If you play one or more musical instruments, why did you choose the one(s) you chose?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My dad played the accordion, so when I was 6 or 7, I took accordion lessons. I wrote my first composition at age 7 - a polka!

Once I got to 7th grade, I bought my first guitar and a book of chords, and I taught myself to rock! OK, folk-rock, heavy on the folk. I think at the time, I planned to be a singer - before I realized I lacked the requisite talents and drive for a musical career. But I continued to play for many years for fun and for friends.

When I was 22, I bought a piano because I always wanted to learn to play. Again, self-taught, and I had a small, very basic repertoire. The piano still sits in my living room, 47 years later. Now it’s regularly pounded by my grandkids.

I tried to play a friend’s trumpet once. The best I could do was a sound not unlike a large animal being tortured. I’ve tooted on a recorder a bit, but wind instruments never held a lot of appeal. I’d have liked to try drums, but I don’t know anyone who has some, so that’ll probably never happen.

We inherited a hammered dulcimer that my FIL built. Once I figure out how to tune it, I’m going to try to play it. My fingers are too stiff for proper guitar play, but I think I can hammer. So I’m pretty mediocre on a small variety of instruments, just for fun.

2

My first instrument was the saxophone, but it’s not really a great instrument for solo play, and it’s bloody loud. So I bought a guitar and learned to,play that passably well, and then when digital wind instruments became a thing I bought an Akai Ewi and then a Roland. So back to sax, sort of, but I can emulate a lot of instruments on them.

I started on the alto sax in grade 7, primarily because my grandfather played when he was young and offered to pay the school rental, which we couldn’t otherwise afford. I played in band and stage bands until Grade 12, but then there was limited opportunity to play, and I stopped.

I also took piano lessons for a year as an adult while my kid was taking lessons at the same place, which was fun. But I never really went any further with it. My kid is now awesome on piano, and we have three digital pianos in the house. So I plunk around on that from time to time, but I’m not really any good at it. I can play a mean, “What do we do with the drunken sailor”, though.

3

Banjo. Was louder than the guitar, so better when singing labour songs at picket lines. Also, Pete Seeger.

4

Guitar. Let’s just say Chuck Berry didn’t play the sousaphone.

5

My older sister was in the high school band, and seemed to enjoy it. So when I got to high school, I told the band director “My sister has a lot of fun in the band, so I’d like to join, but I don’t play any instruments. Maybe I could learn drums or something?”

The band director told me “We have enough drummers. But you have big lips. How about tuba?”

6

There are never enough Tuba players. So if someone comes in cold and doesn’t know what they want to play…They probably all look like they have big lips. (-:

7

Piano - it was in the house and sibling rivalry drove us all to improve. When we misbehaved our parents didn’t take the TV away, they revoked piano privileges. Oldest sister got some lessons, the rest of us stole her method books and taught ourselves.

Flute - I like the sound of it, so I learned to play it. Actually got some real lessons on that one!

Attempted viola because one of my sisters played it. Discovered I am NOT a viola player.

Dinked around with recorders and viola sister’s harpsicord. Did good on the recorder, not so much on the harpsicord.

Dinked around with another sister’s saxophone. Did OK, but not interested enough to really apply myself, like flute and piano better. Have forgotten everything I ever learned about playing one. Found reeds to be annoying.

Grew up, went to college. Roommate had a guitar. Took some lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. It went better than the viola (frets helped!) but it’s more accurate to say I played at guitar than actually played the guitar.

By that time I had determined that I didn’t really have much in the way of talent when it came to stringed instruments, and hopeless with fretless ones.

Bagpipes - always really liked them and when I had the opportunity to learn I did so. By the way, what I mentioned about reeds being annoying, remember that? Bagpipes have four. Among other frustrations. But I loved them enough to put up with the annoyances.

Tin whistle - hey, went along with bagpipes, flutes, recorders… why not?

I had to stop playing the pipes due to lung issues (asthma sucks, even if playing pipes really improved my lung capacity and function… for the most part…) and my husband’s pipe band needed a drummer. Learned some side drumming but wound up the bass drummer for a couple years. Apparently I have a very good sense of rhythm. Drums let me keep playing in bagpipe bands when my piping days were over.

Haven’t acquired any new ones since then. Still would like to have an Appalachian dulcimer. Sure, it’s a stringed instrument but it has frets so I should be able to produce acceptable tunes from one.

8

In grade school, I wanted to play trombone, because it was cool looking. We had grandpa’s old violin in the basement, which better fit our budget, so I learned that.

