If so, please tell me (us) about the instument you chose to play.
I love watching orchestral music, and I often wonder about your instruments and how you acquired them.
Thanks
Q
Well, I used to play in a youth symphony. Does that count?
I play the violin, and I started it up because in elementary school, our teacher made us play the monolin and I thought it was kinda cool.
I have a B.A. in performance on the tuba; when I was in college, I played with the UC Symphony and the CSU Hayward orchestra. Gave it up for rent once I satisfied all my performance requirements.
I am not currently in an orchestra, but I have played in orchestras and wind ensembles. I started playing the flute when I was nine, in fourth grade. Instruction in the schools didn’t start til fifth grade, and my best friend was a year older and had started playing the trumpet. I was fascinated with her trumpet, and her music. The whole thing seemed so wonderful to me, and I knew that a friend of my mom’s taught private flute lessons, so that seemed the best bet. So I begged and pleaded and bargained, and finally (it must have been about a month and a half, tops, but it seemed like forever) my parents agreed.
For years and year, music was my big and most distinctive talent. Because I started private lessons a year before everyone else started group instruction, I was way way way ahead of everyone else in my grade. When I was in sixth grade, I sometimes went up to the junior high to play with their advanced band. I took music very very seriously, and played all through junior high and high school. I went to music camp in the summers, and participated in youth orchestras during the school year.
Unfortunately, I developed a rather painful case of TMJ (Temperomandibular Joint Syndrome) as a result of all that playing, and I rarely play now.
Small world - I went to Hayward State too. I started on the flute in 3rd grade, but then changed schools in 5th grade. They already had too many flute players, so I had to pick a new instrument. I picked trombone, because it was the cool one with the slide thingy. In high school, I discovered classical music, and found out that in the orchestra, the trombone isn’t just the “slidey” one, but can be really sublime. So then I knew I wanted to be an orchestral musician.
Assuming you do not mean professional musicians only…
I’m a violinist. My parents bought me a relatively cheap but nice violin when I was in high school. I’ve played for 7 years in a student orchestra, but haven’t done that for years now. I irregularly play in makeshift orchestra’s, but generally keep myself to chamber music these days.
It is great to be able to play an instrument. If I ever have kids I’m sure trying to at least give them a basic education.
If you want to have the opinion of a professional violinist (or did he play the viola?), you need to ask Jpeg Jones.
Indeed I am a professional orchestral violist.
It looks like you’re just asking [1] why I chose to learn the instrument I did, and also [2] how I acquired my viola.
[1] I am from a musical family. My father is a concert pianist, my mother is a singer. When I was just one and a half years old (so I’m told), I saw my older sister learning the violin and I just had to do the same thing. Flash forward a dozen years and the conductor of my youth orchestra approached me about their need for violists. So I switched from violin to viola at that time and never looked back. BFA in viola & composition (CalArts), too busy performing to go back for a master’s.
[2] There are several reputable string instrument dealers in the Los Angeles area, like any major city. Basically you take home a couple of instruments for a while on approval and buy whatever you like best in your price range. All told, my viola, bow, etc. are in the $15,000 range. This is really not that much compared to some of my colleagues.
Any more questions, obviously primarily string-related, fire away!
I’m a double bassist. I’ve been playing since the age of 14. I played in both orchestras and in jazz bands. Right now, I primarily play jazz.
Why the bass? People ask me that all the time. The truth is, I really like the sound. I also like the fact that the bass is the backbone of all music; it’s not the glamour instrument, but it is an essential instrument in most music.
I can’t imagine not playing music; life really would not be the same if I couldn’t play.
I play viola. I would like to tell you I have some exotic insturment or story to go with it but I actually ordered the thing out of a mail order catalog.
They sent us three and I chose the one I wanted. Ended up being about $2,100.
My first insturment was a violin. Started in 5th grade and bought a cheap student model for $275. Played that until I chaged to viola my junior year of high school. Been playing my viola ever since.
The violin just seemd to never fit me. I’m about 6’1, 250, and having a little ass insturment felt a little weird. I like the deeper tone of the viola as well as the fact that the viola usually has more ‘mellow’ parts to play. It fits my personallity better.
Another musical family here. My grandfather played the tuba; my father the trombone and euphonium; my mother the clarinet and every other single-reed instrument, it seems. My older brother decided to buck the trend and started playing the viola. I decided that I wanted to be a little like him, but not that much, so I chose the violin.
I used a school instrument for a while, then recently bought a nice one of my own from the local shop. It’s in the $4,000 range, as I didn’t see the need to spend more. Now all I need is to find an ensemble that will take me.
Or were you curious about the instruments themselves? Because we covered that a while ago…
I played the violin for seven years, starting in the sixth grade and ending in high school. I quit during college, mostly because I didn’t have my own instrument and it seemed like you needed to be a music major in order to get any instruction or practice room on campus. I also didn’t have the interest, time, or money to pursue individual instruction.
I loved playing, though. Performing onstage in high school was thrilling.
I didn’t chose my instrument for any particular reason. I had each instrument shown and its part in the orchestra explained to me prior to choosing, and none immediately appealed to me. If I had to name a reason or two why I picked the violin, I’d say it was because the idea of playing a “lead” instrument appealed to me, and I didn’t want to have to explain how a viola is different or lug around a cello. (Joke was on me on the first part; I ended up playing 2nd violin about half the time.)
Lately, I’ve been wanting to play an instrument again. Been thinking about the cello, because I love the depth and resonance of its sound.
high fives Jpeg Jones and Cyberhwk
Another violist checking in here. I started playing in middle school. I actually picked the instrument because I DIDN’T wan’t to play the violin. I wanted to be different. And I am glad I did. I was actually fitted for a viola that is too big for me. I am a tiny woman and when my grandparents bought my viola for me the shop owner thought I was younger and that I would grow into it. So I got used to playing with an over size instrument. My baby is an 1887 Cremona Viola. It is a lovely orangey brown, and I am soooo vain about it’s finish. I polish it constantly. 
