anybody teach themself how to play an instrument?

edith head

i am curious if any of you taught yourself how to play guitar or drums. if so what methods did you use (books, videos)? also how long did it take to be somewhat competant?

nrich

yes, guitar, started with tabulature and knew some basic music theory.

TheMack

tought myself to play drums from nothing other than listening to music

fishmongerfunk

guitar...just learn the songs you like to listen to (internet is full of transcriptions) and play along with the records/cd:s. as a musician you need to be able to blend into what others are playing and that requires modulation/control/sensitivity etc..and that can only be learned by playing with other musicians.

holmes

Taught myself bass from learning guitar. Also taught myself drums by playing along with the first Ramones LP. Also depending on how you pan that album left or right, you can remove the guitar & tape yourself playing along, hours of fun.

soulmarcosa

I asked mom for a bass guitar for Xmas 1984. Soon I was playing it every single day and learning just by listening to records and trying to play along. I had an old bass instruction book with pics of a really cool-looking 70s funk type dude smiling while he was jamming, but it didn't help me very much. I got really good, and I still can play just about anything just by listening to it.

The next year I asked for a guitar and did the same thing. Minus the cool-looking 70s funk type dude book.

Over the years I've noticed that some people just have an aptitude for playing guitar and can pick it up immediately, and are usually gifted improvisers too. Others need instruction, and often can only play by rote. Still others never get any better than the first time they hold the instrument, no matter how much practice they have.

I tried doing the same thing with piano just a few years ago but it was much more difficult, probably because I'm a lot older and don't have the patience and sheer will to learn that I had at 14-15.

bobbydee

I was taught the flute in primary school, after already teaching myself to play piano. My younger brother and sister played the trumpet & clarinet respectively, so when they tired of those i took them and taught myself. Clarinet to sax is a no brainer.

Since highschool (where i did very little of anything) i've tackled the harmonica and the theremin with a good degree of success.

Nowadays its an acoustic guitar... funnily enough I feel like this is the hardest for me to wrap my head around. I guess its the concept of not just hitting a certain key/valve and getting a sound, but a combination of fingers in a particular way. I've gone back to practicing chord theory on the keys, and that has helped alot in unlocking the guitarist in me, but i'm still lack-luster.

I have played a bit of Pizzicato cello, and some double bass too, mainly just borrowing them off freinds to record.

jfree

Wax paper/comb...


...all by my damn self. No help. None.




I had to give it up for a while though, and I lost my touch.

Beatsoup

I've been doing music seriously for about 6 or 7 years. I started a bit later than most at 17. I took piano lessons for a bit and got to grade 4 I think, the most useful thing I learnt there was scales and tecnique. I taught myself everything after that, like funk/jazz improvisation, some from listening to music but mostly from just playing around. I've never had bass or guitar lessons, I figured it all out by ear. It's a harder way to learn but makes u use your head alot more which I think is pretty key. I think if you take too many lessons you can get into abox of what you've been told rather than what u've disovered from long hours of teaching yourself by ear.

I'd say I'm pretty confident in musicianship at this point but there is much to improve upon. If you care to listen check out my beats where I play bass, keys and guitar.

www.myspace.com/beatsoups

Jimster

Started playing bass as soon as I could afford to buy one, which was at 21 in 1988. Never had a lesson and I can't read music - well, I can, but I would take 10 seconds to work out what every note is.

Before I got the bass I was already checking who was behind the bassplaying I liked on record so I played along with that (everyday, for hours - I was at college) until I could play almost like that. Obviously never will be as good as Jaco or Marcus Miller, but copped enough of that technique for me not to worry about it anymore.

Got playing in all kinds of jazz and funk bands but never had the guts to take a full-time gig because I can't sight read music and don't know enough theory to solo without the keys or sax players chuckling slyly in a musoier-than-thou smugness way.

If I could do anything for a living it would be playing jazz bass or keys. I hope when my son gets a little older we can take proper lessons togehter.

doom

im trying to teach myself piano/keys by ear and practice.. and watching some downloaded videos. theres some of them on audiowarez torrent trackers. looking for em makes you wish you were trying to learn guitar tho, theres tons and tons of instruction videos of all kinds for guitar... i even downloaded a funk one from the 80s even tho i dont have a guitar myself. pretty interesting.

i think a private teacher would increase my learning process alot tho. but im not in that economic situation yet.

so if you want to play keys, i can probably hook you up with some video lessons.

oh and i also make beats sometimes.

behemoth

when i was about 6 or 7 i wanted a guitar really bad. my mother wouldnt get me an electric so she got me this shitty acoustic joint and told me i needed to take lessons. the first lesson i took was at this camp and the classroom was full. imagine 20 beginning guitar players going "wait...wait" trying to strum a chord. needless to say it didnt work.

