# What instruments do you play?



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I can only play the piano. Tried to learn violin, but found it tough. Also tried the bamboo flute but can't blow the right angle to produce a note.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Piano and (English) concertina.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The recorder - sort of. 
But really, only the violin - though actually it's the 'fiddle repertoire' that grabs me.

I sometimes think of learning other instruments and once tried piano lessons for a few weeks - but I am passionately attached to violin and fiddle music and I'm not young, so my time is limited. 

Even if I work hard, I'll never be better than 'workmanlike' - but that would be perfectly satisfying, thank you.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

In my younger days I played harmonica (a chromatic one) could manage to play for the lads in the NAAFI or barrack room.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Currently: Violin and Piano.

Used to play clarinet, oboe, and cello as well.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I play the piano and the (classical) organ professionally. 

Also play the radio ...


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## agoukass (Dec 1, 2008)

I took piano lessons from elementary school all the way through college. I also taught myself how to play the recorder. When I was younger, I took violin lessons. However, I never mastered it because I didn't have a good ear.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I play classical/fingerstyle guitar nearly every day. In my younger daze I also played some piano, bass guitar, and lute before realizing I'd never have enough time to keep them all up. So I had to settle for being almost capable on guitar. Still working on it.:guitar:


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I play the violin fairly well. I play in a local amateur orchestra. We've muddled our way through some romantic repertoire: Brahms Symphonies, Beethoven Symphonies, Tchaikovsky symphonies, three Sibelius Symphonies (1, 2 and 5) plus various other works (e.g. Pictures, Enigma, Verdi overtures, Meistersingers Overture). We usually perform with a very talented local soloist for a concerto once a year. 

I've managed to play for myself (no audience or teacher only) Mozart's third violin concerto, Bruch Gm first movement, Beethoven Violin Sonata no 5 "Spring", Grieg Violin Sonata no 1, Prokofiev solo violin sonata and several of the pieces from the Bach sonatas and partitas for solo violin. 

I also play the guitar. I've played several Sor studies, plenty of Spanish music, and Stairway to Heaven, Blackbird, Here Comes the Sun and Tears in Heaven. 28 years ago I did get on stage by myself in an open mike night at a university pub and perform a Sor study, some Spanish finger picking, and Black Mountain Side. I don't play the guitar much these days, my time is taken up practising the violin. 

I play fairly well, but I've never made the jump into really good musician. And I've never made a single penny from performing.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

agoukass said:


> . . . I also taught myself how to play the recorder.


I love listening to recorders. There was a baroque group who played a concert here not too long ago. I love their sound.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Piano/keyboard is the only instrument I know how to play, and I'm not that good.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Sax, harmonica, and rudimentary keyboard. I mostly play by ear but can still read music but very slowly... "fake" charts work best for me... I especially enjoy finding unlikely songs to play on diatonic harmonica, from unlikely sources... such as Ravel's Pavane, Dvorak #9, Lullaby of Birdland, My Favorite Things, John Lennon tunes... and how I learn that Autumn Leaves is like Borodin's Asian Steppes... Nature Boy is like Brahms #3/III, etc...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Saxophone is what I play mostly now (alto, tenor, soprano, and I co-own a baritone with someone else). I took organ lessons as a kid and piano lessons in college. And if you play saxophone, you also play flute and clarinet, and I dig them out if I have to.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Guitar. I'm crap but I enjoy knocking out a few choons for my enjoyment (sod everyone else). Chuffed today cos I played Oasis' 'Half the World Away' (with my class of 6 year olds) this morning for our Christmas Cafe, in front of about 200 parents and family members, and didn't screw it up. No fingerstyle stuff for me. It's standard chords and the odd walk-down but I don't care. I can also play basic bass guitar but not done that in years.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Piano lessons as a kid, then clarinet, bassoon and euphonium in my high school and college days. Now, given enough time, I could possibly knock something off on the recorder (I have a couple ready to hand, and a couple more stored someplace), and I have a hammered dulcimer I noodle on pointlessly from time to time.


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## Orpheus (Jul 15, 2012)

Harp (Paraguayan), Lyre, and a number of drums/percussion instruments, some of which require advanced/specialized techniques, so I should probably list the most important ones separately: Tabla, Pakahawaj, Darbouka, Cajon, Pandeiro; along with a few other drums etc.

I'm concentrating mainly on the harp at the moment as I am trying to compose and play original folk-type melodies, and I already have limited opportunity to practice, with family, a big overgrown new garden, and pets keeping me busy at home, so the percussion isn't getting much of a look-in lately. This is unfortunate, as some of them (especially the Indian instruments) require considerable practice to maintain a good standard, but something has to give. My main time for playing is in the late evening when everyone else is in bed - a circumstance much better suited to harping than drumming in any case!

The wife has several other instruments with which I occasionally mess around, none of which I have any great aptitude for so far as I can tell, though I have to admit I have never seriously tried to learn any of them. A brief report on these:

Can improvise on the piano a bit despite not really knowing what I'm doing. Oddly, have become much _worse_ at this since taking up the harp. The wife says this is probably the fault of the harp, for having its notes backwards (I maintain that it has them the correct way round, and it is actually the piano that has them backwards). Can play a few chords on the guitar and uke (always sounds like old-style country music when I play these, for some reason), but have no interest in tormenting my hands to the degree that is apparently necessary to become good at these instruments. The harp is much more pleasant to play, and requires no obnoxious manual contortions to get the notes I want!

I've never felt much affinity with wind instruments, of which she plays several (or would, if she kept in practice). Can't get a decent note from the sax at all; can get quite a few from the trumpet (surprisingly), and might even consider trying to learn it one day, when not busy with more pressing matters, and when she is somewhere out of earshot. She also has a Turkish ney flute, from which I can produce precisely nothing but the sound of rushing air, interspersed with the occasional ghostly moan.


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## nenopro (Jan 26, 2019)

Piano, mostly classical or jazz tunes.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

Piano (Classical & Jazz) and electric keyboard 
Organ (I play for our church)
Harpsichord (lucky to have one at school)
Violin/Fiddle (Classical & Folk) Love Irish and Scottish music 
Viola 
Cello
Oboe
Guitar/Classical guitar
Lute (Just received an email I have one on the way very excited)

I am proficient in the above my main instruments being keyboard instruments with violin and guitar.


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## Harmonie (Mar 24, 2007)

Oboe and bassoon are my instruments. I played trumpet in high school and before, but that has been over a decade ago now. 

I own a lot of the other winds. I started learning tenor recorder earlier this year, but it really is quite a stretch for my fingers. Beautiful instrument, though, so hopefully that will get better.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

Harmonie said:


> Oboe and bassoon are my instruments. I played trumpet in high school and before, but that has been over a decade ago now.
> 
> I own a lot of the other winds. I started learning tenor recorder earlier this year, but it really is quite a stretch for my fingers. Beautiful instrument, though, so hopefully that will get better.


beautiful instrument bassoon <3


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