I can play all strings now, but my love is still the viola. I played in middle, and highschool orchestras, as well as played as a guest in the UWM symphony orchestra. When I started nursing school I planned on being in the University orchestra and was accepted in auditon, but I just didn’t have the time to devote to it. Nursing was a full major and I worked full time to pay for it.
In my second year of college I was electrocuted at work, and lost a great deal of control over my right hand. I was crushed.
Several days after the bandages came off I picked up my bow. When I tried to play with it, I dropped it. I threw my viola in the closet and didn’t look at it for several months. Later, I recieved some wonderful help from some of the Professors at UWM, who devised a brace that will hold the bow to my hand. I cried the first time I was able to play again. I will be forever thankful to them.
I don’t play with a whole orchestra much anymore, but I still play, mostly with my SO who is a cellist. Thanks to the Professors at UWM we can make beautiful music together…
Well, I am no longer a part of an orchestra but I do still play the bassoon and alto sax. I started out on alto many moons ago and then took up the bassoon. I chose both of these intruments because they are so expressive–each in their own way.
percussionist here!!
currently doing my undergrad, B.Mus percussion performance at MUN and i have played in/play in the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra!
When I was 8 years old, for some reason I decided I wanted to play the violin. I’m not sure where I got the idea, but the summer school music teacher was having none of it: “You’re too young, you have to wait until you’ve finished 5th grade, you have to play the recorder first, that’s the policy”.
After several days of pestering I was permitted to start playing, a tiny 1/4 size violin, and I loved it. I was an extremely lonely freak child, but I loved music - I’d just float down the hallway after our little orchestra rehearsals, soaring along on the whole notes that I’m sure sounded just awful to anyone else.
I wasn’t a standout player, but I did audition for and was accepted into the “all-city orchestra” a few years later, and our school’s orchestras and bands regularly won first place in the public school competitions.
Five years later we moved, and I lost my way. The new school district was much more affluent than the one I came from and the junior h.s. students had been getting private lessons for years, so they were much better than me. My parents never really understood my passion for music so I didn’t get the guidance I needed.
I tried to pick up my violin again in high school, but was even further behind. So I’d sit in the audience during the school concerts & my heart would break a little, and with the logic of a teenager I’d decide I was better off anyway, that I’d never have been a superstar so why bother.
Fast forward 20 years (past a lot of woulda-shoulda-coulda angst) - about 2 1/2 years ago I started playing violin again and it’s wonderful! I’m a member of an amazing community orchestra - I don’t play very well, but I’m good enough to be a last-row contributor to this group. www.westsubsymphony.org
What’s truly astonished me is how this has impacted every area of my life - nothing is the same, since I started playing again. I lease a really crappy instrument from the store up the street - $18.50/month. But it’s enough to keep me going!
Hope that answers your question!
Thanks very much for all your replies. As I said, I enjoy watching y’all work either in person or onscreen. Something about the intent way you look at your sheet music and the rapturous looks you get on your faces when you’re playing just gets to me, I guess.
In high school I used to be a snare drummer, but before I could get taught my rudiments I was seduced by rock 'n roll, and never really learned to read music the way I should have. I just listened to the record about a thousand times and then just “faked” it.
I admire all of you for your tenacity and the love of your instrument.
Q
although I am more or less proficient in about a dozen instruments, my main orchestral axe over the last 13 years has been the F Horn (the F stands for the key that the instrument is tuned to, not French…and let me clarify that this isn’t a Freedom Fries case - the instrument has never officially been known as the FRENCH Horn, although it is commonly known as it to distinguish it from the common Horn term…although it was invented in Germany (but then again French fries are from Belgium).
Actually, my musical history goes back to before I started playing the horn…I’ve already studied a couple of instruments and was playing the alto saxaphone in school band since 4th grade. The current school system I was in did not have orchestras (bands with strings), only bands, so playing the sax didn’t matter so much, except after I moved right before 7th grade, I found out that my new school system DID have an orchestra, and there’s no place for an alto sax in one, so I wanted to switch to an instrument that would be socially acceptable in both. I decided to go with the Horn because I’ve been wanting to play brass almost since I started on the sax, but I didn’t want to be mainstream so I shyed away from trumpet or trombone…and the tuba frightened me so I went with horn. It’s been my primary instrument throughout the rest of middle and high school, and into college somewhat. It was the instrument I studied at 3 years at New England Music Camp (all the rumours you’ve heard are true), and also the instrument that got me into All State Band one year.
As for how I acquired it - well from 7th to 10th grade I rented my instrument (a conn 6D) from my school system, and then I bought a used Yamaha from an older musician who was upgrading, and then a brand new Holton Merker when my parents were so thrilled that I was going to stay with band in college. Actually my busy schedule, especially after my 2nd year of college, made me miss a bunch of band rehersals and concerts and thus my new horn is still in great shape.
Just a little known fact about the F Horn (seems like there’s always little things that you never learn about an instrument until you actually played it yourself): most models of the instrument use string. The string is used for connecting the valves to the 3 or 4 “keys” that you place your fingers on to open or close them. Unlike most other brass instruments, the valve and keys are not connected by metal. I guess the advantage to this is that you can adjust how high or low each key is…but the BIG disadvantages are they they take FOREVER to restring (involves a bunch of tying knots and wrapping the string around the valves very precisely) and once a string breaks (which happens to me all the time as I’ve yet to find a string with an even balance of strength and agility) you can’t use that key anymore until you replace it (which means if you’re in a concert, you’re screwed.)