Fun instruments to learn?

Bad^Hat

Bad^Hat

The Freeman
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I'm a drummer, but I'll be moving out of home soon, and basically the kit is too big to come with. So, while I'll endeavour to keep playing, without a real instrument to jam the f*ck out on I'll be looking for something else to fill the musical void in my being that can only be satisfied with noise. \m/:bonce:\m/

At this stage I'm pretty much open to suggestion. I've considered a few instruments already, but they all seem like pretty obvious choices, so I'd rather see what comes of this before just picking one.

So, go ahead and tout your own instrument or share tales of how and why said instrument rocks. Also, by no means is this thread solely for myself, so feel free to ask questions if you're in a similar position. I'd be happy to try and convince anyone who's been considering picking up drums - your neighbours will have me to thank for it! :angel:
 
Before reading the thread I was going to suggest drums. :(
It's the only instrument I've ever fully learned how to play.

I'd actually recommend you check a multi-functional piano.
Y'know, the ones with all sorts of sound effects and stuff?

Either that or an electric guitar, specifically a Fender Stratocaster... learning how to play that properly should keep you busy enough. :D
 
Bad^Hat said:
I'm a drummer, but I'll be moving out of home soon, and basically the kit is too big to come with. So, while I'll endeavour to keep playing, without a real instrument to jam the f*ck out on I'll be looking for something else to fill the musical void in my being that can only be satisfied with noise. \m/:bonce:\m/

At this stage I'm pretty much open to suggestion. I've considered a few instruments already, but they all seem like pretty obvious choices, so I'd rather see what comes of this before just picking one.

So, go ahead and tout your own instrument or share tales of how and why said instrument rocks. Also, by no means is this thread solely for myself, so feel free to ask questions if you're in a similar position. I'd be happy to try and convince anyone who's been considering picking up drums - your neighbours will have me to thank for it! :angel:
Click to expand...

I play drums too, and I say, being a drummer, piano or another keyboard instrument will be the easiest for you to learn. This is because keyboard is a pretty percussive instrument, and as a drummer I was used to "hitting stuff and sound comes out", so it made it rather easy to pick up. Improvising on keyboard can be rather fun, but it severely limits your options in bands.

Guitar is also fun once you learn how to play it, but its a bitch getting there. I still don't know what I'm doing, but I've gotten to a stage where I feel cool playing it.

Electronic instruments can be interesting as well. If you're a drummer, I'd suggest getting a drum machine and hooking it up to a HandSonic drumpad (I can play with those things for hours).
 
I'd say get a guitar, or a piano (I prefer Guitar. I find Piano just holds no emotion compared to a guitar.)

Also, maybe stay away from just getting a Fender Stratocaster, try going to a big guitar store (Music store in town, or Guitar Center), ask them to try out and recommend guitars, try out different amps and just find what you like.

I'd suggest trying out what they suggest first, and maybe getting their model names or hold them to the side if you like it, then try guitars you think look cool or would be fun to play.

Once you found the guitar, ask to try out different amps (From here I'd personally suggest you have them play it and dial in different effects for obvious reasons) until you find an amp with a sound you like.

Also, I'd suggest getting an amp at about 30 Watts to practice on, don't go to high, or to low (Going to high gives you less control over volume suprisingly enough, and going to low of a wattage can kill your sound and stop you from using your amp to just make a lot of noise).
 
Cheers for the suggestions so far.

Pretty much going in the same direction as I was thinking beforehand. Guitar was top of my list, but having tried it before I'm not 100% sure it's "for me". Still, that was for school and it could've just been the lessons killing my enthusiasm. Besides that I just felt like it would be the "easy" option (not in practice, mind you) - it's not exactly the least popular instrument out there.

As far as buying one - probably should've mentioned this in the first post - I'm trying to keep my budget as low as possible. Drumming is already a pretty expensive habit, and I've got other things to worry about financially now with flatting. So while I'd love to grab a decent electric guitar and amp (and yes, strats rule :)), it's looking like acoustic would be the safer option unless I wanna go for a really cheap electric - something I know my guitarist friends would advise against, out of experience :P

Actually, for awhile there I kind of wanted a ukelele...
 
Learn the Continuum if you have the money. O.O
 
Bad^Hat said:
Cheers for the suggestions so far.

Pretty much going in the same direction as I was thinking beforehand. Guitar was top of my list, but having tried it before I'm not 100% sure it's "for me". Still, that was for school and it could've just been the lessons killing my enthusiasm. Besides that I just felt like it would be the "easy" option (not in practice, mind you) - it's not exactly the least popular instrument out there.

