Can you play a musical instrument ?

Moving from IMHO to Cafe Society.

Flute, saxophone, guitar, mandolin, bass, harmonica, synthesizer, electronics.

Played viola (like a violin, but burns longer) through high school. Even made the local junior symphony one year.

With a little help from a fellow doper, I picked out a guitar a couple years ago. I took a class at the local center for adult education. It was really interesting to come from a classical background (such as it was) and be with people who were learning music for the first time. To me, guitar seems rather unstructured. I’m used to having every note written out; guitar parts seem to boil down to “finger this chord and strum something”. To everyone else in the class, it probably seemed quite disciplined.

I’ve made most of my progress studying from a couple books. I still find myself drawn to the lead parts, but I’m trying not to neglect the rhythm stuff.

See user name.

Violin
Viola
Piano
Guitar
Cello
Recorder
Castanets

guitar
baritone ukelele
mountain dulcimer (poorly)

Putting aside the OP’s limitations for a moment, I’ve been playing the djembe for fifteen to twenty years now, including several years studying traditional rhythms and techniques. Not close to a djembefola, yet in the average circle or gathering I daresay I’m at the far end of the spectrum (which end, of course, is up to the listener).

On jamming, note that improvising is a twofold art. Not only do you need to have the skill to get your instrument to do what you want in real-time and in synch with whatever is floating in your head at the moment, you need to have keen ears and a sense of others to match, open space, support, and complement a mixture of styles and skills.

I’m not sure that really counts as “playing the tuba”. It looks to me like he’s mostly playing a waveform synthesizer.

I play the flute, piccolo, oboe, recorder, the doumbek and one song on the clarinet. Though I haven’t played any but the flute, recorder and doumbek with any regularity in the last 15 years.

I can pick out a tune on guitar and play piano well enough to entertain a room full of toddlers in a pinch. :slight_smile:

I play the violin.

Another guitar player here. Started out wanting to play Chuck Berry and Beatles songs, thirty years later I find I’ve overshot the mark a bit. Still can’t play Bop though.

Fifty-ish years ago, my folks took me to accordion lessons. I still have my accordion, and I still play like a 7-year-old. FYI, my dad played for years and was really good, and for whatever reason, I gave it a try. But this was long before Weird Al and Judy Tenuta made it cool… :wink:

When I was 13 or 14, I bought a guitar and taught myself to play. It’s been a while, but I could probably get some of it back with practice.

In my early 20s, I bought a piano and taught myself a little, but I lacked the discipline to stick with it. Today, the piano holds a lamp in the smallest bedroom.

I’ve also tootled on a recorder, but wind instruments really don’t appeal to me. I wanted to learn drums and the banjo, but never did. I’d have liked to try a harp also. And a hammer dulcimer.

I have played guitar, bass and drums (mostly guitar, by far) in public for money. I can play piano well enough to accompany my singing

Replace trumpet with trombone and this is pretty much me. The last time I played was almost 7 years ago when the college invited a bunch of us back for an alumni performance.

Piano, completely self-taught.

Good enough to impress the hell out of most people, but bad enough to raise both eyebrows of a trained musician.

So I choose my audiences carefully. :smiley:
mmm

I’m totally out of practice nowadays, but I have played (on all levels between decent and being able to produce an identifiable melody): guitar, ukulele, violin, piano (and other keyboard instruments), recorder (soprano and sopranino, together with similar instruments like tin whistle and others), clarinet, tenor and baritone saxophone.

I play guitar well and can pick out a good tune on anything with strings given an hour to play around on it a bit. I can play enough drums and piano to compose music digitally, or explain to a sessions drummer what I’d like. I can get a tune on wood winds and brass given time.

Harmonicas escape me though.

In theory I should be able to play the flute (the vertical one, not the horizontal one) because it was required in my school from 6th-8th grade as part of our solfege studies, as well as zambombas, tambourines and anise bottles because they’re popular as accompaniment to Christmas carols.

I haven’t tried to play the flute in almost 30 years but as of last Christmas my percussion skills are still as good or as bad as they ever were.
One of my absurd first communion gifts was a guitar; by the time I was able to join any kind of classes (a free after-school group in HS), people made fun of its being child-sized, plus I had the usual problems I’ve gotten from being cross-dominant. One of my classmates was an official lefty and a student in the local music school (solfege, which you need at least two grades in before picking an instrument, piano and guitar): he played “upside-down” but I, being an official righty, wasn’t allowed to. I must have gone to class three times.

I’m a bit of a guitar geek :wink: Played in semi-pro bands on and off for 30+ years.

I used to play around with the guitar and could figure out the chords for a lot of pop tunes. I taught myself, for the most part. I can gin up some complex rhythms on pretty much any surface, and the few times I’ve fussed with a drum set have been able to work out the drumming for some rock songs. But “play” as in do a sustained set of music? Nope.