I want to learn to play an instrument

But I have not decided on which one yet, and I was wondering if you people have any pointers.

Some information that could or could not be relevant to the choice:

• My musical tastes are... well, I am not sure what they are, to tell the truth. I like a great amount of ambient electronica, some metal (power metal, mostly, not the growly dissonant stuff), a lot of prog rock, some jazz, some blues, plenty of country (although that's a bit of a Guilty Pleasure), and some rather old-fashioned Italian melodic stuff - not sure what it counts as, but I am talking about stuff like this. I do not have much interest in classical music, though.

• My current musical training is, for all intents and purposes, nil. I used to study piano when I was a little kid, but I got tired of it more than ten years ago and, to be frank, I was never particularly good at it.

• That's hardly worth being mentioned, but I have no dreams of stardom or anything daft like that - I just want to find a fun little hobby, that's all.

• Ideally, it should be possible to play interesting stuff with the instrument both alone and together with other people.

• The instrument should be relatively portable, and possibly not too loud - I travel a lot for work, and it would be a bit troublesome to carry and play a tuba or a battery.

• I am willing to spend some effort on learning to play the instrument, but other tasks of mine take priority - let's say I can dedicate about one hour per day to music, but not much more than that. With roughly this level of effort, I would like to become vaguely proficient - not exceptional, obviously, but good enough to have fun playing in company - with the instrument within one year or so.

Given these conditions, what should I look into? Right now, I am thinking about getting an accordion, but perhaps there are better choices...

edited 18th Sep '10 9:49:12 AM by Carciofus

How about the bass guitar?

The saxophone is easy enough to learn.

The flute is a good instrument, but for your speciffic tastes I will say that a saxophone is a pretty good choice!

I'd recommend the bass, but you should also pick up piano. It might be the one instrument that's easy to learn, hard to master. And it helps with lots of other musical stuff as well.

As a saxophonist, I will obviously be biased towards recommending you my favoured instrument - but seriously, it's easy to learn, fun to play and versatile. The Clarinet is a bit more portable and quieter, but harder to learn because it uses different sets of fingering for upper and lower octaves.

If you have some experience on piano though, you might want to think about picking that up again. Not necessarily because it's fun or even very exciting, but there's no other instrument that will give you the same grasp of music theory. Once you're beyond grade 5 on piano, the musical world is pretty much your oyster.

^ "grade 5 on piano"? You can grade piano playing?

I think the guitar is a good option. There are some quite portable electric guitars out there, like Steinberger Synapse (though I guess it's a mid-budget guitar and not really suited for a beginner), and there's no need to carry around an amp if you've got Guitar Rig/Amplitube on a laptop or a Line 6 POD. It's obviously the most jam-ready instrument, too.

If you hadn't mentioned your history with the piano, I'd recommend it as well. The way one studies piano helps to understand a lot about what music is comprised of (I think picking a song by ear is more rewarding than just following tabs) and paves the way for learning other instruments more easily. Also, it's a good exercise for finger dexterity, which also helps with other instruments. It's simply a great beginner instrument all around. Maybe you should consider giving it another go? There are always options for finding a relatively portable keyboard instrument, so that's not really a barrier, I think.

Personally, I didn't go past a seven-year experience with the piano yet - procrastinating on picking up my classical guitar for a long time, despite desperately wanting to earn the stripes for picking up an electric. Hell, I didn't even play the piano itself for quite a while.

edited 18th Sep '10 12:37:35 PM by Litis

Well, you can in the UK anyways. It doesn't mean much really, but it helps you if you want to join professional ensembles and looks good on a CV. I'm grade 5 piano, grade 8 Alto Saxophone.

Piano is the foundation of everything. It's all there - black & white. (literally)

If you also with to learn theory and all that, piano is the way to go.

If you've ever played a recorder, go for a saxophone. They essentially have the same finger positions with some extra keys that are pretty easy to pick up.

If you did go for the sax, you would probably be better served going for an alto. While I know a couple of people who learned on the soprano, the alto sax is the basic one most people learn on. I did my exams on the alto myself, although I mainly play the tenor.

