What Instrument(s) do you play?

When i said "so much" i didn't mean that we disagree on a lot of things...i meant that our opions were so much different from eachothers.

When i said "so much" i didn't mean that we disagree on a lot of things...i meant that our opions were so much different from eachothers.

no worries! :)

I think ounce you read my user name it's pretty obvious, I also play the piano.

Violin555, could you please get rid of the picture you have as part of your signature or make it smaller, because it takes up a whole bunch of space and makes you have to scroll down a lot more. I'm not trying to be mean or anything to you. It's just kind of annoying. I don't mean any offense, and please don't take any. Thanks!

Must agree. I think I'll use my authority as a moderator to gently encourage you, Violin555, to put the photo somewhere else. Thanks!

Interesting - I just reflected on the fact that my favourite wind instrument by far is the clarinet, yet I have no desire to play it.

I second that! The Clarinet has always been by favorite and I tend to favor it, and my other equal favorite, the French Horn in my pieces. I love those two instruments.

Concerning what I play:

Classical Guitar: Going on 8 years. I'm not as good as I should be for 8 years though, as I decided to focus on composition.

Piano: For about two years. The goal here was to get just good enough to be able to play some basic, easy stuff, and to be able to experiment with chord progressions before composing.

I've played the trumpet and the guitar for over 6 years each. This august I'll actually start my trumpet performance major. I've never had a lesson in my life, but I guess it's something I was meant to play if I was able to get a scholarship with it and all.

My main instrument is the piano, but I also play flute and trumpet and I sing, and I have aspirations to buy a french horn, violin, and eventually oboe after I learn something single-reed. I've tried about ten times, but I never could hack the guitar. I guess it's just not my thing.

I play the piano, and i play it pretty good! (Not that i'm a virtuoso :D ) I also have a funny desire to learn every instrument i come across, currently i'm trying out the recorder.

Interesting - I just reflected on the fact that my favourite wind instrument by far is the clarinet, yet I have no desire to play it.

Same here. I guess we're both crazy. ;)

I play Alto Sax and bass drum on drumline. ^^

I wish to learn to play several instruments, but right now Clarinet and Trumpet (both in Bb) are at the top of my list. I believe they are essential to my knowledge if I expect to become a band director. I played trumpet for 1 year, but I really need to get into it again. I remember the fingerings, but not anything about the embouchre, which is like 90% of it. :-d

I play the Alto Sax, and learning the piano. I have played the sax for 7 years now, and piano 2 years. I want to play the Bari, or possibly the Bass saxophones.

I tried the Violin, Cello and Piano - I excel at none of the three and currently not taking any lessons for any. Only had lessons when I was much younger.

I've only been playing piano and following music lessons for the past two years, but I'm progressing nicely (I'm happy enough to be able to play the Bach two-part inventions :unsure: ). But I think I'm better in improvising then playing "pieces" ... though I love to be able to play insane pieces like Godowsky's "Java Suite" and the feared 1837 "Douze Grandes Études" (keep on daydreamin' :lol: ).

Well, I play the piano, the oboe (started recently), the gu-zhen (Chinese zither, which is the ancestor of the koto), and alto saxophone. I also own a xiao ( Chinese bamboo flute), which I only know how to play a scale and only one octave ^^'.

I started piano when I was 9 years old (which to many of my classmates, that's a really late start). I liked it in the beginning, like as in the first 2 or 3 months, but then I hated it because of all the boring stuff I was learning, so I started to slack off and not practice. Then I switched piano teacher because of that reason, because maybe another teacher might use another way of teaching that can actually interest me... So it did, it worked... Somehow... and now I am practicing and interested again....

I started the oboe just around a few weeks ago, and I loved it when I had my first lesson, the teacher was nice, and the oboe was fun to play and blah blah blah... So I will continue it for quite a long period of time, I guess...

The Chinese zither wasn't quite what I first wanted to learn =\, at first I was aiming to learn koto, but because of it's rarity in my area, I gave up, but my parents suggested me into the Chinese zither, which is basically the same thing, but sound just slightly more um.... Chinese... :cool: So I started it last fall and didn't quite like my first teacher for this and switched teachers around 2 - 3 months after I started (the teacher was nice, but she didn't really care about my progressions and stuff...) and my current one taught me properly and fine and etc.... So yes, I will continue this too!

