I can play the flute, tin whistle, and bassoon quite well. I also play the piano and harmonica very badly.
Electric guitar. Piano for quite a while, but I haven’t touched it in probably five years.
Always a good plan!
I play guitar modestly well, also can play (without too much embarrassment keyboards, trumpet, flute, flugabone. And I sing well enough for doing the 3rd part in some CSN tunes and such.
I’ve played guitar since 1980, bodhran (Irish drum) since 1995, fiddle since 2004, and I’ve been singing since about 1975.
I don’t know which population I’m officially part of in this respect, though. 
Started out American, became Canadian, now I’m in the UK.
I’ve been playing electric guitar for about 2 1/2 years. I’m at the point now where it sounds at least modestly musical.
I’ve been playing guitar for a year and have progressed to the point where I’m utterly, utterly shit, which for me is a triumph.
I play acoustic guitar reasonably well and have played professionally (as in I stood in the corner of a pub and they paid me, then asked me to come back a couple of times), also mandola, and very rusty violin (my intonation and bow control have gone to shit over the years). Not really much to crow about but I am also the best Jew’s harp player I’ve ever heard.
Just registering another protest about the drum thing - playing the drums is hard, and a hell of a musical skill to have.
Flute and tinwhistle. I used to play Uilleann pipes but my set was stolen 20 years ago and Ive never managed to scrape up the couple grand to replace them so I probably couldn’t play them if handed a set now.
As a child, we had a **piano **that my mom inherited from her grandmother. I took some piano lessons around age 8. I learned how to read music then, but got bored of the lessons in less than a year. I still kept playing piano for fun through the years, though. By middle school, I was able to sound out chord progressions by ear, and played rip-off versions of classics like Pachelbel’s Canon, the Titanic theme :D, and a particularly jazzy version of Heart and Soul.
Overall, my favorite instrument to noodle on has *always *been the piano. To play a horn, you have to warm it up and keep reeds handy and replace the pads every other year and it’s really cold when you take it out of the case and you have to hold it up and your arms get tired until you’re used to it and blahblah. Piano is so easy, you just plop right down and play. And with an electric model, there is no maintenance! 
My mom and sister have told me, within the past few months, that what they miss most about living with me was hearing me play the piano all the time. I was pretty surprised to hear that, because I hardly ever think about it anymore, but I really did play it a lot.
In spite of that, I consider saxophone my primary instrument. I played it in school band from age 11 to 20. I started on alto, went to tenor for a few years, then back to alto in 10th grade. We did a lot of jazz competitions under our new band director that year, and actually did really well in our region. She was a total jazz nut; whereas many jazz bands in high school just play pop or showtunes, we played real freakin’ jazz–Count Basie, Coltrane, Miles Davis, all that shit. She always had a superb lineup of songs that showcased all of our best soloers, we had to improvise all the time, and the spots were actually competitive. My freshman year’s band director let any number of *any *instrument into jazz band, as long as you showed up to most of the practices (I remember we had a couple clarinets and several flutes :rolleyes:). Which I guess is nice if you’re just trying to have some fun and be inclusive. But it sure wasn’t very jazzy.
I continued playing alto sax in concert band at college, which was extraordinarily competitive at that school. I ended up making third chair out of 4, in the top band that saxes could get into–we weren’t allowed in orchestra, for obvious reasons, and I was too intimidated to try out for jazz band. But I had to quit concert band due to scheduling conflicts… then I got lazy and lost my chops and I haven’t played it since. I gave my sax to my sister because she was studying music education (and now she’s a music teacher–yay :)). I’m not sure what happened to it, maybe she uses it as a school instrument where she teaches now… that’d be cool. I should ask. 
I don’t own any instruments anymore.
