Before you took up guitar.....

What's Hot
did you play an instrument and if so, did you keep it up?  I played accordion (button type), tin whistle, mouth organ, fife, traditional Irish music: jigs, reels and hornpipes.  And waltzes.  Played in pubs where people liked to dance, the waltz was always very popular even if the floor was not the best for dancing.

Guitar playing and limited free time meant the dropping of the other instruments apart from the mouth organ.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. [Albert Einstein]

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom

Comments

  • munckeemunckee Frets: 12254
    I had a keyboard as a teenager but never really got anywhere with it, never had lessons.  Learnt a few bits at school, can still play renditions of the top gun theme, axel f, groovy kind of love, push it by salt and pepa and the theme from twin peaks - think that's my whole repertoire.

    Always talked about starting a band with my mates but we never got as far as learning instruments - then my brother bought me an encore acoustic when I was 21 as I was so into music he thought I'd dig it, 25 years later I still do.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • slackerslacker Frets: 2215
    edited January 2021
    Sort of . I had 3 failed attempts at guitar before I swapped to bass. Picked up acoustic gradually. Started to play electric again in the late 90s. Gave up bass in 04 started 07 gave up 19 now play double bass only. Starting piano for the 10th time.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356
    I played more keyboards at school to begin with as it was an easier instrument for beginners. On a piano you can just press 3 notes and it's a perfect chord. Just making a clean sounding F chord for a beginner can take weeks. 

    I still play keys now and prefer it as a solo instrument 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • stickyfiddlestickyfiddle Frets: 26747
    I first picked up a recorder when I was 7. Then piano, then clarinet, then sax up to grade 8 when I was 17. I got a guitar for christmas when I was 16 - the rest is history...  

    I need to get better at piano again.
    The Assumptions - UAE party band for all your rock & soul desires
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • NeillNeill Frets: 941
    Being from Yorkshire I played in brass bands when I was at school, Eb or tenor horn for anyone that knows, and many's the time I wished I had kept on with it, in fact every time I see a band playing.  I still think I might take it up again as fortunately I live in a detached house now with very thick walls...

    Danny's right though, learning to play the guitar is so hard and even when you master the chord fingering, trying to figure out where the notes are is much more of a challenge than on a keyboard.   So every time I think I might learn a new instrument I wonder if I really have the time, which would be better spent on the fretboard.

     
    0reaction image LOL 1reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2739
    Played trumpet at school to Grade 6 or 7,  didn’t do much with it after that, a few Big Band shows at Uni.   Was tempted to buy a plastic one in Manchester a few years back but decided my family and neighbours wouldn’t appreciate that as much.

    re :  the keyboard 3 finger chord thing.  Absolutely right, but try and get a beginner piano player to play a 6 finger chord - that’s no so easy for them then.  Which is why I think it’s extremely odd that anyone (let alone beginner guitarists) would ever want (or even need) to play a 6 string F chord at the root.  Just play 3 strings.   Over recent years I think I’d teach a beginner on a uke or a 4 string guitar.  Let them build up their dexterity and ability to play some music first, by which point they find it so much easier to transfer over to 6 strings.

    even today as a pretty competent classical and finger style guitarist, I can’t get my left and right hands to work together on a piano keyboard -weird eh, guess it’s just practice like anything.


    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • DominicDominic Frets: 16004
    Pianist
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • fretmeisterfretmeister Frets: 23914
    Piano a bit, then alto sax a lot.
    Had to sell it to pay rent while studying about 25 years ago.

    But youngest spawn plays now so I get to have a go again. Surprised how much I remember.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Rowby1Rowby1 Frets: 1258
    My parents wanted me to play the piano because my older brother could and was very good (in the sense of passing his grades). Not surprisingly I hated it, so they sent me to piano accordion lessons as a form of punishment :)

    I at least learnt some basic music theory which has come in handy though. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • No. I started at primary school in Central London, aged 8 or 9, learning single note melodies on a 3/4 size classical supplied by the school with 5-6 others all sitting in a circle. Another group in another room were issued with recorders and doing something similar. 

    Apart from 4 years of 'cello lessons in my early teens, all I've done regarding learning and practicing an instrument is several forms of guitar - electric, acoustic and classical. Which, for me, are three different instruments with a common starting point but some differences in playing technique. Somewhat like piano, organ and synths are. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • axisusaxisus Frets: 28280
    Another starting with Piano, I got all the way up to Grade 2!

    I'm pretty good at bashing out a backing for a singalong these days if you chuck a chord book at me (terrible memory for remembering stuff!)
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • SnagsSnags Frets: 5326
    Taught piano to Grade 6, and in a very traditional, "classical only" style. Fairly sure it largely killed any natural ability I had to play by ear (which I did moderately before lessons) as I learnt to do what I needed to do, which was follow the dots and add emotion. Learning to play by listening and feel again has been a long (and limited) process.

    Jacked in piano and started teaching myself guitar in my teens, so basically only really learnt anything useful when I'd got much older, and had got over my complete antipathy to doing serious practice (although I still don't do serious practice, but I can do focused bits to work on something when I need to). The advent of the Internet and access to all the information, tutorials and resources that involves made a huge difference to me muddling along ignorantly,

    I should have had lessons when I started, but I was pissed off with formal music tuition. By the time I was old enough to think about it properly, I was too ashamed of how shit I was after X many years allegedly playing :)


    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
Sign In or Register to comment.