Disclaimer - I'm not a musician, but I always wanted to learn to play an instrument. I have some experience with a guitar and drums. Currently, I'm learning to play piano.
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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You are still a musician, no barrier to entry! :)
Always good to be able to play some piano!
Thank you for the kind words, but I'm not the musician. I have a background in STEM, so it makes it easier for me understand the music but I lack in the creative part. I can recreate the music but I struggle to make something on my own. Having said that, I truly enjoy the piano learning experience.
For me it's the other way around, i can't read sheet music, or do anything with that. Still it makes us both a musician! :) And to approach it from a theoretic perspective gives a lot of opportunities as well, first do the piano, then go into synthesizers and sound synthesis and BAM all the STEM aspects are needed again. ;)
Seems like we're the two sides of the same coin :)
You sound like me. STEM background, though I have been playing music from an early age. I'm good at transcribing what I hear down to sheet music, but ask me to generate anything original or creative and I can't do anything.
Composing doesn't mean that you're turning on the random number generator in your head and come up with something without any external input.
You will hear many melodies throughout your life. Your brain isn't a perfect storage device, but rather just mushes them together.
If your brain then reproduces mush between multiple songs and you write that down as sheet music, that's most the creativity you need.
You won't transcribe the mush perfectly and even if you did, it always sounds better in one's head than it does when written down. But then you clean that up, take out the rough edges, try to make it a bit richer than what your brain told you about and after a while you've genuinely got a thing of your own. Alternatively, you may also just need to scrap a snippet of mush, if it just does not work (which happens a lot).
Ultimately, perseverance and understanding the theory get you much farther than any creativity could.
Originally a drummer, but picked up bass when moving out of my parents house into an apartment building. Now consider bass my main instrument but also still play a bit of drums and guitar.
Instruments I play:
Guitar
Bass
Piano/synth
Drums
Instruments I KNOW how to play:
Guitar
Trumpet
Instruments I play:
- Guitar
- Bass
- Banjo
- Violin
- Harmonica
- Keys
- Drums
Instruments I play well:
My main instrument are the drums! Been playing those for over 20 years now, never had a single lesson in my life so looking to improve technique every day.
I also play a little bit of keys, which translates to soft synths and samples and ambient. I really want to start proper with analogue synthesizers, but vowed to never do that, because it's a bottomless pit which you fill with money. 😅
I play synth, but im most familiar with bass guitar. Id love to return to electric guitar, but id want a guitar that fits my hands, the last few guitars just didn't cut it
With synth, do you mean general keyboards? Or really diving into the analogue synthesizer space?
I grew up with the Yamaha DX7, so I have some background in FM synthesis. I also have a basic subtractive synth, a Korg Electribe
Both offering endless possibilities! Although i do like the advancement in software synthezing there is something just better about directly manipulating sound through mechanical means.
Piano - main Organ - trying, piano skills really help. Trying to play a left hand piano part that does not play the same note as my feet is hard when it comes to getting both right. I guess I'm just essentially going through another version of learning hand independence on piano, except with left hand being independent from feet: bass independence lol Flute - not very good but it is fun Singing - not very good but it is fun Trumpet - despite my lack of intentions to annoy others, I am essentially this person. I'm trying.
limb independence is the hardest part of any instrument it seems. With playing drums it's also throwing feet in the mix (which applies to organ as well).
That is a bunch of instruments you play!
Piano + keys/synths, guitar, bass and started drums this spring as I found some good deals on e-kits and managed to clear up some space in the already full man cave.
Played trombone and tuba for a couple years each. I've taken a liking to composing these days, which often feels like playing a whole orchestra as an instrument. 🙃
Composing is being on a whole different level with how you approach music! And with the availability of software instruments it has become within reach of a single person to create like that.
Yeah, it's definitely more puzzle than improvisation. I think, it mainly feels like playing a whole orchestra to me, because trombone and tuba are so limited in what you can do on your own, since you just cannot produce intervals then. And then as you say, being able to just write down that I'd like a beautiful chord progression, that is very powerful and fun.