# Did you have a sound musical education?



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

This issue came up on the Popularity thread and Dogen suggested a poll. :tiphat:

I wonder what the range of musical education is on TC. I know the range includes professional players, academic theoreticians, practising composers, music teachers, amateur instrumentalists, those who studied it at school, those who developed an interest later in life - on and on.

I've set this up as a poll to get some data but the real interest is -what is your musical background and how does it help you on TC?

You can choose more than one option but try to limit it to three and say what your main source of musical education is.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

No. My only education is roughly 2-3 years of piano lessons when I was young.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Taggart said:


> This issue came up on the Popularity thread and Dogen suggested a poll. :tiphat:
> 
> I wonder what the range of musical education is on TC. I know the range includes professional players, academic theoreticians, practising composers, music teachers, amateur instrumentalists, those who studied it at school, those who developed an interest later in life - on and on.
> 
> I've set this up as a poll to get some data but the real interest is -what is your musical background and how does it help you on TC?


Yeah, they tried to teach me to read music and play the recorder in elementary school but I had other plans.

The nerve of those teachers.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2015)

Well as I posted in the Popularity thread, I've had little formal or practical musical training or education. I've learnt more about classical music from just listening and reading round the subject (including here at TC) than at school or with my piano teacher.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I voted 'amateur instrumentalist' and 'music was a small part of my high school years'. 

I learned the violin at school - then gave up in the year before O-level (exam taken at age 16 in the UK). I have now been playing the violin again for nearly four years. 

Apart from violin lessons, we had one lesson a week music - generally class singing, but it included some listening to 'the greats' and commenting on our reactions. It was an unexamined subject, and was dropped from our curriculum once we'd chosen our O-level subjects. 

I don't think that I did have 'a sound musical education'. It came to me in bits and scraps - and it still does.

I have learned more about music in the two and a half years since I joined TC than in any other period of my life - either by following up recommendations, or by doing my own research in order to contribute to a thread.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I voted amateur instrumentalist and music was a small part of my High School years. 

I played piano as a child; gave it up just before High School. We did some music at school but not an awful lot.

I was into folk and then moved into Early Music and Baroque. Now that I'm retired, I'm playing the piano and taking exams. I've done some theory but nowhere near enough. The fact that I'm doing exams means that I get forced out of my comfort zone into music that I wouldn't otherwise bother with.

I joined TC because it came up under a search for Baroque. It's been a marvellous learning experience; both from reading the contributions and by doing some research to make my own posts.

I'm learning all the time now: listening to a lot more classical music;playing a lot more; going to concerts; trying to develop my understanding of how the various Baroque styles work. It's a marvellous journey and I've got a great travelling companion.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Well as I posted in the Popularity thread, I've had little formal or practical musical training or education. I've learnt more about classical music from just listening and reading round the subject (including here at TC) than at school or with my piano teacher.


similar for me ... though delete 'little' in line 1 and replace with 'almost none at all' (and delete final five words of the post!)


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Apologies - I voted for more than three choices before reading the instructions.

-I'm an amateur pianist - lessons from ages 6 to 18, though I was never the most diligent student. I still play for fun.

-Music was a relatively big part of my high school years - in addition to the piano, I played brass instruments (very poorly) in the school band and orchestra. I also listened to and read a lot about music during that time.

-My mother is a professional church musician.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I don't have much formal musical education but my life as a chord does give a certain insight that others may not have.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2015)

Like everyone else I played the recorder at school, so was taught to read music. But that was, ahem, 40 years ago. So pretty darned ignorant.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2015)

dogen said:


> Like everyone else I played the recorder at school, so was taught to read music. But that was, ahem, 40 years ago. So pretty darned ignorant.


Ahem...not _everyone _else.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Well I ain't ignorant, I _know_ what I like. Sometimes it does take awhile to sink in. Over the past 40 years or so, I haven't stopped liking any music I liked, and have kept adding on - to the point where I could be accused of losing 'sense of judgement'.