I generally treat the clarinet as a classical instrumet, although it can be good for jazz as well. Probably more difficult to learn. I haven't played mine in ages.

edited 18th Sep '10 2:47:10 PM by TheGloomer

Thanks for the advice! I have not decided yet, but getting a saxophone sounds like a fun idea - I will take some time to think more about it, obviously, but that seems possibly amusing.

laptop

^ Lol thom yorke

Bagpipes. Okay, sure, it takes a while for them to sound any good, but they're the king of epic instruments once you're there.

Both guitar and keyboards of various types are, easily, the most flexible instruments there are. If you want to play various genres and breed versatility, those instruments are great ones.

Note the differences in guitar types, too. Playing a nylon string classical guitar will send you down a different path than playing a steel-string acoustic, and both are different to playing an electric. All very versatile, of course, but lend themselves to particular genres and styles.

As mentioned previously, saxophone is great, especially for melodic soloing. There's a good reason saxophonists are often considered exceptional solo improvisers; it's essentially why they exist.

Violin is a hard instrument to start with. In fact, it's considered one of the most difficult instruments to begin as an adult. It can be really rewarding though, since even a mediocre, low-end one can sound beautiful. Its cousins the viola and cello are also fantastic choices.

Of course, most people who consider violin a hard beginner instrument probably didn't consider the warr guitar. It's a sort of electric guitar/bass composite that you're supposed to play with fingerstyle and tapping.

Mentioning the hurdy gurdy because it's awesome and the bastard child of strings and bagpipes.

I'm not sure what exactly galvanised me to learn the saxophone. I think the first really distinctive sax playing I heard was when I heard "One Step Beyond" by Madness.

My favourite sax players now are Eric Marienthal and Edgar Winter.

I'd say guitar, sax, or violin/viola.

Of the three, sax will probably be the easiest learn, IMO.

I recommend guitar. There are plenty of teachers for it, and it's easy enough to learn on your own if you feel like it. Within one year, if you practice about an hour or so a day, you'll be pretty good at it. It's a relatively easy instrument to learn.

I personally found guitar extremely difficult to learn. It took me about three years to get what I'd consider "any damn good".

Although I understand others have found it significantly easier to learn.

The main qualm I have with recommending guitar is that, normally if you teach yourself, you end up learning wrong.

Also, one of the requirements was to be able to play interesting stuff both with a group and alone. For most guitar players, singing comes with the "playing alone" bit, as it's a lot harder to learn solo guitar pieces, as well as not as interesting for most audiences.

Solo guitar isn't always that hard, though. One you know barre chords and have good finger independence, they make enough sense that learning them is quite natural.

I don't know much about musical instruments, but I'd recommend the keyboard. It's like a smaller piano, but with many possible sounds besides the 'piano-ish'.

Depends on the quality of the keyboard, I guess. I had a plain old Casio a while ago and it wasn't great. Then again, that's probably because I prefer playing with weighted keys.

The keyboard is tricky. The stuff you like in music will be hard to make without proper music software. I would recommend Reason or Logic, but it's very expensive. I mean, very expensive. You can still use a keyboard without it, but you'll have to fiddle a lot to give it that really good ambient kick.

Whatever you're going to learn, though, at least learn to read sheet music beforehand. You will find everything easier if you know what a rest is, a treble clef, etc.

Can't stress that enough. You'd think 'no brainer' but it's not as easy as people think.

With the problem of moving about, they have keyboards that you can hoist like guitars over your shoulder, and it rests on the front. You then play it as normal.

edited 21st Sep '10 12:47:58 PM by BigDaddyP

Keytars are absurdly expensive and are barely in mainstream production anymore. I don't really think they're all that comfortable, too. As far as I know, they're mostly used by showy prog types like Jordan Rudess or that guy from Yes, no? (hehehe)

edited 21st Sep '10 3:07:17 PM by Litis

I have a keyboard.

No clue how to use it, it's an old Yamaha, and the lowmost key is busted.