a few years later i started taking private lessons and then a few years later at a music store. these proved to be unsuccessful too. basically, most of teachers i had didnt know music theory. they didnt know technical shit. they knew how to play by ear and jam out on other peoples songs.

i used to be all into metal and shit when i was young, so it was natural i wanted to learn a Metallica song or whatever. the lessons always were composed of me learning the first and easiest riff to a song that was damn near impossible to play. this is why i stopped taking lessons. i knew how to play the first 30 seconds of 7 minute songs that i loved at the time.

over those years i have taught myself chords...scales...notes etc. improved myself and THEN went to learn more. i told my previous teacher i hit a brick wall and i want to learn some new stuff, but i dont just want to learn songs. he instituted a plan where we learn songs while he teaches me stuff contained in the song itself.

i think everyone gets better when they dont have a person watching them. its easier and you become more adapted to the fact you can experiment and such. i did the same with drums and piano. i am not the best but i can hang.

Fatback

i taught myself how to play guitar. most would argue that i can't play. and i have hard time playing with other guitarists. i would learn a chord and play it for hours. over and over. that's how i built up calluses on my finger tips and dexterity. always liked simple and straightforward guitarists who were also innovative like freddie green, peter buck, houndog taylor or keith rowe.

same with drums. i actually prefer the drums and have gone on to approach any instrument as percussion. esp piano and guitar. i started with playing along to very simple rhythms like faust. at the same time, i like free drummers like tony oxley and paul lovens.

obviously i like free jazz. and i like to improvise myself in that "form". i like duets mostly and do not expect anyone to listen other than my improvising partner(s). therefore i never play out.

music is therapeutic for me. i like to get lost in it. and i can't get lost when i'm counting.

teaching myself to play was the main reason i started buying records. i wanted to be able to put together many styles and approaches. 10,000 later...

analog_tape

i taught myself the sp1200 with no manual

behemoth

i taught myself the sp1200 with no manual

ha

SPlDEY

When I was like 11. I guess somewhere some teacher told my mom that I should be put into Piano lessons. Because I managed to get to a school Piano, and worked out Silent Night. Of course I grew up poor and broke, so all i got was a mini-not even casio. I couldn't do shit with.

Eventually I got to a friends drum set, and taught myself the drums. I played along with any song on the radio, I would bring records from home, and try to play them. Eventually he moved away, So I joined school band Where I was taught to play the Clarinet, but I taught myself how to really improvise.

Realized I didn't like anybody in band, so I stopped playing any instrument after that. Sometime during High School I got into making Mixtapes, so Again, figured out how to use turntables.

After High School, I was frustrutated alot, and eventually kept trying to pick up the guitar. Then one day this Amazing guitarist I was working for just gave me a beautiful stratocaster, and, It's what I play to this day. I somehow forgot how much I loved to make music. Now I play everyday, Never took a lesson. I also taught myself the bass. Now, I can't wait to move out, so I can get a drumset.

- spidey

asstro

I taught myself guitar by practicing for hours on end. I started wih Ramones records and worked my way up to teaching myself a fair amount of advanced theory from books and Guitar Player magazines. It was the 80's and the height of the shred guitar era, so I got caught up in that stuff. Then I actually started playing with other people and not just running scales in my bedroom, and I learned twice as much as I did on my own. I forgot a lot of the theory over the years, but I'm a better musician now even though I cant tell you the notes in the D Mixolydian mode anymore.

I think the best thing you can do to learn an instrument is to play with other people, preferably people a little better than you, but not so good that you frustrate them and they intimidate you. Nothing will make you improve like playing with other people, no matter what type of music you want to play.

loudwizard

yes, guitar.

honestly, as an adult maybe your chances of learning
to play anything really well are minimal.

you need to be somewhere between 12 and 15
and have no friends to become truly proficient, it seems to me.

jaymack

i learned chords on a guitar from a led zeppelin songbook.

the first songs i learned to play are "tangerine" and "thank you"

and i pretty much got into beatmaking on my own, too. diggin and all that.

Cosmophonic

I got an electric bass a few years back and tried to learn playing it using this manual. The bad thing was it REALLY bored me, so I just went ahead and played my own things, learnt how the different notes corresponded and so forth. Then I just jammed a whole lot, played in some bands and had fun with it. It was never a great ambition of mine to become the BEST bassplayer around, I just loved the social aspect of jamming and getting in the groove.

