Anybody took lessons from anyone not main instrument

Barney

Like maybe a sax for melody ideas ...or a keyboard for ideas in harmony ect.

I know the benefits of learning of someone who plays the same intrument...for technical issues ect ... but if you already have these together and read the music ..any reason we cant learn off other intstrumentalists apart from guitar...

To me a saxophone as a solo instrument is far more melodic than what guitarists do 
...even at a basic level...same with keyboards and harmony

octatonic

When I went to music school they had us play piano, percussion, do vocals, as well as composition/harmony and such.
It is really useful and informs your knowledge of music much more than you think it would.

Winny_Pooh

Sax is alot of work to get basic to get basic tone etc, you can still learn alot about melody just playing sax lines. Learning piano however is like musical boot camp. You see the relationship between scales and written music more easy on the keyboard (sharps and flats being visually and physically obvious) you then see the correlation between intervals and chords plus scales/modes more easily. 

Barney

Winny_Pooh said:

Sax is alot of work to get basic to get basic tone etc, you can still learn alot about melody just playing sax lines. Learning piano however is like musical boot camp. You see the relationship between scales and written music more easy on the keyboard (sharps and flats being visually and physically obvious) you then see the correlation between intervals and chords plus scales/modes more easily. 

Yeah...i was meaning learning guitar off a sax teacher really...would love to play sax properly btw ..but was really meaning going to sax teacher with guitar in hand and understand the thought process..phrasing ect....
Same as maybe keyboard player for harmony ..voicings ect...

JezWynd

Ollie Halsall used to transpose jazz sax solos to guitar as a way of finding new ideas and playing techniques apparently.

bingefeller

You could read into some analysis of great sax solos, such as what Charlie Parker or Michael Brecker were doing, or some analysis on Steve Khan's site of non-guitar solos.  It depends on what you want to get out of it at the end of the day.  

paul_c2

I'd advise caution. What makes a (for example) saxophone solo isn't solely the melody, its also the tone/timbre possibilities with the particular instrument. Remember, all wind instruments (and bowed instruments eg violin, cello etc) can change the dynamics of the note once sounded, adding another element of dynamics to their lines. And its not about the number of notes, its possible to be very expressive with few notes but lots of breath variations and dynamics etc.

Also bear in mind that some instruments naturally have a limited range (like voice) and the guitar's isn't so constrained. Also there are various other little challenges on other instruments which don't translate to guitar.

So, while you might look at copying solo lines, yes it will give a bit of variety and provide good melodic insight, it will be somewhat restricted in other ways and might not sound 100% right.

I'd not advise taking lessons from someone who doesn't/can/t play your instrument. HOWEVER taking up a second musical instrument will be massively beneficial and you'll have a head start too because a lot of the music knowledge such as rhythm, scales, basic theory etc is transferrable/common across all instruments.

koneguitarist

Part of my limited musical knowledge comes from, first of all learning to use a drum machine in a live setting and understanding how drums interact with the band. Then I already played bass, but I started sequencing tracks on a DR5 and was wondering why my bass lines didn't fit with the drums and vice versa. 
So I started listening more to the drums and bass in various bands, and learning how to get the kicks right and even now I rarely listen to guitarists when I watch a band, concentrating on how they drive or hold back a song to add tension and feel. Certainly made me a better player to have in a band, as I would work off the drummers hi hat and snare for certain songs, bass and bass drum for other parts, to me, learning how to be a part of a band is more important than which note you play in a solo.