As for alto saxophone, I started it since.... 2 years ago, because it was part of my school's music program, and everyone is forced to learn an instrument. At first, I didn't quite want to learn the sax because back then, I liked the flute more. But I am glad I took it today, why? Well, basically, the fingerings of the alto sax and oboe is very much the same, so it's much easier to play oboe once I learned alto sax. Also, I discovered that alto sax is more expensive than most of my school's band's instrument, which is a good thing and a bad thing; good thing is that since it's expensive, meaning that there will be less saxes, meaning that it'll be more unique (I like being unique when it comes to learning instruments); bad thing is when I break it, I would have to pay lots of money for repairing.

As for the wooden flute/xiao, I got it as a present from my last birthday, and I haven't studied much about it since then...

Well I play Clarinet (Bb and bass, tried alto once too) and piano/keyboard. I've never taken a piano/keyboard lesson though, I've taught myselg:P but I've gotten pretty good at it these days

I play the flute, piano, recorder, and violin.

My goal is to learn as many instruments as possible, its really interesting.

I started playing the flute and piano when I was eleven, and the piano when I was twelve. I've been playing the flute for nine years; mostle in school with a few private lessons. I play well, but my technique and tone have rusted since I haven't played it in a two months.

I play the piano almost daily. I'm trying to improve my sight reading skills. I began playing by ear and started reading music about three years ago.

Just started the violin a three months ago. I'm just beyond the point where every note ends in an ear shattering screech. When I used to practice in my dorm room, I could hear the trampling sound of people fleeing and doors shutting, but It's much better now. ;) Adjusting to a stringed instrument was the hardest part of all for me. But I'm glad that my instructor's very patient.

I like playing the recorder for fun, its a nice inexpensive baroque recorder. I can almost play two octaves, and can sightread simple music.

My goal is to learn as many instruments as possible,

Oh,m I wish I had time to play more instrumetns... but right now I'm to busuy with school- and basketball. I'm botha player and a referee so, my week's are full

I started learning the piano age 6 and the violin age 8, so that would make it 15 years of playing the piano and 13 years of playing the violin. I'm actually no good at the piano though. The violin comes much more naturally to me. I hope to become a professional orchestral musician in the near future. Wish me luck. ;)

I wonder, do we have any concert pianists here yet? If so, i would like to ask a question...

I play violin, clarinet, and piano, all at pretty much the same level. At the moment I'm teaching violin as well, which can be frustrating since most of them are young kids, but I'm also finding it quite rewarding, especially when they make progress :) . I've played piano since I was about 4, and violin since I was 6. Clarinet I took up when I was 11, but it became my main instrument, until violin took over again after high school :lol: . I love my latest violin, I bought it this year (and still haven't finished paying it off -- eeek!), but it has such a nice warm tone (plus I tune it ever so slightly flat so it's more resonant :blush: )

Hi everyone, new on this board,

Guess I may be the only one yet on this board, but I have been playing the Harp for about 9 years (and yes, I'm male, when I started on it as a child I didn't know of all those stupid biases against harps.. :blush: ). I've also recently joined a local youth symphony orchestra, which I'm enjoying a lot. Next to that I play the electric guitar, I know, quite a contrast :lol:, but I love both instruments and it gives me the opportunity to play a lot of different things.

Right now I'm also trying to find the time to learn to play some piano, and violin (my older sister has a violin which she doesn't use anymore, comes in handy :) ). I'd like to try a lot of different instruments...

I don't really have any experience in composing, but I'd love to learn to. Frankly, I don't know where to start..

I believe you are our first harpist! How cool. Welcome!

Don't worry about where to start too much. Try playing around on your harp with ideas that come into your head, or just let your hands wander over the strings and see where they land. You might do this with a recording device so you can play back something you like. When you come up with something that really strikes you as cool or beautiful, try writing it down. Don't worry that you don't know what you're doing yet...you'll make lots of frustrating mistakes. We all do. That's part of learning. Don't let what you dont' know stop you from trying.

That said, once you do start, and if you want to get serious about it, I encourage you to get some education in music theory. A lot of people disagree with me on this, but studying what the great masters of the past learnt and discovered the slow and hard way will make you a better composer, faster, than any other method. You can free your mind and go off and do anything you like after you learn theory, just as you can write anything that comes to your mind once you learn the alphabet, spelling and grammar; but the depth of understanding you'll get about what you're doing will stay with you.

Okay, thankyou for the advice. I do however know some things about music theory, having done some exams in it on my musical school. I understand most things globally but I have troubles understanding how keys etc. work. This is because I play the Celtic (Folk) Harp which isn't good with accidentals and changing key. Therefore most pieces I play don't change key and use accidentals sparingly. I also tend do forget how intervals and chords work. I think this is because on a harp you can't 'see' the intervals because in one octave there are only 7 strings.

I'll try to get some stuff that's in my head onto my harp and hopefully written down before I forget :D