[Moved to Piefed] Ask

I was in school in a time period when they understood that learning music would make us learn everything a little better.

Thus, every child could play the Recorder and the Ukulele, and then we specialized the next year with saxophones and clarinets and trumpets and some poor kid who had to walk a mile home with a fucking tuba every 2 days because he was too close for the bus. Sorry Jason.

I taught myself guitar and while I have some bad habits as a result of that and am probably not as good as I ought to be for how long I've been playing, I am pretty good nowadays. I can play most things that I want to play, it's only really the tougher end of prog metal stuff that I enjoy but which is beyond my reach.

I've learned a bit of bass guitar too, since most of the hand movements and shapes from guitar can be transferred across, you just have to cover a little more distance with each movement. Learning bass was much more an exercise in thinking about the instrument differently and understanding how to apply it in a musical context than it was a matter of learning new ways of moving my hands.

I'm attempting to learn piano at the moment, but it's coming along slowly. I had started learning violin beforehand, but I realised that I needed to be much better at reading sheet music than I was if I was to play much violin, and I figured piano would be an easier way to learn that. I can read sheet music, just not nearly well enough, and that becomes something of an obstacle on an unfamiliar instrument. With guitar, tabs got me through the early stages and after that I was able to do things by ear for the most part, so I never properly developed the sheet music skills.

I can play (with various degrees of skill):

• Flute

• Harmonica

• Mouth harp

• Guitar

• Theramin

• Recorder

• Ocarina

• Piano

The harmonica is what I can play the best, that also feels like it takes skill. Mouth harp is barely an instrument lol

Worst at guitar; but it is also the one I've taken up most recently.

I played cornet (small trumpet) then baritone (small euphonium) in a brass-band basically from primary school up until I graduated university and moved oversea. I went to conservatorium through all the amateur levels, got my certificate degree and then stopped classes. My town band would also compete regionally and nationally, and get decent results!

I guess I got good enough to play properly in my town band and be first chair of the baritone section, but I was never passionate enough to go pro, or even to join a more important band.

Play guitar since like 12, not very good. But got pretty good at the electric bass in my teens, even got in a band

Trumpet: Played from I was 8 to when I was 16. I was pretty decent.
Guitar: Started at 9 and still play to this day. I'm alright, but I'm not as good as I should/could be.
Piano/keyboard/organ: Started at 7, and I've been noodling around with it ever since. Not very good at all. I mostly use it as a reference instrument when I need to figure out and/experiment with chords and scales.

I’ve played guitar and trombone. Only did trombone for like half a year, and was too grossed out by the spit valve lol so I stuck with guitar.

I can read tabs but can’t read music and can replicate the tabs with some practice.

But I go years without playing and then randomly pick it up so I’ve never gotten good at it. Just a fun hobby and fun to know a little here and there.

The glass armonica. I'm fluent.

Well, I played recorder in elementary school. I was not the worst in class, but not exactly in the middle either.

I tried guitar, but the only one I had access to was horrible, so I could never really play it, and gave up after it became clear that nothing else was going to be available to me. Which kinda sucked because I had started to figure things out, despite the shitty guitar, but trying to use any of it was just not good.

I guess I could have modified the guitar, but I was like 16 and had no idea that was even possible then, much less how to do it.

Also, my chorus teacher tried to teach me enough piano so that I wouldn't have to sing. That's because I suck at singing lol. I didn't even sign up for the class, I got shunted there after the classes I chose filled up. I had picked art as the primary option, latin as the secondary, and band as the third. Chorus wasn't anything I was into at all, and I knew I couldn't sing worth a damn.

After the teacher discovered that I couldn't sing for shit, she tried to get me moved, and couldn't. Then she tried teaching me some piano enough to bang out some stuff during class, and I was vaguely interested, but you can't learn piano quickly, and that's what would have been needed.

So, I learned to lip sync!

Later on, I picked up some very basic drumming fucking around with friends. Not enough to call myself a drummer, but enough that I can kinda get the job done in a pinch. Enough to keep a beat going for practice or just fucking around, and to recognize I'd need a lot more practice if I ever wanted to be serious with it.

I've figured out that I could probably have learned an instrument, before my arthritis got bad, but that's also why I'm not upset I didn't go hard after any of it; having put in that work and then losing the benefit of it to arthritis? I'd be pissed

Guitars and vocals were my main two instruments. In bands that I was in, I did just vocals (mix of clean singing and screaming type stuff). But I also did occasional solo gigs with acoustic guitar, mainly covers like Working Class Hero and Redemption Song and shit. Although ultimately my music career went nowhere slowly and I haven't played guitar or sang for a few years.

Although I have been starting to get the itch again. I've currently got 3 acoustic guitars in my cupboard that need some repairs but I'm thinking of picking up a cheap electric or maybe even the bass some time.