Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thunderfoot" data-source="post: 2923062" data-attributes="member: 34175">Obviously there are no hardcore percussionists on this board becuase to play the triangle or the cymbals CORRECTLY takes months of INTENSE practice.  BTW did I mention I'm a percussionist. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />However, the question here is WHY do you want to learn an instrument?  Do you savvy yourself a musician, do you just want to pass the time, do you just want to have fun?  Each person picking up an instrument has different reasons, each of these reasons warrants a different answer or direction to take this conversation.  However, in the spirit of solving problems without knowing all the facts (a staple of EBBs, chatroom and forums) I shall try to give an answer, it may not be brief.If you are looking far an "easy" instrument to play, percussion is the most basic set of instruments to tackle.  Anyone can physically cause a percussion instrument to function, any two objects that strike each other qualifies and I have personally used and seen common ordinary objects used in orchestral pieces (my favorite was a ball peen hammer striking a cast itron skillet)  The problem with percussion, is that most people think drumset, and though it is cool to play drums and we get the best chicks (regardless of what the other band members think) to play well takes coordination and MOST people don't have what it takes.  Here is a test, pat you head with your right hand, rub you tummy in a circular motion with your left hand, tap your left foot on the opposite beat to the right hand, tap your right foot on every third beat of your right hand - if you can't do this in about ten minutes of trying, please don't spend hundreds of dollars on a kit and end up frustrated.  Bongos, congas, and other Latin percussion is easily learned (take hand, strike heads) but difficult to master (ie after 12 years I still don't hold a candle to a real Latin percussionist) but are icredibly fun to play (and you can do a quick Ricky Ricardo impersonation that chicks really dig.)Strings are the next set of instruments and are all BASICALLY played in a similar way, either plucking or bowing the strings causing them to vibrate near a resonance chamber issuing a harmonic frequency (ie sound).  The basics of these instruments are very simple, but you need to practice a lot to sound passible - String players are made not born (although natural talent makes the construction a whole lot easier).  10 minutes a day for two years isn't going to get you to Carnehgie Hall or that gig replacing Eddie Van Halen.  There is an old saying that practice makes perfect, wrong, practice makes better, nobody's perfect.  Strings are fun to play however, As a drummer/percustionist I too can "play" guitar (not well but enough to get my point across to real guitarists or other string players in an orchestral setting.  I never have, nor will I ever claim to be a string player, but I will admit I have fun while I'm butchering the instrument, a possible drawback, if you value the physical presentation of your hands (ie a hand model, metro-sexual or just plain vain) strings are NOT for you - in order to play you must build up calouses on the fingertips or your fretting hand.Winds (brass or wood) are all simple to learn, but each one requires several hours of practice in order to just get past the "strangling a duck/goose syndrome".  Your physical liabilities will also limit your selection of instrument.  Low lung power or poor diaphragm control will mean shorter "blow" times; big lips limit you to basic woodwinds or lower (ie larger) brass instruments, or any wind that you encompass (ie, oboe, sax, recorder, bagpipes - French horn is RIGHT OUT).  So if you don't mind the frustration of learning (ie how bad you really sound to start) these are the instruments that are by far the easiest to pick-up and eventually get REALLY good at (in the smallest amount of time - but obviously the more you play the better you get)  Of course you can get a harmonica and just go to town, easy to learn and cheap (buy Chapsticktm).Keyboard instruments (Piano, synt, harpsichord, organ) are all labor intesive instruments.  To learn the classical way takes many hours of lessons and many years of study to be good...however, these are probably the easiest instrument to CHEAT on and sound half-way decent.  A real player will turn up their nose at you, laugh, point, etc, but most people will think you sound fine and not know the difference. (like science to the primative - ooo magic)  There is also a program that is being taught now about the "professional" way to play - ie lounge acts, bars and concerts not involving tuxedos and the word conducted by...simple chordal patterns with the left hand and soloing with the right (prevelant in rock, jazz, blues, country and basically most POP styles of music)  This method is much easier to learn thatn the traditional and will instantly make you a "star" at least at the company holiday party or with the local neighbourhood folks.  Play for others is fun, so that may be a route to go.Of course all this goes back to my first question, why do you want to learn to play?  For you, for glory, to pass the time, etc.  If you really want to teach yourself, JUST BECAUSE, then go to your local music store, blow off the circling buzzards (I mean salepersons) and walk around until something speaks to you.  Hold the instruments in your hands, feel them up, its okay, they like it, feel their weight, their heft, their pulse and how you react.  Whichever one your blood screams for, thats the one for you - its primal, yes, but you'll be happy.Hope this helps!  As a professional, I have seen all to often fellow pros bug on amatures to the point of discouraging them.  If you want to please you, do what feels right baby!  If you want to please a crowd, then self-taught is NOT the way to go (regardless of how many pros get there that way)  Take lessons, learn the rules, then go home and break them.  Know why what your doing is wrong and still sounds right.  I comend you on picking up ANYTHING!  Too many people walk through life ignoring the possibility of music because it has "no practicle value", but if I can make just one person happy with my playing, even if its just me, then I say it has more value than all the "real things" in life combined.Just my two cents.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

Verification