. Bass is so much more suited to the style of music I like. I wish I had started on that back in high school, instead of guitar.
Honestly, taking theory/harmony lessons now, I realize how much better I would have been at music if I had started with piano. It’s so much easier for me to wrap my head around theory on a piano. The guitar is just not intuitive to me, but I think learning theory on piano will actually make me a better guitar player. I’m finally connecting some dots.
The flute is going to be super fun. I can already tell. It’s just a totally different way to make music than I am used to.
Also, while it’s not something I can do due to noise constraints, I saw one of these plastic trumpets at the music shop the other day. They look awesome and only cost like $80. If I lived in the country I would be all over one of these!
I got a D10 pedal steel guitar a few months back, and am slowly learning the E9 tuning. Haven’t dabbled much with C6 yet, but this thing is definitely gonna take a while to get anywhere close to competent.
Yeah. It is such a fascinating and organic sound. Nothing can really replicate it. I’m waiting on an Osmose, and wondering if the MPE will offer anything close to the way you can slide in and out of chords.
Yeah, I’ve been re-learning electric bass for one week now.
When I was a kid, my parents made me learn a bit of upright bass, but at the time, I thought it was lame, and being fretless, it was incredibly hard to learn. I ended up dropping it when entering high school.
In my early 20’s, I got a cheap e bass, played for a while in a little french pop band… but my playing was all over the place and filled with super bad habits (aka “I’ll just play how I feel it because I’m too lazy to learn”).
Now (mid 30’s) I really miss playing an instrument… So, I’ve dusted off my old e bass, bought a pretty nice lesson book and there we go! This time, I’m doing it seriously, learning the scales, proper technique etc.
In some ways, I feel like I’m already playing much better than before.
I started learning the renaissance lute in January of last year, and have been diligently practicing every day. Recently I have added nylon-string guitar and bass to my regular practice routines.
I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to acoustic instruments, but the lute has been the one I’ve really clicked with.
I did the same with the guitar in my early/mid-30s. I had been messing around with samplers a lot, and decided I wanted to play an instrument again after not playing guitar since high school. While I never got great at guitar, the basic knowledge I learned over the years is making it so much easier to pick up a different instrument. Just like with languages I guess.
I love the bass and totally wish I had learned that first. Acoustic bass would be amazing to play! Keep going man!
I started trying to learn “proper” tunes on my Kalimba.
The tab takes a bit of dedication and repetition.
So far I’ve been getting my fingers round the first 8 bars of ‘Summer’, as played infuriatingly well by April Yang.
It’ll probably take me another year to learn the next 8 bars without mistakes…unless I give it some dedication.
Eh, I kinda wish my parents made me learn piano or guitar first… would have make me a better music writer.
But yeah, same for me: years of fucking around with samplers, but I dunno, I missed the physical experience of playing an instrument. I just had a short bass session and my fingers burn in the most pleasing way.
I have started playing electric bass. I’ve had it for a while, but never really took the time to get into feeling it. I play finger-style and my background is mainly guitar. Delicate touch, thick deep tones. And a bit of Jaco. Took me a few weeks until we jelled. I’m believe I don’t play like a guitarist, which was my goal.
This is all true. I teach guitar and bass, and when I demonstrate theory concepts I first show them on a piano keyboard, then migrate those ideas over to a guitar.
I used to play a lot of guitar and bass but I’ve always found piano/keyboards confusing because of the layout of the keys. Switching musical key is a breeze once you know your scales on guitar/bass but the spacing of notes in a scale changes when the key changes on piano. That always made me have immense respect for accomplished pianists!
I think it’s easier to see the series of whole and half steps on a piano and what constitutes a key signature. So I tell my students that you just take whole whole half, whole whole whole half and can make any major scale. It’s a bit harder to see that across strings on the guitar. But then the nice thing is once you do get used to seeing that, you just literally move shapes around which you can’t do on piano.
… But then the nice thing about piano is once you know the key signature it’s very easy and clear to see how to form the chords.
I would like to learn a wind instrument at some point in my life because I don’t fucking understand transpositional instruments and I feel like if I just got mildly competent at one it would help me understand.
But to me… CONCERT PITCH IS CONCERT PITCH. SO TIRED of playing with a trumpeter where when I say “the song is in Eb” he has to do the little transpositional dance out loud as if he expects me to transpose for him, or give him the key for how own little world he lives in. Like Jesus man, when I use a capo on my guitar I don’t demand everyone else start doing math!
