As a child, I was forced to take a year of violin lessons. I was terrible, and I think my mom couldn’t stand the noise of me “practicing”. I also didn’t get at all how music was written.
Same problem as a young teenager trying to learn guitar.
Now I have a better handle on that, and much better hand-eye coordination, and WAY more patience than I had as a child.
So I’ve been thinking of trying to learn either piano or guitar. (I have longish fingers, and can easily span an entire octave, if these things matter in adults.)
Has anyone learned to play an instrument as an adult? Anyone teach adults?
I don’t have particular experience with learning or teaching adults, but I will say that I took ten years of piano lessons as a child. Now, as an adult, I can easily sight-read pieces that gave me conniptions even when I was a teenager. There’s a lot of mythos about training the brain young, and I’m sure that helps me, but just having a fully mature brain helps a lot, too. I’d give it a go. I recommend piano rather than guitar–less frustration over raw technique gives you more brain power to focus on reading the music.
Eventually you’ll want to get into finger picking, so you’ll have to keep the left-hand nails as short as possible (assuming you’re right-handed) while letting the right-hand nails grow out some (especially the thumb).
But the biggest problem is developing calluses on your left-hand fingertips. Gonna take a while, gonna be sore. You’ll want to start with a steel-string guitar because of the sound, but getting a nylon-string to start makes beginning guitar less painful.
And memorize those chords.
But I wish I had taken piano as a kid. Guitars were cheaper.
It takes much less time and effort to sound like a passable guitar player than it does to sound like a decent piano player. Within a few weeks you can play guitar in a pretty shitty cover band (but you’d still be playing recognizable songs), but it could easily take years to reach the same point on the piano.
The piano is deceptively difficult. On the face of it, it seems extremely simple: all of the notes are laid out right in front of you, in conveniently ascending order even! Because of this, learning a few simple chords and one-line songs is ridiculously easy, however to sound like a decently proficient player takes a ton of time and practice.
The guitar OTOH is deceptively easy. It seems quite abstract at first, but once you learn a few basic chords you can play recognizable songs, and once you can play a barre chord the sky’s the limit.
Based on my own experience I would say that if it was impossible to learn to play an instrument as a child then it would also be impossible as an adult. I am very musically deficient, it would take more than patience and fine coordination before I could produce any kind of music. However, I would recommend that you give it a try. An electronic keyboard doesn’t cost much and shouldn’t be hard to learn how to play something by rote. From there you should be able to tell if you have the potential to take it further.
I started playing guitar when I was 23. Some people might dispute that I actually know how to play guitar, but I do use it to make some incredible noise(s).
I started playing sax at 22, bass at about 42 and I bought my first drum kit 2 years ago.
So, yeah, I’d say that it’s possible for an adult to learn to play an instrument, at least for some definitions of the word “play”. I mean, I’ll never challenge Steve Vai to a Crossroads-style guitar duel, but I have fun and most of what I do is recognized as “music”, ya know what I’m sayin’?
I started playing guitar when I was 30. Ten years later, I’m a passable player - I’m not going to wow anybody, but I can play with other people without embarrassing myself, and I’m still having fun with it.
String instruments (violin, viola, cello, string bass) are harder to learn as an adult, and most decent string players started as children.
Many people start piano or guitar later in life, and, though they may not become virtuosos, they can still learn to play their instrument decently. A bonus with these two instruments is that you can sing as you play.
I’d recommend my own main instrument, the clarinet, as another good instrument to start as an adult. I started playing clarinet a bit too late in life (13 years old might be a bit too old to start any instrument if you plan to make a career out of it) but I did all right in it, good enough to study it at university later on.
I picked up guitar at 21. My goal was to become a competent rhythm guitarist to support my vocals so I wouldn’t have to be solely reliant on other musicians to accompany me. 13 years later, I don’t consider myself anything particularly special or interesting on guitar but I’m certainly competent now, so mission accomplished. I also had no formal musical background and I can’t read sheet music but neither is a requirement to become a decent instrumentalist. If you take it seriously you’re going to pick up everything you need to know along the way.
