Learning your first instrument....when, which one and why?

[pjc]

I

[Ernest Buckley]

Piano.

Started when I was 13. (However you can start when you`re 4!)

Its the best instrument to learn first because it gives you all the essential theory you`ll need. It also has more gigs that any other instrument so...

Peace,

EB

[blue2blue]

[Warning: this is not my typical, rambling, convoluted, but utterly fascinating post. This is, indeed, just plain boring. You've been warned.]

 

MY first attempted instrument: piano

 

I had two -- maybe two and a half, actually -- lessons from the piano teacher down the street who, with great emphaticness told my parents I had neither the talent nor the discipline to play an instrument.

 

My second attempt was drums. I'd watched the Gene Krupa story and was wowed by a particularly spectacular drum solo. My elementary school had a band/orchestra that started in 3rd and 4th grade (ah, the good old days when music and arts were seen as an important part of growing up) and I "went out" for the band. I bought some drum sticks but never, apparently managed to make anything approaching rhythmic noise. I kept insisting to my parents that surely if they would buy me a practice pad, it would improve my timing. They, sensibly enough demured until I could show some progress. I never did.

 

The elementary school music teacher told my parents ruefully that I was completely devoid of any musical talent whatsoever, no sense of rhythm at all.

 

 

Not long after my cousins got a little reed organ and I spent about 6 hours glued to it one afternoon. They could barely pry me away to go dive into the pool (which I normally jumped in as soon as we arrived and was dragged out of just before we drove off).

 

My dad, who'd played piano as a kid and was pretty decent, always loved organs and between the two of us, we were able to lobby up a little two manual Thomas (Silvertone) organ... one of those "hybrids" where the left hand manual had chord symbols printed above the keys (in no special relationship to the keys that anyone could ever figure) and a switch that allowed "one finger chords." My dad rued that feature the whole time he watched me avoiding any use of my left hand that required more than one finger. He'd show me how to form chords and I'd say, That's nice. Why do I need to do that, though, it's a chord organ, innit? And then there were the "melody numbers" over the right hand manual keys...

 

One of the things that most bugged me was trying to pick out melodies. I'd go up and down looking for the "next" note, which I knew was somewhere but, over and over, depending on the interval, it just would NOT sound right. It was decades before I would realize that I was being thrown off by the approximations of the even tempered scale.

 

Around that same time, junior high, the folk revival was kicking into gear and my cousin was in a popular bluegrass band (the Breckinridge County boys -- all from OC, CA -- they never released anything so they're largely forgotten) and I decided to pick up guitar.

 

My cousin, my dad, and me went down to the local discount superstore (it was the dawn of the superstore, this one was called White Front) where they had guitars for as low as $13. I'd been saving for months. My cousin -- who had and still has a sweet little D-18 Martin -- was kinda horrified by the $13 guitar and talked my dad into loaning me enough so I could get the "superior" $18 guitar.

 

I have no recollection of the $13 guitar but the $18 guitar was pretty darn horrific. I did learn to tune it after many months and learned the 6 chords they told me would allow me to play almost any pop or folk song... but I could never get it to sound like, you know, music...

 

 

Flash forward to my second year of college... after some success on the academic poetry/reading scene I began to realize that a guy who could play a couple chords on a guitar had a far better chance of getting a girl -- even a poet girl.

 

I picked up where I'd left off but it was the same thing all over...

 

Finally, my roomie at the time (a guy who could really play) took pity on me and said, Look, your problem is clearly rhythm. You're not playing in time so it doesn't even sound like music to you... He showed me how I could use two of my 6 chords (Em and A7) to play the middle part to Down by the River and said, just play those two chords as steady as you can... until it sounds like music. But when I'm home, use this but do NOT plug it into anything -- and handed me his '63 Strat (he had a D28 that was his current passion). I dutifully played Em and A7 in my spare time for a couple months before... somehow, I barely noticed, it started sounding ever so vaguely like music.

 

Not long after I started experimenting with tunings because I was utterly in love with the sound of slide guitar. (Slide guitar, I realized some years later, could hit the true harmonic intervals instead of the dorky even-tempered ones.) I taught myself some very rudimentary finger picking...

