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Picking up an Instrument
h3ndu
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Registered User regular
I'm finding myself with more time, since I quit my third job - even compounded by school, exercise and other activities, I've got hours that I can fill. Reading is great, but I'm thinking I want to take up an instrument. I already play the guitar better than average - and I'm a mean harmonica player, so neither of them - I've been leaning towards a woodwinds instrument - maybe the clarinet or the oboe, and I wanted to see if anyone has any experience with them. I'm open to stringed instruments - the violin, or the viola, but I don't want to get anything too large, so cello size and larger is out of my ball park. I'd love to hear about any experience you all may have - how you think instruments sound, what their strengths and weaknesses are etc. Money is no worry. Thanks in advance!
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Also, they sound great, and are used in an incredibly wide variety of music. Orchestral, jazz, pop...you name it.
And if volume is an issue for practicing, you can always put a mute in it. I wouldn't suggest doing this until you get a feel for what an unmuted trumpet sounds and feels like, but it can make practicing in an apartment building much less noisy (even though that's not really the purpose of a mute).
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One of these days I should pick my clarinet back up.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Thanks for the info on the oboe and sax - what makes a sax easier to pick up exactly? Just the seals on the holes?
Any opinions on a violin?
clarinet and tenor (alto too, really) are pretty similar; same key, fairly similar fingering. You could try one or both on a rental and decide which you liked better.
ed: violin/viola are supposed to be really hard to learn, but I don't really know
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
eh, clarinet is mostly consistent until you get into the third octave up (then it starts getting a little weird, but you're halfway lipping the pitch by then anyway)
faux ed: oh, I see what you mean. I guess that never really bothered me, but I started on the clarinet, so
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I loved playing the cello. Since you're already good with a guitar, the violin shouldn't be too hard for you to pick up, just a different mindset/positioning. I'm a little partial to the deeper tones of a viola but there's significantly more songs written for the violin.
It's my understanding that even just decent violins, are going to be much more expensive than a lot of other types of instruments, which could be a risk if it's something that doesn't stick with you.
Honestly I can't say for sure about relative price, but many music stores will rent an instrument, so that may be an option before committing to a larger investment.
- As Rend said, the saxophone has the same fingerings between octaves, whereas the clarinet has different fingerings for each octave. I would say that if you learn the clarinet first, you will find it easier to switch to the saxophone than you would if you went the other way around, but it isn't a huge disparity.
- Volume-wise, as people have said, the saxophone will be a lot louder than the clarinet.
- If you think you might want to play in a classical woodwind group in the future, the clarinet will probably be more accepted than a saxophone. If you think you might want to play in a jazz ensemble in the future, a saxophone will probably be more accepted than a clarinet. This is a generalization and is just my experience.
- You may also consider that if you play a clarinet, most of the weight of the instrument will rest on your right thumb. This means that you will get a callous there. With a saxophone, unless you're playing a soprano, you'll get a neck strap to help with the weight.
- Regardless of which instrument you pick, you'll have to start slow because your mouth muscles won't be used to the way you grip the mouthpiece with your lips, so you will get tired, but this will eventually get better.
On an anecdotal side note comparing woodwind and brass instruments with string instruments and piano, my teacher liked to say that in general, if you want to be very very good at piano or a string instrument, you're going to have to practice for several hours a day. For woodwind and brass, you need to practice for more like an hour a day or you'll blow your embouchure. She had way more experience than me, but judging by how much I had to practice piano vs how much I had to practice woodwind, I found that to be true.
For most adults, renting an instrument is not really an option. Most rentals are based on the school year, are expensive, and use shitty instruments. You can spend $400/yr on a shitty violin, or you can spend $400 a year and own the same shitty violin. And then the next year, you still have a shitty violin instead of nothing!
However, the price question is a good one in general. OP, what's your budget for this secondary instrument? For example, a double bass is way outside of your size restrictions, but also way outside of your price, I'm sure. Also, are you comfortable buying instruments used or on eBay?
I dropped into a local piano store - they have string, woodwind, and brass. They let me play with a few things, but it seems I'm even more divided now than before. They had some nice keyboards that weren't too huge at all, and they showed me a few different instruments. They have a rental program - rent to buy - that is not affiliated with any kind of school schedule or system.
The rack of violins they had was attractive - and I didn't even know that cellos could be made so small as what they had. That said they showed me a nice looking sax, trumpet, and a few clarinets.
I'm just not sure. I don't really have an end goal, I just want to work myself into a good hobby, and keep adding some culture.
Bah.
EDIT: Yikes, I just re-read your last post about small cellos. Those cellos are made in smaller sizes to accommodate for younger musicians. Their sound is in no way comparable to a real full size cello and you will have immense difficulty learning to play on a cello of that size. Don't even think about getting a small cello. I'd really recommend you stay away from teaching yourself any string instrument without some sort of guidance, too.
However, I had been dismissing keyboards out of hand, because I always heard that they were not the best way to learn, in that you don't get the proper key weight and so you may not learn the right habits. Have keyboards improved enough, or are those not good complaints?
/thread
A really good keyboard these days is incredible. Fully weighted keys, amazing high quality sound, lots of cool features.
For instance, when you say money is no object, just how much do you mean that?
Casio: http://www.amazon.com/Casio-CDP-100-88-Note-Weighted-Digital/dp/B001RQ7LJE/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1327428488&sr=1-1
Yamaha: http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Contemporary-Graded-Hammer-Digital/dp/B000FIUYPI/ref=sr_1_7?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1327428396&sr=1-7
Roland: http://www.amazon.com/Roland-V-PIANOC-Keyboards/dp/B004L6BDFA/ref=sr_1_11?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1327428550&sr=1-11
Also, there is much more to sax repertoire than jazz. Classical sax is beautiful.
And tragically underrepresented.
Good keyboards are incredible now. They're still not quite the same, mostly in the subtle pedaling differences(for obvious reasons), that won't matter unless you're incredibly serious about it. Make sure you're getting full-sized, with hammer action. The hammer action actually has real action inside the instrument for the keys, instead of just trying to come up with something semi-close and and calling it a day, or not weighting the keys at all.
Still a big investment, but it seems like a reasonable one.
Quality digital pianos rock because the key action is so close to the real thing that you won't know the difference unless you're a master pianist, and you can plug headphones into them to maximize sound quality. It's delightful. Unfortunately the good ones are $1k+ but you can find something in an 88-key keyboard with hammer action keys that will be 80% of the quality for 50% of the price.
Mostly because the sax was looked upon with disdain when most of the classical greats were arranging their pieces.
I will admit that I had quite a lot of fun playing sax in concert band though...
It's something every musician should know how to play at least a little of, and has the additional advantage of being able to put it down and come back to it without a problem. If you don't play piano for years, you'll be a little rusty, but you can basically sit down and start playing tunes again right away. If you put down a brass or woodwind instrument for several months, it will take you weeks or months to rebuild your embouchure to the point where you can sound decent again; it's using muscles that don't really get a workout in your day-to-day use.
This is fueled a lot by a preference for playing with other people, and when you're the one on the piano you always have to have people get to your place and you always have to play next to the piano. With the woodwinds, there was no coordination issue like that. I could just wander over to practice with the woodwind quartet, then go to band, then go to orchestra, no logistics. That being said, I had an upright, not a keyboard.
There's also the fact that while the piano is one of the easiest instruments to learn, it is absolutely the hardest to master. I don't mean to discourage anyone from learning to play--indeed, it remains my favorite instrument--but there's a lot of severe roadblocks to overcome, and I don't think many people understand that when they first start out.