Thread: Tell me about your music instrument playing skills!

Hiring a guitar instructor can help add a sense of accountability that could keep you motivated to practice. It's also nice that they can teach you good practicing habits and whatnot. But the social accountability effects are really not to be ignored.

It also helps if a good friend of yours tries taking up the instrument at the same time as you. I was lucky enough for this to be the case when I was first starting, and I found that there was a mutually-reinforcing effect that ultimately benefited both of us. Maybe you can convince a friend of yours to pick it up along with you.

After a certain point I think the habit becomes self sustaining in the sense that "practicing" no longer feels like practicing, it just feels like, well, playing. And then if anything the hard part is keeping yourself from playing when you really should be doing other things. Once you reach that point, I think you're pretty much set for life.

Originally Posted by DuB

Hiring a guitar instructor can help add a sense of accountability that could keep you motivated to practice. It's also nice that they can teach you good practicing habits and whatnot. But the social accountability effects are really not to be ignored.

It also helps if a good friend of yours tries taking up the instrument at the same time as you. I was lucky enough for this to be the case when I was first starting, and I found that there was a mutually-reinforcing effect that ultimately benefited both of us. Maybe you can convince a friend of yours to pick it up along with you.

After a certain point I think the habit becomes self sustaining in the sense that "practicing" no longer feels like practicing, it just feels like, well, playing. And then if anything the hard part is keeping yourself from playing when you really should be doing other things. Once you reach that point, I think you're pretty much set for life.

I did have a guitar teacher many years ago. Unfortunately with university and health issues it's not possible at the moment. But when I had the teacher and weekly lessons, I was at my best. To anyone thinking of picking up an instrument, particularly popular gear like guitar, bass, drums, or even singing, absolutely go for lessons. I don't know why, but there are many, many, people on the internet who apparently are chronic procrastinators to the point where it's a serious problem in their lives. I've never had much of a problem with procrastination, but if you want to pick up and instrument and you're the procrastinating type definitely get a teacher - it keeps you honest about practicing and learning your stuff. Routine is essential. I know it's worked for friends of mine who struggle to start on the most simple tasks. It's all a matter of having deadlines. I'm a very routine based person so having a very set schedule made it easy for me to practice on set days of the week. I also had expectations to live up to which gives you another reason to keep going even when hate it. So yeah, lessons are a good idea.

I wish I had a friend to learn from the ground up with me, but most of my friends are musicians already. My closest friend is a very talented guitarist, playing semi-professionally in our local scene. I thought it'd work out well playing with him, but it doesn't. Playing together is frustrating for us both; the differences in experience and ability make sessions tense and difficult. At best, it's like he's giving me a free guitar lesson, and that isn't fair for him. I typically end up accompanying him on piano to satisfy my ego, and to restore the sanity of my friend. Plus, what's more fun than improvising music together with your friends?

edit: managed to practice guitar for two hours today alone, didn't get frustrated, and i'm finally feeling like i'm making progress. fuck year.

well I've been playing guitar for about 2 years I am not very very dedicated to it....but sometimes I like to play.....and I am self learnt.....all I know I learned by myself or used some help from the internet....sometimes I like to play few notes and chords on virtual piano..... actually I have very good listening skills.... not really absolute hearing but relative.....but I can usually figure out any note that there is..... chords more difficult....but sometimes get them too after some time of experimenting at least those basic....so I can hear pretty well....only thing that's more tricky is when some notes are played fast....that is tricky also....but I can almost figure out any note that there is.....but only if I have instrument but unfortunately it takes long for me when there are lots of notes......an that's it I play mostly for myself

self taught myself how to play piano learning the basic scales and chords and then learned how to read music sheet (though super slow), learned some songs but stopped. All the while my brother was learning to play guitar so i picked up how to play it basically learning some chords, but i mostly try to learn cool riffs i like. I have now found my true purpose the DRUM! Been playing that over about a year, teaching myself again.

violin

Originally Posted by goldenphoniex

violin

Goldenphoniex

I met this busker, playing this piece, on Rundle Mall in Adelaide city. So o o beautiful I cried.