 

Most of the music I was listening to (by now it was the early 70s) was electric and often had a lot of keyboards (the cool Rhodes and B3 stuff not the pretentious ELP stuff) but I stuck with my acoustic guitars until right around the time the first Sex Pistols album came out in the UK. In fact, I bought my first amp the very day we came back from the import shop and put it on... my little amp went into hideously wonderful feedback easy so it was perfect...

 

The rest is... uh... even more boring...

[Eye_Of_The_Liger]

My only advice, and I don't mean to assume that you don't already know this, is to make sure your kids really want to learn music. I don't mean to tell you how to raise your kids, but it's just that reading this thread reminds me of when I first started learning how to play the saxophone (my first instrument) back in 6th grade. It was a lot of fun at first, until my parents started forcing me into it. To this day, at the age of 28, I still find it difficult to pick up the sax, even to play music I enjoy. I seldom, if ever practice on my own, and it really sucks.

 

Other than that, I'd say just give your 4 y/o a Les Paul and a Marshall Stack and he'll do fine.

 

Ok, maybe a stack is a bit much, better make it a half-stack.

[Rabid]

For a technical point, piano followed by drums. This was my path and it gave me a very good foundation to play any instrument I wanted by the time I was in the 10 grade.

 

From a child's point, an instrument that keeps them involved in groups may hold their interest. Piano lessions tend to be solitary and I think that is a reason many kids want to give it up. If you can get them into a group setting where other kids are also learning instruments it can do a lot for keeping the child excited about music.

 

Robert

[robochimp]

I've played guitar for 29 years. In hindsight, I wish I started on piano. It seems most keyboard players I meet are more well rounded musicians, and they tend to have more backround in music theory.

 

However, at 16 years old, you couldn't get me near a piano. I wanted to play guitar because it seemed more fun.

 

Maybe you could make a deal with your kids: They can play any instrument they want as long as they learn at least a little about piano. I wish my parents would have said that to me.

[the stranger]

... my little amp went into hideously wonderful feedback easy so it was perfect... The rest is... uh... even more boring...

 

Whatever, man. If it's so damn boring, why'd you type it?

 

I happened to find it a nice little read. Poolside recollections...I loved to swim when I was a kid. I was the fishboy.

 

Criticisms of the even tempered scale: "...true harmonic intervals instead of the dorky even-tempered ones..."

 

I've always wanted one of those 87 fret guitars. Kind of kills the blues thing, but for shred?

 

And wouldn't you know it was a roommate who finally got me playing for real? My experience was more along the lines of being shown that once you can fret two string bar chord action, the metal sword of domination is in your grasp! [insert sample of poorly played over-distorted music store rendition of Am I Evil -as interpreted by Metallica]

 

Speaking of feedback...

 

Fast Forward to:

 

Mako Explorer Copy -> Arion Distortion Pedal -> Gorilla 15Watt

 

I'm sure there is still chaos reverberating through the universe from that little setup. Crunch doesn't even cover it. More like the sound of a dumptruck being dropped on your shed.

 

But no, your recollections are anything but boring.

[boosh]

When I was 7 I got a microphone and a tape-deck,.. a guitar with three strings and some drumsticks.

 

I used the sticks to drum on the guitar strings and the body to get sounds and I recorded them.

 

I used a second tapedeck to play what I recorded and record vocals over it with the first tapedeck.

 

Today I have Skip,.... a three year old Punk Rocker.

 

He uses Nuendo with waves plugins to record his voice and makes beats and music with : Tambourine,Bongos,Ukelele,guitars,Samba-eggs,samba-balls and his aunties piano. He also claims musicians are weird and smell like beer.

 

He loves Thriller and Michael Jackson because the man with the Moustache that daddy knows made that. And he wonders if the man with the moustache gets cheese stuck in those hairs when eating a sandwich.

 

His favorite song is what he calls "Moomasaymoomasah mama Co San.

 

If you ask him to sing or play an instrument he says: " Mamma I want to marry you and wanders off to paint on the wallpaper".

 

Three years old is a bit too young I guess.

 

Did this help?

 

Booshy

[the stranger]

Oh yeah,

 

My first visions of being a guitar slinging revolutionary were probably about 7 or 8, but I started verbalizing them when I was about 11. When I was super rich from rock stardom, I was going to get me a Lamborghini Countach with RATT painted on the roof for killer cosmetic effect. You can (toucan) send me some donations for admitting that little morsel.

