221–230 of 260 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do it! I started learning cello during the pandemic despite not playing any other instrument. While I'm probably still worse than children with the same time of practice, it's been fun and really rewarding. I assume it's even more rewarding with a simpler instrument.
Unfortunately I haven't found a way yet to start and stick at it. The guitar is in the basement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've found it surprisingly low effort to get good enough at guitar and, in fact, piano, that you can start to see social rewards, i.e. people actually want you to play, at least a little. Meanwhile I put in more hours and had far more formal instruction at a woodwind than either of those combined and... yeah, nobody wanted to hear that shit, it sounds awful (cringe-inducing, even) unless you're excellent . Years of e…
Was mildly triggered by your comment at first, being a pianist, but on reflection you're right. The skill floor for the piano is objectively lower thanks to being percussive. But my god is it difficult trying to sing with a percussive instrument while also accompanying yourself with and extra 2-3 voices. Timbre, vibrato and dynamic control over a single note mean that people will pay to listen to a beautiful singer o…
Then see how to create a variant of it.
Fricking scales and theory. Totally the wrong way to grab peoples attention.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've found it surprisingly low effort to get good enough at guitar and, in fact, piano, that you can start to see social rewards, i.e. people actually want you to play, at least a little. Also surprisingly low cost for a pretty good instrument. $250 dollars will get you a pretty good solid top steel string acoustic guitar (Yamaha FS800 or FG800, Fender CC60 or CD60, half a dozen models from Orangewood) or solid top…
Ukulele is even quicker, kid sized and you can hang it on your wall for art when you’ve moved on.
My mom made me and both of my brothers take 9 years of piano lessons. Today, not one of us plays - I don't think any of us even has a keyboard in our houses. The reason for this is simply that we were never allowed to play the kind of music we liked . Which was, of course, rock. Or blues, or country. Or, really, anything with a beat. Nope; it was all classical all the time. And piano lessons were the only time we wer…
I wonder why parents do this. Parental cargo cutting? Cheap baby sitting?
The horror cases like GP's "9 years" are essentially a miscalibration, failing to recognize a suitable stopping point.
"Cheap babysitting" is not it. Lessons are short and more expensive than childcare. Enforcement of practice time is a hassle (and a balancing act!)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Music is a great hobby and a terrible career. I love playing mandolin, and i'm taking up fiddle now. Someday I hope to learn piano. It's is all in good fun. My day job is programming. I'm lucky that I enjoy it as well, but there is only so much time I can write code in a day, and that is less than 8 hours (i'm glad for meetings for this reason, they prevent burn out) I get paid well for it.
I think the equation changed recently. Many more gigs, because so less people are playing an instrument to a certain level nowadays. Here in Hamburg Germany (with a population of 1.8m) there are maybe like two good pianists. It's actually relatively easy to earn money with music through concerts nowadays.
I've been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there's very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments. 1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It's very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems. 2. It's very difficult…
Also you have to play with other people. I'm a lifelong musician and former professional musician, and I was always in bands, both school and rock bands with friends, right from when I started playing. I think that's just crucial, I never would have stuck with it just sweating it out in the basement. You aren't a musician if you aren't playing with other people and in front of audiences.
Don't you think most kids would also choose to quit maths or history or any other boring subject at school too? This article skirts around the fact that I think is the reason kids quit 90+% of the time: the kids just don't want to do it but their parents are forcing them. How many young kids actually, genuinely want to play a violin/flute/clarinet? I'd wager very, very few. I don't think it is the teaching method at…
It is instead parents that often push their kids into lessons. One point I don't see mentioned much here: you want your kids to be inspired, and there are lots of ways to do that. But, I think it's equally if not more important as the parent to BE INSPIRING to them re: music.
I was first trained on saxophone, flipped to drums, and can dabble on guitar and piano. I don't know if I chose saxophone when I was in elementary school, but it was an option, and I chose it to some degree. But my dad was all over it in a good way. He numerous saxophone-playing friends from his own days playing the keys in bands. He helped me acquire an old and unique sax that really made care to maintain and play it. He suggested I play along with certain songs he liked. And he came to all of my recitals as well.
So, I never resisted it because my parents forced me. That said, I did get bored of a more classical way of playing and tried for quite some time to flip my saxophone playing to jazz.
Ultimately, I flipped to drums because I had been banging on things with some good rhythm for my entire life. It was just natural, and I knew that I had mostly found the instrument that fit me. By that point, I was old enough to start playing in bands and that was what fueled many more years of truly enjoyable performance.