9

I started playing the flute after I was injured in the army as a means to help with the severe depression. It really helped. Why flute? I don’t know. I just liked the sound of it. After 9 years of flute, I gave singing a try, and that’s been my main instrument since. I also play piano, lyre and mandolin (but not very well). The last two I’ve picked up for my stage act. I decided to go pro about two years ago and been performing professionally for a couple of months now and my onstage character is a bard/minstrel so the mandolin and lyre kind of fit.

10

First instrument I played was drums in elementary school. I chose drums because I have been fascinated with percussion and rhythm since I was very, very young, maybe five or six years old. I always wished I could have afforded a trap set when I was a teen, but it wasn’t to be. Took up guitar in college because my roommate played it, and he had two of them. I also have a really good ear, a notion supported by my guitar teacher.

11

I played drums 8th through 11th grade, but I was never in love with them.

Piano, however, is another story. We had an old upright in the basement when I was a kid, and I started plunking on it around the age of 6 or 7. I’d never seen anyone else but me play so much as a single chopstick.

Fast forward 55+ years and I play most every day. I’ve never had a lesson, entirely self (or book) taught.

mmm

12

My Mom insisted on piano lessons, even though my teacher was the stereotypical crabby piano teacher who hit your knuckles with a ruler if you hit a wrong note. Never mind, piano remains a source of fun for me. My real piano (as opposed to my electronic piano) is so out of tune that Scott Joplin ragtimes sound vintage!

In high school, I was handed a trombone. I really wanted a flute, but apparently, those were reserved for girls. Never mind, I learned and enjoyed trombone; and it would come in handy with an R&B garage band that I joined. We never went anywhere, but we had a lot of fun trying.

Maybe twenty years after I left high school, I got my hands on a flute. I surprised myself by (a) being able to put the instrument together without instruction, (b), being able to blow a recognizable note out of it the first time I tried, and (c), working out a scale. In what key, I had no idea. But I immediately knew that the flute was my instrument.

Well, it wasn’t; it belonged to a friend’s daughter, but you get the idea.

I went as far as I could on my own (I knew woodwind principles, and could play tin whistle and recorder), but I got to a point where I needed a flute teacher. And I got the best: the former principal flautist of an Eastern European symphony orchestra. We studied together for years. I ended up playing so much classical flute. And in the process, I was picking up by ear and writing down the flute solos for songs for which flute solos are never written down: “Nights in White Satin,” by the Moody Blues; and “Moondance” by Van Morrison, and “Daniel” by Elton John. Well, okay, the last one is available, if you can read piano music, which I can. Anyway, all, and others, written down by me, on manuscript paper.

I’ve always said that everybody has a “natural instrument” that they were born to play. Flute is–and note that I say is–is mine. I like piano, but I absolutely love my flute.

In later years, I would discover my voice. What a pleasant surprise, to be able to couple my voice to notes on a page! And the spoons, from whence I get my username–lots of fun. But nothing beats my flute.

13

started violin at 4, cello at 6, but switched to piano at 7. The reason being that we were moving abroad soon and my parents knew that cello teachers were scarce there, but piano teachers were plentiful.

14

So, chronologically.

Guitar : My brother was offered an acoustic guitar for his… 11th birthday I guess, and I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I eventually got my own (actually, 1 classical + 2 electric). I was almost exclusively self-taught, except for some lessons I took when I found myself stuck technically after about 12 years. I went from playing anything I could to exclusively jazz and bossa nova.

Cello : As a kid, I once saw a poster of Mischa Maïsky with his cello in a record shop window and I immediately fell in love with it. The problem was that there was only one music school in my hometown and it was a traditional one where you had to first learn music theory for at least a year, and learn how to sing before even touching an instrument. I passed.

The urge came back to me as an adult about 2 decades later. I took lessons from day one for a couple of years, was doing all right but not great. Then, my daughters were born and I had other priorities. I never found the courage to pick it up again because it meant going back to the very beginning, i.e. years not-quite-in-tune scales and exercises.

Piano : Around the time I turned 40, I realized that I had been listening to more and more piano music. It took me a couple of years to take the plunge, but once I did, there was no looking back. Within 2 years, I could play the 3 pieces that I had set myself as ultimate goals, thanks to a very good first teacher. I took lessons for almost 4 years, then Covid put an abrupt end to that.

I now have a repertoire of about 12 pieces, mostly classical, a little bit of film music and the odd chanson française transcription. I play almost daily, which is needed otherwise I very quickly lose whatever proficiency I have, and enjoy it tremendously. I’ve been working on 3 new pieces in 2023 and have about half a dozen lined up for the coming years.

15

A common idea is that bass players are guitarists who had to pick up a bass to have a place in a band. Not me.

