I’ve dabbled with multiple instruments in my life
off topic celebration of playing by ear
but I’ve been acoustically crippled with a bad ear. About 2 years ago, I started working on playing by ear and, holy shit, it totally changed the game! Before, I had to laboriously read music and look up fingerings. Now, I know what it’s supposed to sound like and I keep pushing buttons (clarinet) until I get it right because I know what it’s supposed to sound like, and now I know if I want to flat that position it’s this button, and to sharp that note, it’s this button, etc. Quite painless and not laborious–even fun!
It seems crazy to me someone would learn all the fundamentals of music and not at least be able to play rudimentarily another instrument. I mean, why not? You already understand music, you just have to figure out the instrument, which is a pretty small investment relative to musicianship, and opens up a lot more possibilities.
What have you learned from your different instruments?
I’ve found instruments typically come on groups, where learning an instrument in a group will help more with another. Eg learning guitar will help more with playing a mandolin than a piano. Instruments that typically use the same clef are closer together etc.
I tried learning guitar once thinking that my skills at violin would translate well.
I remember how infuriated I felt when my partner explained that the guitar is more of a percussion instrument and that I wouldn’t really be able to hit all notes perfectly while playing hahahaha
I mean the left hand probably translates well. Hitting the notes depends more on the construction of your guitar, since if the neck bends, the strings have to stretch further. Unlike on a violin, you can’t move your finger in the fret to change the pitch much, so it will never sound that good. Not sure why your partner thinks that a guitar is like a percussion instrument though. Unless they only played tamboura haha.
Yeah as a violinist, hitting the exact note was very much drilled into me. So having the guitar be so loose and free with pitches threw me for a loop haha
Just play everything with vibrato and noone will notice ;)
Absolutely! But I think if you stay within in the same family, you’re refining the same skills more than expanding on new ones.
Have you tried mandolin? It’s just a violin with frets and doubled strings.
Yeah, equal temperment is sort of annoying. It’s nice to be able to just play the exact right note on strings. I think reed instruments are pretty good about intonation, too, but I’m not good enough to play with other people yet.
I have played the mandolin. I prefer to try to master one instrument than play loads, but piano is too useful not too know the basics. I still have a long way to go to achieve mastery of guitar…
Oh now that is tempting to look into. Thanks for the suggestion!