All of that with no formal music education, and not much formal education of any other kind. Crikeys, no wonder I'm weird.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I'm a rather odd duck. I don't sing or play an instrument. I have a Bachelor's degree in Composition. But I had a lot of trouble learning and applying the modern harmonic techniques. I was almost expelled from the program for it. I finally latched onto Messiaen's Modes of Limited Transposition (especially the second) and turned out a few pieces that qualified me for a degree. I should've switched and been a Theory major, but I was determined to have a composition degree. I was even more interested in orchestration, but the college didn't have a degree course in that.

I got the idea in my head to be a composer around the age of 12 or so. My father was a classically trained pianist (who hated classical music but loved New Orleans style jazz). We never did bond as father and son, and I thought that by learning music, it could be a bridge to some kind of relationship with him. The relationship never did develop. He died shortly before I finished the degree, and the "muse" left me when he died. I did turn out a few pieces for a minister-friend of mine who was an amateur singer after that, but my enthusiasm for composition left a few years after I graduated. I haven't written anything since 1993.

These days, I'm nothing more than a very well-informed listener. But music still feeds me and I find myself daydreaming about new pieces to write. If I could find some text that "sings", I'd take a stab at setting it. Maybe some day


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Ahem...not _everyone _else.


What, you mean you have a greater standard of ignorance than me?!


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

I can't read music.
I can play guitar.

What should I vote?


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I'm on a hiatus that could last the rest of this lifetime for all I know or have planned, but I was a dedicated music student/ practicing composer.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I took piano lessons pretty seriously, played a lot of music and I even got the chance to play the celesta part with an orchestra. With that said I never had the genuine musicianship of a truly hardcore pianist, though I was pretty obsessive about practicing for a while (awful what musicians do to themselves).

I took A LOT of music theory and orchestration classes, I took the exercises I was given with great seriousness and wrote some pieces that people really seemed to enjoy. I had a composition teacher who I didn't really understand, but I think we would be more receptive to each other if we met again today.

I nearly failed the music history classes i took because they were just too dry and I was just too preoccupied (or lazy).

I sang in choirs for a little bit but I sucked (I think), but I learned about choirs and how they think they are the center of everything.

(Sorry for double post, I had no idea I even posted the first one).


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I had recorder and guitar lessons in primary school. My schooling was interrupted a few times, so my music education was sporadic. I taught myself to play the piano as a teenager. I continued to play the guitar and piano through my twenties. On my 32nd birthday, I started violin lessons. I took private lessons for almost three years. I took my first music exams. I stopped lessons, but continued to play in a local orchestra for many years. I started lessons again 18 months ago, after no lessons on the violin for 15 yrs. 

I didn't have a sound musical education as a child, only as an adult. Too late to be a professional, so be it. I really love playing the violin now.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I have "substantial reading and listening experience," but I do not play any musical instruments, so I selected "keen but not musically educated." Did I distinguish the difference between the two correctly?


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I got a degree, yo! Dat makes me a_ pruh-fesh-un-al _musician.

I want another music degree tho...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

In my teenage years, my parents arranged organ lessons for me, and I had an electronic organ at home for decades (got rid of it in 2004 because we could not find a suitable place in our then new house). That's it. On the other hand, 40+ years of listening to music and building a ridiculously large collection, the last 30 years including classical music to a large extent.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Check my profile.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> Check my profile.


It's a very noble profile!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I have had no formal training.

I play the guitar, bass and some rudimentary keyboard as an amateur performer and to make home recordings.

I can read music so slowly it is seldom worth the effort. I know a very little theory.

I enjoy listening to classical music because I like the noise it makes


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Amateur Instrumentalist , I started piano lessons when I was about 6 years old.
After: 15 years I quit, I never will be_ Ivo the second_ :lol:


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2015)

Stavrogin said:


> I can't read music.
> I can play guitar.
> 
> What should I vote?


"Natural born genius."


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

dogen said:


> "Natural born genius."


Ahah certainly not, or there's plenty of geniuses everywhere 

For sure my answer to the thread title question is a huge No


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## bestellen (May 28, 2015)

I'm keen but not musically educated


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Master's in Theory, Ph.D. musicology. I publish scholarly stuff under a different name. On the job education includes working in the libraries of major orchestras, playing guitar in a band, working as a music copyist, arranging and publishing musical editions, and writing program notes for several professional and amateur orchestras. Oh yeah, I've done a lot of composing as well.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Master's in Theory, Ph.D. musicology. I publish scholarly stuff under a different name. On the job education includes working in the libraries of major orchestras, playing guitar in a band, working as a music copyist, arranging and publishing musical editions, and writing program notes for several professional and amateur orchestras. Oh yeah, I've done a lot of composing as well.