Long before I even knew there was an instrument called a bass, starting at age 5 or so, I was drawn to the bass lines in music, noticing them and digging them. I seeked out bass-worthy music before I ever grabbed a bass. So, when I had the means, I became a proud bass player. I have never had an interest in playing the guitar.

I did attend piano lessons as a young boy, because my parents decided so. I never became a piano player for real.

16

When I was around 7 or 8 years old my mother made me take piano lessons. I didn’t really have much of a choice in it. I probably could have quit later if I didn’t like it, but I did end up liking it and kept with it for about a decade.

Like everyone else in my school, I played the recorder in the 4th grade. Didn’t care for it much. I do still have my kid’s recorders from when they were in school.

Around the age of 9 or 10 I got a 3/4 size el-cheapo kids guitar. I knew music theory from taking piano lessons, and learned how to play chords from a chord chart I got from somewhere. I never took lessons for the guitar. A few years later I got a real acoustic guitar for Christmas, and a couple of years after that I got an electric guitar for Christmas. After that I started buying my own guitars, starting with a bass guitar. I taught myself how to play bass.

Around the age of 12 I joined the school band. I wanted to play drums but that was the only instrument that my mother refused to allow. So I played the trombone instead. When you have a school band, you have some kids (like me) who practiced like they were supposed to and who knew their parts, and you had some kids who didn’t. The band teacher would have to spend time with the ones who didn’t know their parts, and I would get bored. So I would occasionally swap instruments with the tuba player who sat next to me, and I taught myself how to play the tuba. Either the teacher didn’t know that we kept switching instruments or he didn’t care since we both knew our parts properly, but either way he never said anything to either of us. I played around with the trumpet a bit but I never really got good at it because I didn’t own one and was just fooling around a bit with other kid’s instruments.

I gave up brass instruments in high school. Just lost interest, I guess. I still have a trombone. Haven’t played it in forever though.

I have fooled around with enough drum sets over the years that I can keep a beat, but I definitely do not consider myself to be a drummer. I don’t own a drum set, but I do have one of these:

I also have 3 keyboards, 3 bass guitars, 4 electric guitars, 1 six-string acoustic guitar, and 1 twelve-string acoustic guitar.

My daughter gave me a ukulele for Christmas this year, so I guess I can add that one to my list too.

I have my daughter’s first violin here too, but the one time I tried to play it I found out exactly how finicky and unforgiving the violin is to play. If your fingers are just slightly off, you get an entirely wrong note. I guess I am too used to fretted instruments.

I was in a rock band in high school and a couple different ones in college, but never anything serious. I did get to play on stage a few times, and after paying the sound techs and then splitting up the remainder over all of the band members, I think I ended up with maybe a grand total of $50 or so in my illustrious musical career. :stuck_out_tongue:

Music has always just been a hobby for me. I almost went into music in college, but ended up going with engineering instead. Music is fun but I knew that it usually did not pay well. I also preferred to keep music for a hobby. I didn’t want it to become my daily grind. The drummer for our high school/college band ended up becoming a professional musician. The last I heard he was working for a symphony orchestra and was doing quite well for himself.

17

Piano because we pretty much always had one in the house and although my Dad left home when I was 2, I saw him regularly and he’s a quite good pianist. Guitar because it was just that much cooler than piano. I was a big Pink Floyd fan in my teens and very moved and inspired by David Gilmour’s guitar playing.

18

I have to admit, I was expecting more confessions of wanting to be in a rock band as the motivation. My one and only attempt to be part of a “band” was pretty pathetic. It was with two of my friends - J wanted me to teach her to play guitar left-handed (didn’t happen) , and D was tone deaf, but I figured she could pound a tambourine. We wrote some songs and dreamed of glory, but we were beyond awful. So the world was spared. :wink:

19

Piano lessons as a kid, which I hated and stopped as soon as allowed. Then trombone during middle and high school. Why trombone? When joining the band, the director chose which instrument a student played. He looked at me and said: “He’s got arms like an Orangutan, put 'im on trombone.”

Played well enough to get a few region and state awards, then went to college (the first time) on a music scholarship. Stuff happened, and I abandoned my “music career”.

20

Me: violin. I guess I didn’t have big lips. :grin: I started in 4th grade and played into high school. I was halfway decent and played several solos in school concerts. I even won an NYSSMA medal as a kid. That’s for New York State School Music Association. I don’t think I still have that.

With @eschereal and @Velocity, that makes for three of us on the violin. And with @Broomstick on the viola, that’s close enough. Maybe we can start the strings section here.

I hadn’t touched a violin since high school and recently surprised myself in still being able to play* some pieces from memory. They were basic pieces, but still that’s gotta be worth something, right?

* — “play” is loosely defined. It sounds more like a cat in heat. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: