Musicians: what's your experience with multiple instruments? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 6 days ago by schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've dabbled with multiple instruments in my life

off topic celebration of playing by ear

but I've been acoustically crippled with a bad ear. About 2 years ago, I started working on playing by ear and, holy shit, it totally changed the game! Before, I had to laboriously read music and look up fingerings. Now, I know what it's supposed to sound like and I keep pushing buttons (clarinet) until I get it right because I know what it's supposed to sound like, and now I know if I want to flat that position it's this button, and to sharp that note, it's this button, etc. Quite painless and not laborious--even fun!

It seems crazy to me someone would learn all the fundamentals of music and not at least be able to play rudimentarily another instrument. I mean, why not? You already understand music, you just have to figure out the instrument, which is a pretty small investment relative to musicianship, and opens up a lot more possibilities.

What have you learned from your different instruments?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] trolololol@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Well it's not like it takes 6 months to jump from piano to violin to oboe.

[-] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

I think if you're trained musically, it's not that big a jump. For instance, if you have developed a good sense of pitch, the violin's intonation will come much easier to you.

If you know how chords on constructed, you can hop on a piano pretty easily.

I think the issue is a lot of "music education" (in the US, anyway), is really just about translating sheet music to an instrument and lots of people never learn musical sense. So to them, learning a new instrument is almost starting from ZERO.

[-] trolololol@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I think you're grossly underestimating how hard it is to go from theory to actually playing half decently in lots of instruments.

Recorder, well you're probably right. Piano, strings, guitar, drums and any woodwinds or brass: hell yeah

Intonation is not the hardest part of playing violin. NOT playing like you're killing a cat is the hardest part for beginner.

[-] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

Maybe I'm overestimating people's willingness to tolerate sounding bad. I'd expect 1-2 years for basic proficiency but you can start having fun and making music long before that.

this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026

17 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

54982 readers

282 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS