Or have you played something else in the past? What’s your favorite piece to play?
Edit: thanks for everyone that has replied. This has been so heartwarming to read :)
When I was younger, I played the viola and I loved it, but moved to a school that didn’t have that and we couldn’t afford any lessons. I tried piano (one of those simply piano courses and a keyboard) and I actually liked that as well, but time got away from me. I wish I could actually play, it looks so amazing. Jealous of all you talented musicians.
Violin for 10 years, and it was fucking hard. It starts sounding decent around year 7-8. Effectively matching the tone of the instrument to the components you buy and pieces you play is a trick too. My violin had a super dark tone, basically only sounded good with new strings (wound only, except for a steel E), which meant it was always sliding out of tune because of the tension. But on the occasions it all came together, it was extremely loud and resonant, and made Bach’s partitas sound pretty awesome.
Viola! I like its range of sound and the fact that we get our own (alto) clef makes me feel special. But you end up playing a lot of lame parts when the violins get all the melodies and solos.
Is it the same instrument that Jordi Savall plays and adapts for ? in french it’s called Violle de Gambe so not 100% sure it’s the same thing
I play early music, and what we call a viol de gamba is a different thing; the viola is fretless and held under the chin like a violin, while the viol de gamba is a renaissance/baroque-era fretted instrument that is held between the legs and comes in treble, tenor, and bass sizes.
Savall plays the latter.
To further confuse the matter, there’s a renaissance-era instrument called the vielle that is played more like a modern violin or viola.
Thanks for the disambiguation… I could have sworn that the viol de gamba was fretless ! but after looking it up I can confirm that it’s not.
Yup, they use wrapped gut frets. They’re moveable so that the musicians could adjust intonation in the period before equal temperament was invented.
Can you imagine having to shift individual frets, untying and retying them to get the instrument in tune?
What a pain in the ass. No wonder they went extinct.
I play the renaissance lute, which also uses tied frets. I just play in equal temperament because its easier and my ear isn’t that good. I’m merely an ambitious amateur though, maybe I’ll get into it one of these days.
I play guitar, but I’ve never held a lute. I’d love to try one sometime. They are astonishingly beautiful works of art. I love everything about them.
Goddammit, now I have to buy a lute.
While they look similar, the violin and the gamba family are separate branches, sort of musical cousins.
Of all the stringed instruments, the upright string bass is the closest in shape to the gamba family, and is technically evolved from that. The shoulders on a violin, viola, or cello, come straight out from the neck, while the shoulders on a string bass slope down. That’s a typical characteristic difference in shape between violins and gambas.
Viola sounds amazing but yes, fun pieces are written for violin.
Do you know any great viola music that is on par with great violin music?
Mozart famously loved violas so he frequently gave them some love and he wrote Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major where they are the star of the show.
Beautiful piece, I can see why you love to play it, too! Must be super fun to bounce back and forth with the violinist and carry the melody.
I think one of my biggest regrets is stopping playing violin. I will pick it back up one day when I have more time, nothing else has brought me the same kind of joy, not even the other instruments I’ve learned over the years.
That dark velvetiness that violas have is gorgeous. It is too bad that not much is written for it, but at least you can adapt violin or cello music.
I grew up playing trombone. There’s no good music for that either, and you can’t even adapt other stuff well to it. I never enjoyed playing it back then, even though I love music. Today, I’m a guitarist. Much more satisfying than trombone.
Kinda basic, but my favorite is the bass. I play guitar too, but it’s a bit easier to play bass and people are less aware when you make a mistake !
People have to be listening to us to notice there was a mistake in the first place!
As someone who doesn’t like being in the spotlight, switching from guitar to bass was very liberating
I’ve been learning piano the last 3 years, and now I’m either solo or at least more front and center and dealing with that has been as challenging as learning the instrument.
Still playing with others I feel is the most fun thing about any instrument. I think I learn more and learn faster doing it as a group, and it’s just a lot of fun making music with people.
I’ve been drumming for something like twenty years now, it’s fantastic. There’s nothing quite like getting into a groove and feeling a fun beat. Haven’t played a show in over a decade though (and I wasn’t very good anyway), I mostly just play for myself these days.
Drums. I got a used electronic kit, a lower-end Roland model, and only play it for me. I learned the basic rhythms so I can throw some tunes on my headphones and try to play along. More meditation than anything else.
My favourite instrument is a hammer. I love playing nails with it.
I’ve been playing many instruments for over 25 years. Sometimes professionally. My favorite thing to do with them is just explore the sounds they can make. Really listen to the nuance of it. A plucked or strummed string, for example has such a complex waveform. When you get to know how sound works on a physics level, it’s truly amazing.
I play keys, guitars, bass, ukelele, drums, and a little bit of flute. Keys are my primary instrument because of the infinite sonic possibilities it offers compared to other instruments. I’ve been way more creative with making music with keys vs playing other instruments.
I play trumpet, I’m good at it and I really like being good at it. I branch out every now and then to other instruments, none are quite as intuitive to me though.
30 years on the clarinet and 5 or so on the trumpet. I’m an average 2nd trumpet player but pretty good on the clarinet. There’s nothing quite like nailing a big solo in front of a couple of hundred people. I love it.
I play ukulele because when I miss a note or get a beat wrong it just makes me laugh because it sounds so silly. I got a banjolele too and that thing is ridiculous, but when it works it sounds awesome.
I play the piano but haven’t touched it in a while. But, at peak, I was playing pretty good since I did it for over 10 years. My favorite thing to do whenever I can bring myself to do it is come up with chords and melodies. I rarely write things down but the ones I do, I turn into electronic music.
I’ve played the trumpet for 27 years now, and have played the pipe organ for 3. Both of them professionally, and the issue with picking a favorite is there’s a ton of fantastic music!
On the trumpet I’d recommend a listen to Bugler’s Holiday, or Great Gate of Kiev. Possibly my favorite gig as an anecdote was an old Catholic Church in a poor part of the city. They had built an elevated stretch of subway what felt like inches from the church and the priest had to stop his homily every 5 minutes so the subway could go through. The organist ended with the Hallelujah Chorus and it might be the reason I have tinnitus but it was the most heavenly sounding space to play in!
On the organ, I played Schriener’s adaptation of Louis Vierne’s Maestoso in C. Straight from the get go it’s a fantastic piece to rattle the floors and wake up a church. I’d also recommend Scott’s arrangement of Hymn of the Cherubim as it is much softer and a good idea of the breadth the instrument can cover style wise.
I’d like to learn to play the organ. I have an old Allen MOS-2 in my workshop that I started doing a MIDI conversion on and just haven’t had time to finish it.
It is an incredibly rewarding instrument! I rewired a conn 650 for midi to practice at home, but most of my practice and learning came from where I got lessons. Since they’re not exactly a portable instrument if you talk with an organist/music director if they don’t have an organist there’s a good chance they’ll let you practice on the church’s instrument.
Guitar mainly, but I can play any of the typical instruments associated with rock/metal.
My favourite thing about the guitar is all the expressive ways you can play a single note. There’s the spectrum of how hard you pick it along with what you use to pick - fingers or plectrum, what angle you attack the string with said pick, vibrato, bend up to the note or down from it, slide into or out of it, etc…
It’s such an expressive instrument. I love it. You can really hear someone’s personality come out in their playing. There truly are endless different ways to play a single song. It all just depends on the choices you make.
