Or have you played something else in the past? What’s your favorite piece to play?
Edit: thanks for everyone that has replied. This has been so heartwarming to read :)
I wish I could pickup trumpet again. My neighbors probably don’t share my sentiment, though. I dropped it after high school, but never really had ‘fun’ with it during that time. Would love to pick it up again to play things I want to play.
When I was younger, I played the viola and I loved it, but moved to a school that didn’t have that and we couldn’t afford any lessons. I tried piano (one of those simply piano courses and a keyboard) and I actually liked that as well, but time got away from me. I wish I could actually play, it looks so amazing. Jealous of all you talented musicians.
Violin for 10 years, and it was fucking hard. It starts sounding decent around year 7-8. Effectively matching the tone of the instrument to the components you buy and pieces you play is a trick too. My violin had a super dark tone, basically only sounded good with new strings (wound only, except for a steel E), which meant it was always sliding out of tune because of the tension. But on the occasions it all came together, it was extremely loud and resonant, and made Bach’s partitas sound pretty awesome.
Kinda basic, but my favorite is the bass. I play guitar too, but it’s a bit easier to play bass and people are less aware when you make a mistake !
As someone who doesn’t like being in the spotlight, switching from guitar to bass was very liberating
I’ve been learning piano the last 3 years, and now I’m either solo or at least more front and center and dealing with that has been as challenging as learning the instrument.
Still playing with others I feel is the most fun thing about any instrument. I think I learn more and learn faster doing it as a group, and it’s just a lot of fun making music with people.
People have to be listening to us to notice there was a mistake in the first place!
No. Im not very artistically inclined. Have been in choirs and choruses but really im more the conductors instrument than a musician. I do horribly if the conductor is adamant about just learning from reading music but give me solfage and a good section anchor (also can’t match piano notes so well) and im golden.
I play the piano but haven’t touched it in a while. But, at peak, I was playing pretty good since I did it for over 10 years. My favorite thing to do whenever I can bring myself to do it is come up with chords and melodies. I rarely write things down but the ones I do, I turn into electronic music.
Viola! I like its range of sound and the fact that we get our own (alto) clef makes me feel special. But you end up playing a lot of lame parts when the violins get all the melodies and solos.
Viola sounds amazing but yes, fun pieces are written for violin.
Do you know any great viola music that is on par with great violin music?
Mozart famously loved violas so he frequently gave them some love and he wrote Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major where they are the star of the show.
Beautiful piece, I can see why you love to play it, too! Must be super fun to bounce back and forth with the violinist and carry the melody.
I think one of my biggest regrets is stopping playing violin. I will pick it back up one day when I have more time, nothing else has brought me the same kind of joy, not even the other instruments I’ve learned over the years.
That dark velvetiness that violas have is gorgeous. It is too bad that not much is written for it, but at least you can adapt violin or cello music.
I grew up playing trombone. There’s no good music for that either, and you can’t even adapt other stuff well to it. I never enjoyed playing it back then, even though I love music. Today, I’m a guitarist. Much more satisfying than trombone.
I’ve been drumming for something like twenty years now, it’s fantastic. There’s nothing quite like getting into a groove and feeling a fun beat. Haven’t played a show in over a decade though (and I wasn’t very good anyway), I mostly just play for myself these days.
Drums. I got a used electronic kit, a lower-end Roland model, and only play it for me. I learned the basic rhythms so I can throw some tunes on my headphones and try to play along. More meditation than anything else.
I play the piano (keyboard). I’m horrible at it (for now!). My favorite part about it is that I don’t have to hurt my fingers to play it, unlike guitar… I like playing video game OST and sometimes some classical music, I don’t have a favorite piece at the moment.
Probably piano, my favourite thing is probably jazz music theory and lovely thick chords
I’ve been playing many instruments for over 25 years. Sometimes professionally. My favorite thing to do with them is just explore the sounds they can make. Really listen to the nuance of it. A plucked or strummed string, for example has such a complex waveform. When you get to know how sound works on a physics level, it’s truly amazing.
I play trumpet, I’m good at it and I really like being good at it. I branch out every now and then to other instruments, none are quite as intuitive to me though.
Having tulips on my organ
I’ve played the trumpet for 27 years now, and have played the pipe organ for 3. Both of them professionally, and the issue with picking a favorite is there’s a ton of fantastic music!
On the trumpet I’d recommend a listen to Bugler’s Holiday, or Great Gate of Kiev. Possibly my favorite gig as an anecdote was an old Catholic Church in a poor part of the city. They had built an elevated stretch of subway what felt like inches from the church and the priest had to stop his homily every 5 minutes so the subway could go through. The organist ended with the Hallelujah Chorus and it might be the reason I have tinnitus but it was the most heavenly sounding space to play in!
On the organ, I played Schriener’s adaptation of Louis Vierne’s Maestoso in C. Straight from the get go it’s a fantastic piece to rattle the floors and wake up a church. I’d also recommend Scott’s arrangement of Hymn of the Cherubim as it is much softer and a good idea of the breadth the instrument can cover style wise.
I’d like to learn to play the organ. I have an old Allen MOS-2 in my workshop that I started doing a MIDI conversion on and just haven’t had time to finish it.
It is an incredibly rewarding instrument! I rewired a conn 650 for midi to practice at home, but most of my practice and learning came from where I got lessons. Since they’re not exactly a portable instrument if you talk with an organist/music director if they don’t have an organist there’s a good chance they’ll let you practice on the church’s instrument.