 

Talking about music teachers summarizing your lack of talent is one thing, admitting you had some cultish fetish for RATT is another.

 

Cultish Fetish -band name?

[blue2blue]

My dreams were so much smaller when I was a kid. I was gonna write spy thrillers and all I aspired to was an MGB-GT, which seemed a realizable fantasy at the time... though the closest I ever got was one on loan from my GF's sister and brother in law who needed somewhere to put it when they were living in Catalina for a while. It was pretty cool but by then I had bigger things on my mind... like finally getting that electric guitar (a Teisco) and amp (a St George, about 5 watts -- I still have it but the guitar got loaned to someone who didn't return it -- so long ago I can't remember who it was... it's gotta be psychological... probably a girl I want to forget I was involved with.)

[the stranger]

 

... probably a girl I want to forget I was involved with.

 

 

Probably.

[ggm1960]

I

[Phil O'Keefe]

I think that today, piano lessons make a lot of sense. Even guitarists usually want / need basic keyboard skills in the modern studio, and let's face it - from a "understanding music theory" standpoint, it's hard to beat the piano, because everything is logically laid out in front of you. The same can not be said for the guitar, or most stringed instruments for that matter.

 

Having said all that, I would suggest starting them out on whatever instrument appeals to them the most. Interest and desire are crucial.

 

FWIW, my first instruments were reeds - clarinet and sax, followed shortly afterwards by guitar and bass, then piano, then other off the wall things like banjo...

[John Sayers]

I was forced to play piano starting at 4. Best thing that ever happened to me!

 

me too but by choice. definitely a good intro to music. Alternatively you could get him Ukelele great string instrument starter.

[Frantag]

piano at 4

trumpet at 10

euphonium age 15

guitar from 13 til now(45)

 

I'm glad I took piano although I can't play proficiently. It has informed everything I know about music. And the trumpet and euphonium gave me opportunities to play that I would have never dreamed of when I was in high school and college. My first three years of college were spent mostly on the road with my school's concert and jazz bands. That was the most traveling I've ever done.

 

As a guitar teacher I rarely start anyone before age 8. The hands don't seem to work together well enough or aren't strong enough to play the guitar proficiently. I've only had one student under age 8 that has done well and he was a 5 year old with a mission from God. He was a born player.

 

If parents want their six year old to take guitar lessons from me, I do a trial period of four lessons. If the kid can play a song all the way through without stopping or slowing down after the four lessons, they can continue their lessons. If they can't play the song, I give the parent a business card for a good piano teacher I know.

[UstadKhanAli]

I

[Lee Flier]

My first instrument was piano, as well, and I started at 3 - mainly because my mom plays a bit of classical piano so we had one in the house. She taught me the basics of reading music and such. I never had formal lessons other than that, and I didn't take very well to the whole idea... I thought learning the staff and the notes was interesting, but when it came to sitting down at the piano, I didn't want to know... just wanted to play stuff by ear.

 

Started playing violin at age 7, played for a couple of years (took lessons at school) and then sort of lost interest. Picked up a guitar at 12 and never looked back. I started playing drums in Jr. High as well, since there was a drumset there and as everybody knows, I love drums.

 

I have a couple of friends that I play with now who both have young toddlers, and they act like most musicians' kids that I know - you don't have to ask them twice to mess around on any instrument. The kids' parents let them naturally show an interest in the instruments around the house, and there's no way they wouldn't - kids love music naturally, and if their parents are musicians even more so. I think both these little ones are going to end up being really good musicians - probably on multiple instruments. And probably without too much prompting.

[temnov]

I started with a saxophone when I was 12. Later I played keyboards, drums, bass. Still the saxophone was my best friend for a long time. All kind of bands - rock, jazz, big-band, fusion, electronica.

 

When I was 34 I started my recording studio, spent 9 years there, had to sell it. Now it's not a business per ce, still I make some money to buy a new gear

 

Sometimes I play guitar, too. Most of the time I'm producing music for friends and pretty happy with that.

[Kendrix]

I started on sax when i was around 12. I picked sax cause the older guy down the block and that i looked up to was a sax player. Despite that questionable motivation, I was always happy with the choice. However, as others have said piano certainly provides a broader understanding of music theory. That is good to have as a general foundation.