Over the years, I also played (with an acceptable level of proficiency) light percussion–including the xylophone, vibraphone, chimes, triangle, cymbals, **tubular bells, **and that little wooden thing with a ball that you smack and it goes BOING!(which I just learned is called a vibraslap).I played all of those, plus the clarinet, in my high school’s productions of 42nd Street and Hello Dolly. Clarinet was probably my second best instrument after sax. I hardly ever had to use it, though. It was more of a hobby, but I practiced it more than my sax for a couple years because it was more portable. Then I marched quads and was the percussion section leader in the drum line my senior year, because our band director was desperate and I had shown myself to be versatile. I had to learn a lot of pattern-specific notation in a hurry to read the quad music, and I didn’t have the level of control that a seasoned percussionist would. But I did pretty well. And that motherfucker is SO HEAVY. ow
I know how to play but am not proficient at (in descending order):
**flute **(and various small flutish things like the **penny whistle and recorder)-**because my sister played it (also, the **alto flute **<3). I learned all the fingerings and could play alright up to a middle G or so, but never learned to play in the higher registers without overblowing painfully. I really miss the sound of the alto flute’s lower register 
**oboe-**I tortured my mom and stepdad teaching myself how to play it one summer. I don’t think I ever got the embouchure quite right, but the fingerings were pretty easy. I could make it sound like a beginner was playing the oboe, but no better. I would have killed to sound like a professional, though (oboes are IMO tied with french horns for the most gorgeous overall timbre in the hands of a skilled player). But I got too busy to keep up on it once the school year started
**cornet/trumpet/flugelhorn-**My best friend played them, and we would swap instruments in pep band (all easy songs!). I never learned to play much higher than a middle C, but I sounded acceptably good in the beginner octave.
I have fucked around, but retain no measurable level of proficiency, with:
guitar-I learned a few basic chords from my uncle and memorized the opening to Stairway to Heaven 
… :rolleyes:
**violin-**my grandma had one that I played a few times. I knew mostly-proper bow technique and picked out a few basic poorly-tuned tunes with my small amount of guitar knowledge, but didn’t ever learn correct hand placement or scales or anything
All of these instruments except the piano and sax were school instruments and/or belonged to other people.
Yep.
Piano, flute, recorder, bagpipes, and guitar. (I’ve forgotten how to play saxophone, though once upon a time I could do so)
And, as a drummer (as well) I am mildly miffed at your insinuation it’s on the same level as a kazoo. We percussionists don’t get no respect!
I play the clarinet now, used to play recorder. I also played baritone sax for a couple years. I’ve been working on learning how to play keyboard, harmonica, and ocarina for a little while.
I just bought an oboe off eBay. Yeah, this is gonna end well.
I play ukulele. Also guitar and bass and anything with strings and frets, but my main instrument is baritone ukulele. I write almost all my own songs. I do the occasional live performance. I have been told I am quite good and have a unique style. I practice 1-2 hours a day, until my tendons get all grouchy and I have to lay off for a couple of days. I might have the only solid body electric baritone ukulele in Oregon. If anyone else knows of a Konablaster uke or anyone who plays one, I’d be interested in hearing from you. I also have a set of electronic drums that I pound on in a thoroughly spastic sort of way, but it’s fun, and a great way to relieve stress, and people who hear me mistake me for a real drummer.
I used to play a bit of keyboard, some simple classical guitar. Then recently I really got into the carillon. Loud metal music… that’s what I like.
Tin whistle and bagpipe chanter! Didn’t get too far with either the violin or drums. We did hand bells at primary school which I loved and I was a bell ringer in our six bell village church.
sitar, guitar, and about an 8th grade level of saxophone (hocked my childhood sax for my first guitar)
Piano/keyboard, guitar, accordion, recorder, in descending order of competence.
Oh - if voice counts then I can sight-read most of what the church choir in the next parish over happens to be singing when I guest for them, have a range in natural voice of three octaves starting from the A below the bass stave (but would mostly use the twelfth starting from the next A up. We do have a piece we crank out every Advent that has a low D flat though ) and pretty close to perfect pitch.
I’m glad to see so many musicians – I think an instrument (including vx – to indicate my respect for singers, I can’t sing; it sounds right in my ear, and comes out OK on the keys, but sounds like dogshit out of my mouth) is something everyone should know, for some odd reasons of my own.
My sympathies to the brass players who don’t have the embouchure anymore – or wind players, for that matter, as I recall when playing alto sax as a grade schooler. My pop used to play French Horn, and bought a nice one maybe fifteen years ago, and, even though I offered him a gig on stage and gave him some second-hand advice about mastering long tones and everything, he just never took back to it. That’s why the keyboard was invented! Any musician should be able to hack something out on a keyboard IMHO.