My only advice if you’re going the guitar route, get yourself a good guitar that sounds good to your ear when you play it. A lot of people figure they can go with a cheapo guitar to start with and it’s a big mistake. It’s discouraging enough while you’re learning without playing on a guitar that is modeled to sound like crap.
I started playing the guitar at age 31. I’m not half bad at it now. I’ll never be awesome, but it feels like that has much more to do with the limits of my natural talent than it has to do with age.
When I started playing, I was worried that it would be like with languages, in that when you’re a kid you have superpowers when it comes to learning them, and when you get older, that part of your brain stops working. But at least in my case, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. I’ve tried teaching myself languages as an adult, and it’s clear that the hardware just isn’t working anymore. But the musical part of my brain, despite mostly gathering dust for my whole life, still started up and ran just fine. Rusty, full of cobwebs, and with a family of mice living in it, sure, but still fully functional.
Timely question. I’m 46 and started playing fiddle (violin) about five months ago. Up until that point my musical background was about nine months of clarinet in the third grade and a couple of years singing in the church choir.
The violin is not easy, and sounds pretty terrible when not played well. But after a couple of months I’ve eliminated most of the screechiness and it no longer sounds like I’m stepping on a cat when I play. Seriously, I can play some decent beginner tunes and simplified versions of intermediate tunes already; and most of all, it’s fun.
The important things for me have been:
take lessons from a professional. Much better than trying to teach yourself from books or videos.
practice. This isn’t a problem for me because I don’t want to waste the money I am spending on lessons, so I am pretty diligent about practicing almost every day.
have fun! I could have gone with guitar or uke or another instrument that would have been easier to learn, but for whatever reason I was pulled in by the fiddle. I can see myself after a couple of years picking up something else that might have transferable skills, like mandolin (same finger positions, with the added advantage of having frets and no bow).
You won’t be able to get as good as you could have gotten had you started as a child, but it’s certainly possible to learn as an adult.
From what I’ve read there’s a window of opportunity for developing optimum manual skills that closes in the 13-16 year old range, thus those who start younger can master some things that will elude those who start later. But so what? In real life, this probably only matters to a very small percentage of people. It’s really not an issue for those of us who play for the enjoyment of it – we don’t need to achieve virtuoso skill levels.
I started guitar at 27. Thirty+ years later I’m not 30 years worth of good at it but I’ve had 30 years worth of fun. I say go for it.
My spouse was a professional music teacher for some years and taught many adults to play who had zero prior experience with musical instruments.
Yes, it is possible for adults to learn to play an instrument.
As an adult, you have the advantage of (probably) being more self-motivated, more organized, and more disciplined than a child. On the downside, your hands/fingers are most likely more stiff and will take longer to really get comfortable with the required motions.
If you have the desire and the discipline to practice on a regular basis you should be able to achieve some competency, and have fun making music.
I started playing guitar for real at about 29. I took a few lessons when I was about 12 but as I later realized, I was given an almost unplayable guitar so it never really took. I reached a plateau after about two years (age 31) and have made little progress since. I love the instruments themselves, enjoy tinkering with and even building them and have amassed a nice little collection of cool guitars and amps. My main thing is playing improvised leads over bluesy backing tracks. I enjoy it and if I worked harder at it I could be better but what skills I have now are enough to amuse myself. That’s all I ever wanted.
As a child I took about a year of piano lessons. I learned to reaad music and play simple tunes. But I never practiced and it soon ended.
In my late 20s, I traded driving lessons for guitar lessons. I hope he drives better than I play the guitar. But I leaned to make a half dozen chords (D, D7, G, A, A7, ?) and learned a lot of simple folk songs. I enjoyed it, but for some reason just let it go. I don’t have the patience now. He, BTW, is a superb classic guitar player, but not a professional teacher of it.
In seven weeks I’ll be turning 70. On my birthday, I intend to begin learning the cello. I used to play violin/viola, so I won’t be starting at absolute zero. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I’d think becoming proficient on harmonica as an adult would be difficult. In fact, I’ve tried and sound just terrible as you have to pucker your mouth at exact locations to hit the right notes.
I know someone who performs professionally who didn’t begin learning guitar until he was in his thirties. I know another person who play fantastic harmonica who didn’t begin until his 40s.