 

My main contribution here is to reenforce a mesaage someone else mentioned: Let the kids drive their own path.

 

Every kid is different. Some are amenable to direction suggested by parents. At 4 years old this is probably true. However, if the drive to learn the instrument doesnt reside with the kid then chances are things will sputter out at some point.

 

Having a teacher that allows for some fun and who has good chemistry with your kid is also key. Unfortunately, my kids both quit piano lessons when we lived in Japan for a few years. We lined up a very well respected teacher. he was an accomplished musician. However, in his Japanese way, his lesssons were rote exercises. There was no fun injected into the process. Both my kids turned off. I'd suggest you carefully select the instructor and then monitor the teacher-kid interaction during a break-in period to be sure things don't get de-railed unnecessarily in this way.

 

4 years old does sound kinda young.

Is the kid pulling or is mom & dad pushing for this???

[way2fat]

I wanted to be in a band from the time I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965. What with one thing and another I didn't get around to learning an instrument until I took up the Banjo about 30 years later. IMO piano or violin would be the best place to start.

[Mike McLenison]

Drums after seeing the Beatles Feb. 9, 1964 on Ed Sullivan.

[tradivoro1]

I was sort of interested in learning to play guitar... My cousin moved away and gave me her guitar cause she wasn't playing it... I was 14... I started little by little, and later on it became this passion, I had to be a great guitarist... I learned to play the guitar very well, even though I really didn't get any kind of encouragement from my family... So, my advice would be, if your kids say, I want to play music, then go for it.... But just getting them instruments and expecting them to play might be too much... Not everybody is crazy about music, like the people in this forum... It's either gotta be a burning passion, or a genuine interest... I would wait till they request to play music...

[UstadKhanAli]

It's very important that the teacher is fun, as you say, and in sync with what the student wants. If a kid wants to learn rock guitar, handing them an acoustic guitar and telling them to learn classical music may not be most enticing thing to do.

[Lee Knight]

When I was 7, my mom would send me next door to Mrs. Jones' house for my weekly piano lesson. I hated it... because Mrs. Jones was 198 years old. She had arthritis in her fingers that bent the knuckles sideways. These were clearly fingers to pick the meat off of 7 year old boys bones.

 

She Scared Me.

 

So we didn't connect. I didn't take learning to read seriously but I could learn the parts in my head and hands and play it correctly. It took her a year to figure out what I was doing...

 

Then at 10 my Mom came home from Adult School one night and said, "Lee, check this out" and she played Maleguena. I, in return said, "Whoa cool! Let me try." My Mom didn't see much of her guitar after that.

 

Bass at 15 when our band's bassist left to join the Navy. 2 guitarists saying, "Who's it going to be..." I think I was looking ahead when I said, "I'll do it."

 

I always gigged after that.

 

By the time my High School Jazz Band instructor told me about the local Jr. College Jazz Band needing a bassist, I was 16 then, I was ready. He asked, "You can read bass charts, right?" My reply... "Of course". He handed me a stack of Chinese-like writing and said "Good". Plop... I locked myself away for two weeks and figured it out. Thanks Mrs. Jones. Some seeped in there a guess. Just a little.

 

The early piano has always been something I'm grateful for. I tend to hear things without restriction from my instrument. I imagine and dream up music in chromatics or least a pretty good sense of diatonic theory. I hear a lot of guitarist hearing things in shapes from the fretboard. That's very limiting in my opinion.

[Hard Truth]

It seems to me that most kids forced into piano lessons do not play music as adults. I think it is best to let them choose their instrument as long as they are physically capable of handling it.

 

I agree with the poster that said it is more fun for the kids if they can play in ensembles, which most piano players don't get to do.

 

I agree that piano is best for learning reading and theory. However, the typical out of tune, harsh sounding home acoustic piano doesn't seem like a rewarding instrument for beginners. I think a decent electronic keyboard would be better.

 

Whatever you do, don't handicap your kids with cheap, hard to play instruments-a common problem for beginning guitarists especially. There are now decent instruments that are affordable. If necessary, seek guidance from someone you trust (not most salesmen) to choose a good instrument.

 

Research shows that kids learn music best during the years they are learning language, so it is not too early for your kids.