Um, so your answer is 'yes'?


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Very much part of the most-frequently-cited crowd - Amateur with substantial l & e experience. Sorry to be so boring.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Amateur pianist since age 6, lessons through late teens, never developed a good enough technique. Non practising music theorist, with university master degrees in Musicology, Music Theory and Composition (I mostly took these because students at those departments got free seats with all the concert givers and opera of the city).

I don't know what choice apply to me, but that could be my lazy side speaking!

/ptr


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## Harmonie (Mar 24, 2007)

Um... Well, I completed a Music degree at a community college, and I went one year through a university (which got me through all of the Theories and Form & Analysis). But ask me to post seriously about these subjects on this forum and it's not going to happen. I do find the analysis of pieces interesting, but I am more enchanted by the sound of the music and instruments itself.

Says the one who wants to go back for Musicology/Music History. I'm an odd one.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

dogen said:


> Like everyone else I played the recorder at school, so was taught to read music. But that was, ahem, 40 years ago. So pretty darned ignorant.


The only music 'lesson' I remember from Primary School was when some students came from a local teacher training college and we sang _'Puff the Magic Dragon'_.

Definitely didn't get my back teeth round a recorder


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I had piano lessons from age 6 to 12. I didn't get very far as I have hilariously poor hand - eye coordination. This also stymied my childhood ambition to be a professional cricketer. I never aspired to be a surgeon, you'll be relieved to hear. 

I have substantial 'form' as a listener to classical music, active over 45 years or so, with gaps). I'm a lazy reader who has never really set my mind to learning about music systematically. Not exactly an impressive CV, now I look it over.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Not exactly an impressive CV, now I look it over.


much more impressive than a few minutes with _'Puff the Magic Dragon!'_


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2015)

Headphone Hermit said:


> The only music 'lesson' I remember from Primary School was when some students came from a local teacher training college and we sang _'Puff the Magic Dragon'_.
> 
> Definitely didn't get my back teeth round a recorder


At our school there was a recorder for every mouth. We were all taught to sight read to play. The best ones were offered stuff like clarinets. That didn't include me. 
I stepped up and asked for a "proper" instrument. The choice was trombone (arms not long enough) or bassoon. I spent 6 unhappy months impersonating the Queen Mary docking at Southampton before giving it up.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Classical piano lessons for 6 years, classical organ for 6 years, two years of organ/harpsichord in college. Took my first position as a church organist in 1961. Began getting paid for it in 1965. 

Perform concerts on a regular basis within two musical events each year in a neighboring county.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I *had* a sound musical education, but lost it.


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

Like everyone in Estonia, we sang. In our early school years, everyone was encouraged to sing. I was discouraged later on once it was discovered my singing would make farm animals restless.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I also gained very valuable insight on how to be a great accompanist. All through Jr and Sr High school I was the piano accompanist for all the choirs, as well as soloists, and a few operettas. 

There is much more than just playing the notes when accompanying solos or groups.


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2015)

My sax teacher said I had an excellent embouchure.


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2015)

My neighbours said my drum kit was too loud.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

I started Cornet lessons in school and played through HS and the College orchestra. I took piano Lessons through HS. Once I graduated I didn't have a piano for about 40 years, till about 4 years I finally got one. My wife and I were trying where we had enough wall space to put an upright or a keyboard, but then I solved the problem by getting a piano that didn't need any wall space, a Baldwin model R grand. When it was delivered I made sure there was enough room to get all around it. For many years I was a member of the International Preview Society and got a lot of records because I forgot to send the coupon back.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

dogen said:


> My neighbours said my drum kit was too loud.


My neighbors wouldn't be able to hear a drum set, if I had one, unless I took it outside on my deck.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

dogen said:


> My sax teacher said I had an excellent embouchure.


I've heard it said that trumpet players are good at kissing, I wonder if the same could be said about sax players.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

breakup said:


> I've heard it said that trumpet players are good at kissing, *I wonder if the same could be said about sax players.*


They're just good at sax...


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