Last year a close friend of mine went of to South-East Asia to do a travel-documentary, so he didn??t need to bring his electric guitar with him. I told him I??d like to learn to play it, so he let me take care of it. It was an Ibanez, custom-made in the 80??s with one insane whammy-bar (goes way further than most). I played that every day for a year for at least half an hour and developed a little skill.

Now I want someone to teach me some things on the guitar, becuase I can??t play any songs! I can only improvise! I just can??t repeat a song someone else played. It??s really difficult.

Therefore I think the best approach to learning an instrument is to develop a feel for it on your own, learn some things from others and THEN totally flip it and turn it into your own unique style.

- J

SPlDEY

yes, guitar.

honestly, as an adult maybe your chances of learning
to play anything really well are minimal.

you need to be somewhere between 12 and 15
and have no friends to become truly proficient, it seems to me.

nah, I don't agree with that homie. I've met people who are incredible who started playing in there 50's.

- spidey

Otis_Funkmeyer

i learned from a led zeppelin songbook.

, "The Heavy Guitar Bible (1st edition - the thinner, white one)", and a stack of my brother's late 80s "Guitar" magazines.

The "Bible" taught me the most though.

I had played trumpet in school band for 5 years so I thought I had a head start when I tried guitar. I opened to the middle of the Bible, thought it was all Greek, and just messed around for a few weeks, figuring out what I could. After I hit a wall with that, I decided to give the book another chance. I just started at chapter one and didn't proceed to the next until I totally understood each chapter, and that did it. Of course, you never actually stop learning.

Campag_Record

Guitar at 21 years old. I got a Beatles chord book and just learnt as many chords as I could. I probably haven't improved since that initial year or two. Just got to a reasonable level of rhythm guitar where you can bluff your way through a lot of well known songs.

Just noticed Love's Alone Again Or in a friends book and that intro has me hooked (and is surprisingly straight forward to play).

lamas

I had nearly mastered this one by the time I left Best Buy last night:

pcmr

I just wanna say something for all you people starting out ith instruments (in my case the trumpet)


Wes Montgomery started playing guitar at 21 years old

loudwizard

yes, guitar.

honestly, as an adult maybe your chances of learning
to play anything really well are minimal.

you need to be somewhere between 12 and 15
and have no friends to become truly proficient, it seems to me.

nah, I don't agree with that homie. I've met people who are incredible who started playing in there 50's.

- spidey

that just means they are the exception to the rule.

most (and by most i mean 99%+) don't have the time, patience, or talent
to teach themselves to play an instrument WELL after they reach their 20's.
you always wind up with too much on your plate.
something that requires minimal hand/eye coordination
and those strange motor skill memories, maybe-
bass, bagpipe, something like that, maybe.

drums? nah. guitar or piano? unlikely.

RAW_HAMBURGER

drums...age 5
had to stop when i was 11

SPlDEY

that just means they are the exception to the rule.

most (and by most i mean 99%+) don't have the time, patience, or talent
to teach themselves to play an instrument WELL after they reach their 20's.
you always wind up with too much on your plate.
something that requires minimal hand/eye coordination
and those strange motor skill memories, maybe-
bass, bagpipe, something like that, maybe.

drums? nah. guitar or piano? unlikely.

Well, thank you for that well thought out analysis. I'm glad to see someone else who speaks with facts that come completly out of there asses.

- spidey

Morti

i taught myself the sp1200 with no manual

hemol

yes, guitar.

honestly, as an adult maybe your chances of learning
to play anything really well are minimal.

you need to be somewhere between 12 and 15
and have no friends to become truly proficient, it seems to me.

nah, I don't agree with that homie. I've met people who are incredible who started playing in there 50's.

- spidey

that just means they are the exception to the rule.

most (and by most i mean 99%+) don't have the time, patience, or talent
to teach themselves to play an instrument WELL after they reach their 20's.
you always wind up with too much on your plate.
something that requires minimal hand/eye coordination
and those strange motor skill memories, maybe-
bass, bagpipe, something like that, maybe.

drums? nah. guitar or piano? unlikely.

Wrong. I started out rapping at eighteen, never played any instruments, and at 21 decided I wanted to learn how to play drums so I wouldn't have to use sampled drums anymore. After a year of tireless practice--we're talking every day for a few hours (while going to school and working)--I was decent enough to keep a beat, and after two years I had that shit down. Three years in I could go off for real-- improvising in seven count for instance, triplets on the bass no problem. Never had a lesson, but I did have a highly-talented friend who blessed me with some pointers in the beginning.

and

I taught myself dulcimer at 23.

The thing about learning to play instruments is that you have to realize that there are only so many ways to fuck up, and once you've completed all the possible fuck-ups you're bound to get it right. It's all about having the time and the right attitude.