Ask Lemmy

i love to learn the theremin. but i like drums as well. i find it challenging keeping timings on each hand and foot.

My favorite to play is the acoustic guitar, because it's largely unchanged for a couple hundred years.

You don't need to plug it in, just strum or pluck. It's incredibly versatile, highly portable, and it sounds amazing.

My favorite thing to do is playing chord melodies. Basically, I'll find chords to a song online and then play part of the chord and the melody on top of it. It's a quick & dirty way to arrange an instrumental version, though I do like to sing and play too.

Mandolin - I like that almost nobody has heard of it so I'm usual. When I'm asked to play something I can honestly say "if you have heard of it I can't play it" while picking out several dozen tunes, some dating back centuries.

I play a little bit of the harmonica. It's gotten out of tune a little bit over the years and no places near me will repair it.

But what I'm really proud of is the set of ceramic bowls I've collected over the years to make what is called Jal tarang. Water needs to be filled in them to specified levels and struck with wooden sticks to make a musical note. Tuning it is an exercise of its own but I love playing it when I can find the time. Sounds really nice.

Here is a virtuoso of the instrument playing a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCi34JQjuRk

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.

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.

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.

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.

I played trumpet as a child but desparately craved to learn something else as my musical tastes didn't really match it - its hard to be interested in playing an instrument when you don't really like the music you are learning.

Later in life I bought an emotional support bass but I never really found the time or motivation to learn anything more complex than the famous riff from The Chain.

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.

This thing is legit.

https://strumstick.com/

Super simple to get pleasant sounds from. Basic melodies just fall out of it. Can't recommend highly enough.

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 the piano (keyboard). I'm horrible at it (for now!). My favorite part about it is that I don't have to hurt my fingers to play it, unlike guitar... I like playing video game OST and sometimes some classical music, I don't have a favorite piece at the moment.

My favourite instrument is a hammer. I love playing nails with it.

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.

Yes. it lets me connect to and understand music better.

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.

I wish I could pickup trumpet again. My neighbors probably don’t share my sentiment, though. I dropped it after high school, but never really had ‘fun’ with it during that time. Would love to pick it up again to play things I want to play.

No. Im not very artistically inclined. Have been in choirs and choruses but really im more the conductors instrument than a musician. I do horribly if the conductor is adamant about just learning from reading music but give me solfage and a good section anchor (also can't match piano notes so well) and im golden.

I don't and the fact I don't have to practice and listen to myself suck.