# Want to play lots of instruments!



## playpiano

Recently I've wanted to be able to play loads of instruments but to a good standard, I play piano and have lessons but I want to also play the violin, flute, clarinet and trumpet. But obviously the more instruments the less time you get to practise them and my dad wouldn't be able to afforded lessons as they are quite expensive. Does anyone ever just get the urge to learn a new instrument?


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## Ravndal

Hehe, not really. I can't imagine starting on a new instrument. The first year is so incredible hard. But, I have a thing there I'm constantly starting on new pieces. The workload can be a bit extreme!


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## PetrB

I regret never having learned a second instrument, so strongly urge you not to drop the ambition or desire to learn one other.

Especially as a pianist, no matter how good we've managed to get, ours is a percussion instrument, a non-bower or breather which cannot sustain nor swell a dynamic. Working as an accompanist with instrumentalists and for me, most especially, singers, worked wonders for my playing.

I did, one college semester, play percussion in the wind ensemble, Bass Drum, Cymbal, and the mallet phones, xylophone, vibes... those never required more than two mallet technique, and with some tricky parts, still took to it readily (I got practice time at the instruments certain periods). I enjoyed that immensely. Learned there was a kind of attentiveness to counting which is the regular territory of the single-line instrument player. Pianists, by the nature of the beast and what is written for it, even in ensembles, so often 'carrying their own conductor.' Good one to learn.

For any pianist, the attractiveness of a portable instrument is already _huge._

My bucket list is two: viola, clarinet -- one each string, wind. (Oboe attractive, but reeds come with their craft of reed-making as necessity, the double reeds that much trickier and involved.)

Further than two instruments, especially across the instrumental family types, you're asking to become at least a little disperse, or a _jackofalltradesmasterofnone._

There is relativity: once you have clarinet, key fingering and behavior is quite similar, so other clarinets, saxophones. Double reeds require a radically different embouchure. If you pick up a second instrument, within the same family holds more promise for you.

Of course I would love a basic immediate familiarity with them all, to play and to have more a direct feeling for when writing for them... but if you want to be good at one thing, that thing we all know especially challenging even for the talented and driven........................ 

I would say if you can do pick up a second instrument -- you will have to make a choice -- I think it not self-indulgent at all, and invaluable for any performing musician.

ADD P.s. When in middle school at an intensive summer camp (a two month session), there was a freely available hands-on the instruments course where you went through learning a little about each family, and went through the families as well. I still kick myself in the [email protected]@ every time I recall that was once in front of my face available to me, and that I did not


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## Forte

I want to seriously take up playing the piano at some point in time. I don't think it's too terribly late to start at my age, and I took some piano lessons when I was 5-7 so I still have foundational skills - I can play most accompaniments for school music, anyway. Playing piano would probably help me get used to harmony, polyphony, polyrhythms, etc. more than playing a primarily monophonic string instrument would, and those are always important to keep in mind when playing _music_ in general. Those types of musical challenges are great and fun imo.


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## hreichgott

Yes, one secondary instrument is incredibly valuable for pianists in the secondary school years. Make it an instrument that plays in a section in a large ensemble. It will make you loads better at accompanying and chamber music if you stick with the piano, because you'll understand ensemble work much more intuitively. Or on the other hand, many concert performers on non-piano instruments started on the piano, then picked up a secondary instrument as teenagers, loved the secondary instrument so much they switched over completely and made it their career.

No, private lessons on more than 2-3 instruments are probably not feasible. Unless you make some sort of long-range plan where you study 3 instruments for a two-year period, then switch to 3 different instruments for the next 2-year period, but you'd have to forget about becoming really good on any of them. This is why the symphony orchestra is not a one-man band. Everyone needs each other.

Music education classes (the kind where you learn how to teach) give you the chance to try out lots of instruments. Or if you are in an ensemble you can always ask nicely to be allowed to try different instruments if the school or organization owns them. Or swap with a buddy over holiday break when you are both just tired of your primary instruments.

Have you considered composing or conducting? There, you get to use many different instruments... you just don't have to PLAY them  and having some real understanding of every instrument you compose for or conduct is very helpful.

Or maybe play some chamber music, where you must be really good at your instrument, AND you learn all about the sound qualities and limitations of the other instruments in your small ensemble, both what they can do and how to best support them.


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## playpiano

Ravndal said:


> Hehe, not really. I can't imagine starting on a new instrument. The first year is so incredible hard. But, I have a thing there I'm constantly starting on new pieces. The workload can be a bit extreme!


I have a bad habit of starting loads of pieces and then never actually finishing them!


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## Lunasong

playpiano said:


> I have a bad habit of starting loads of pieces and then never actually finishing them!


...or maybe wanting to play lots of instruments but never really learning how to play them well. To me, the same thought process is at work.


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