Enjoy

♥

https://youtu.be/0uZi6uAdB6Q

♥(3:24) 882 views

I've taken violin lessons but never felt I was terribly good at it. I did, however, learn piano by ear, and thanks to some awful experiences compliments of my piano teacher, I cannot read music. But it's fun. I've been playing the piano nearly my whole life.

Latest vid.

Started to play the guitar 3.5 years ago taking lessons and 2 years ago I self taught a few basics of drumming.
Composed a few not so great stuff on my own and with a few friends, now I just play for fun when I've time

I was also quite good at screaming and growling once!

The level of my piano playing skill is the same as a thirteen month old babys speaking skill.

I've been playing piano for 14 years. I took piano lessons starting in 2nd grade until I graduated high school. It was mostly classical music, but lately I've been starting to get better at improvising, even trying to write my own songs now. I also taught myself bass guitar, which I've been playing for 6 years now.

This is the song I played at the year-end recital of my senior year:

I started playing guitar 3 years ago and am self-taught. I'm still not the greatest, but that's okay because the whole reason I started was just to have fun and be able to play around a campfire. I mostly learned through youtube(by watching acoustic covers of songs and tutorials) and got guitar tabs online. I love the internet.

I can't really claim to play any seriously. I used to play Tenor Sax (7 years in school.) but haven't played in almost five years now. I currently dabble in piano, guitar, and cello. Mostly piano as it is the easiest to simply start playing without the need for tuning and I have the easiest time improvising on there. My school also has a number of pianos open for practice so I tend to stop by and play between classes.

I started playing percussion in the 5th grade and continued for years through high school. I didn't really continue after that (graduated in 2001). I was pretty good at percussion, though not the rock and roll type. I didn't have a lot of experience with drum set. Lately, with my musical preferences evolving, I am really interested in learning how to play the cello. It's my favorite musical instrument in the orchestra. It has the perfect range to my ears. Its just too bad that I didn't learn how to play various notes and scales like all the other sections. I can pick up rhythms pretty well, but learning the different notes and keys will be tricky. I will make it happen one day, even if I'm really old when I start. No drum solo has ever provided the same emotional range as a melodic instrument.

I've been playing piano for 17 years. I took lessons up until a few years ago, and like to play for fun now. Sometimes I can go a week or 2 without playing before I miss the piano, and I usually won't play for more than 2 hours at a time. I teach myself classical pieces, and listen to Youtube videos to help me with the melodies.

learned violin for 2-3 years (i played it like a guitar instead of playing with a bow because of my muscular dystrophy)
i quit violin this year and started piano (quite good at it honestly)
just after some months though i started losing interest in piano and instead wanted to pick up electric guitar (i will begin guitar after the summer is finished)
i have only learned some riffs from the internet.

I finished 6 years of music school. I play guitar and piano, but in the past time the instruments are just collecting dust.

I've played guitar off and on since high school and I am going to be 31in August. I just started getting intopiano again. I took a piano class in community college a long time ago. Played by ear and got a b or an a in the class. I'm interested in recording got a soundcloud site soundcloud.com/oneironaut26 if anyone wants to check out what I can do in piano and editing. I plan to add electric guitar when I get one soon.

I played the penny whistle/recorder pretty well in elementary school, never had much luck with the alto sax or clarinet though and I kinda gave up on myself after that. I've been told I have the perfect fingers for piano/guitar, however I just use them to type at 80+wpm on forums like this

lol

I've played piano on/off for about 20 yrs..practice daily rotation of same 4-5 songs (d.bowie d.elfman) try to learn new material every couple months but pretty lazy at it

I have been playing the cello for five years now, and so far, I am currently learning several advanced concertos, such as Shostakovitch and Prokofiev. Otherwise, I have been learning piano for less than a year, and I can play several well-known Chopin nocturnes. I try to practice at least 8 - 10 hours a week.

I used to have piano lessons as a child, and I followed music classes at the local arts center a few months after the piano classes.
Unfortunately, I no longer know how to play any of these instruments anymore.

At the arts center, we always had these presentation moments every now and then, and this one time we performed the firetruck song on these keyboards (I can't recall if they were from Yamaha or Roland), and we got to pick our own sound effect. I found a really cool crazy DJ sound effect, but the teacher said I couldn't use that one so I switched to a rock organ. I'm still looking for that exact keyboard and/or that sound effect to make a song with it as a middle finger to that teacher lol