As far as buying one - probably should've mentioned this in the first post - I'm trying to keep my budget as low as possible. Drumming is already a pretty expensive habit, and I've got other things to worry about financially now with flatting. So while I'd love to grab a decent electric guitar and amp (and yes, strats rule :)), it's looking like acoustic would be the safer option unless I wanna go for a really cheap electric - something I know my guitarist friends would advise against, out of experience :P

Actually, for awhile there I kind of wanted a ukelele...
Click to expand...

If you want to go acoustic, I'd recommend an Ibanez Talman... I got mine for about $100.
They're very easy to play, but then again... acoustic in general is pretty much a cake walk.
 
You can get started producing an endless multitude of sounds and learning so much about music with an incredibly inexpensive method. Buy a MIDI keyboard and hook it up to your PC. Download some software and you can learn how to play a keyboard and produce any type or sorts of sound. Also a MIDI drum pad would entail to your interests.

Midi keyboards can be as cheap as $100 depending on how many keys you need and what other controls on the board you want.

And that's all you need.
 
Cake walk sounds alright. If I like, I can move onto an electric when I feel more comfortable comitting the money to it, right?

Also should've mentioned in the first post (I wanted to keep it concise so people didn't tl;dr it :P) - I'm really after something that I can pick up mostly on my own. Lessons kind of kill the joy of learning an instrument IMO, until you know your way around it. I'd read up on chords and stuff, but besides that, am I gonna have too much trouble getting the hang of it without a tutor?

PsychoFreak said:
Learn the Continuum if you have the money. O.O
Click to expand...
Fo sho! See you in a week when I can play Octavarium with my penis :E

Those things do look seriously freaking cool, though.

Edit - @Vegeta, that was another consideration, or atleast something like that. Noooo idea where to start on that one, though :)
 
Bad^Hat said:
Cake walk sounds alright. If I like, I can move onto an electric when I feel more comfortable comitting the money to it, right?

Also should've mentioned in the first post (I wanted to keep it concise so people didn't tl;dr it :P) - I'm really after something that I can pick up mostly on my own. Lessons kind of kill the joy of learning an instrument IMO, until you know your way around it. I'd read up on chords and stuff, but besides that, am I gonna have too much trouble getting the hang of it without a tutor?


Fo sho! See you in a week when I can play Octavarium with my penis :E

Those things do look seriously freaking cool, though.

Edit - @Vegeta, that was another consideration, or atleast something like that. Noooo idea where to start on that one, though :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, but lessons do help... giving you pointers and the like.

Acoustic and electric are pretty different... there's a learning curve to both of them.
Playing an acoustic will probably get you prepared for electric... I haven't touched either of my guitars in ages, so I can't really say.
 
Bad^Hat said:
Edit - @Vegeta, that was another consideration, or atleast something like that. Noooo idea where to start on that one, though :)
Click to expand...
Heheh it's so simple. A lot of midi keyboards come bundled with software to play with too. All a midi keyboard does is send midi messages (what key you hit, how hard you hit it, how long you are holding it, etc etc.) to the computer and the software will play the sound. You can play virtually any kind of sounds, whether it be a standard piano, a synthesizer electric thing, a guitar, and drums or anything else. It depends on how good the software is. But for just getting used to piano playing, anything will suffice. It's a big plus that you at least know more than the average person about computers (I'm assuming) It's really just plug'n'play, there is documentation included on how to set everything up.
 
Vegeta897 said:
Heheh it's so simple. A lot of midi keyboards come bundled with software to play with too. All a midi keyboard does is send midi messages (what key you hit, how hard you hit it, how long you are holding it, etc etc.) to the computer and the software will play the sound. You can play virtually any kind of sounds, whether it be a standard piano, a synthesizer electric thing, a guitar, and drums or anything else. It depends on how good the software is. But for just getting used to piano playing, anything will suffice. It's a big plus that you at least know more than the average person about computers (I'm assuming) It's really just plug'n'play, there is documentation included on how to set everything up.
Click to expand...

So it's like programs such as Fruity Loops?
 
xlucidx said:
If you want to go acoustic, I'd recommend an Ibanez Talman... I got mine for about $100.
Click to expand...

Aye, if you get a cheap guitar, Ibanez is probably your best bet
 
xlucidx said:
So it's like programs such as Fruity Loops?
Click to expand...
Yeah that'll work. That reminds me you can also actually make tracks too, recording yourself playing and such. There's a thread in this section with a whole bunch of songs us hl2.netters have made, not all with software but some of it. MIDI keyboards are just tools that make this process much easier and fun.
 
french_horn_275x295.jpg


EDIT: hmm can't post pics for some reason lol
 
Although not the easiest pitched instrument to get started with (on account of no frets), you might like to look at the Whamola as an alternative, novel bass instrument. It's basically a metal stick with a single string on it, played with a drumstick and tension altered with a lever on the neck. Youtube search for it. The reason I say this instrument is because me and a mate were talking about making one earlier today.
 
Veggie, that sounds mighty cool, but what kind of application do midi keyboards have in bands, if any? That'd be another provisor right there - something that can be used fairly universally in a band scenario. Which would point pretty firmly to guitar I guess, but I'm still a little reluctant on that one for some reason...

Unfocused said:
Flute.

It's... compact.
Click to expand...
I've seriously always wanted to learn flute, or one of the more compact woodwind instruments. Just so I could say I could, I guess :)
 
Well as for a midi keyboard, playing live in a band or something you'd need a laptop with the software, and have that hooked up there.
 
Ah, expensivo. Might consider that more for the experimenting side of things, but it still sounds cool. I'll definitely see what's on offer when I stop by the music store.
 
I saw a band playing with metal grate and spoon once. It actually sounded good.
 
xlucidx said:
So it's like programs such as Fruity Loops?
Click to expand...

Yeah, complete studio suites like Fruity Loops, Reason, Cubase, and a plethora of others. You can use all these things without a MIDI 'board, but I wouldn't recommend it since you then have to rely solely on step-based synthesizers or drawing notes manually.

But you don't need packages like those necessarily. There are many standalone instruments that you can just load up and play without a host program. Native Instruments has a good selection of those such as Absynth and FM8. You can't sequence them without another application, but they're good to learn and play around with.

Learning how to use synthesizers was a very enjoyable experience for me. Daunting at first if you don't know anything, but I eventually just started playing by ear. When you get the basics down, everything else just seems to flow naturally. And a lot of the lessons you learn are applicable to pretty much every other synth, so at no point after getting comfortable with the concepts are you left totally in the dark. Things start getting really interesting when you get into granular synthesis or physical modelling.
 
I want to learn the keyboard. Can it be self-taught? I know musical theory from playing teh guitar.
 
It's pretty much no different than learning a piano. I'm self-taught. And while I'm not amazing, I get by. I actually know very little music theory, as I'm more interested in production techniques and synthesis. But imperfections can always be altered or tightened up in a sequencer if you have one.
 
Guitar is by far the most fun and versatile (except for maybe a synthesizer) instrument, IMO. I've played for about ten years, and sucked for about eight of them because I never took it seriously.

But therein lies the problem, to get good at guitar (or any instrument) you have to devote a lot of time to it, which is something not everybody has.
 
Jew's harps are just... strange.

As for teachers, it depends on how into it you are. Self-taught works fine, but if you really want to get good, you need a teacher. I see self-taught people playing piano, and they get all the right notes, at the right time, but they usually lack a certain crispness. The fingers are flat, there isn't as much "purpose" behind the motion.

And as for fun instruments, the ocarina is nice. Most people know it as the thing from Zelda, but it's actually this really ancient Chinese thing. Pretty easy to play.
 
Music theory ain't necessary. It helps, I know lots of music theory, but persay, I never use it.
Going by ear is better in my opinion, hell, Matt Bellamy from Muse can barely read sheet music
 
Im a guitarist and a keyboardist.
I will be buying a bass guitar soon, I love them! :)
 
I'd say Acoustic guitar and piano are pretty fun if you like music.

I play both of those.
 
Learn bass.
Listen to Primus.
Learn to slap and pop.
Play Primus.
 
Truth, I think Tommy the Cat nearly gave me a heart attack when I first looked at the tab. But theres some pretty easy Primus tabs out there that look really HOLYSHITWTF but aren't too bad. Jerry Was A Race Car Driver is pretty simple with a basic knowledge of tapping, and DMV too.

**** it, every Primus song is awesome. Learn bass, play Primus. Don't play anything else, just Primus. Or anything else Les Claypool.
 
You think that's bad, have you seen the tab for Filipino Ray from LC's solo album?!
 
Bass is also a big consideration. I think I like the idea alot more than guitar aswell, having never been a big fan of chords :P. Although I realise they're still a part of playing bass, just not quite as much - unless I really do wanna play like Les. Which I don't (atleast not right away...).

Argh, so many choices... damn you music, for being so diverse and interesting!
 
I hate guitar virtuoso (sp?) stuff like Vai, but I LOOOOVVVEEE bass solo stuff by people like Claypool and Tom Jenkinson/Squarepusher. I dunno, I just think it sounds better than the generic wheee-woooo-waaaaaah guitar shit.
 
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