PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Your instrument of choice?

So this has been asked before but it's been a while and we have a whole new crop of aficionados in the group.

What made you decide to pursue the instrument you consider to be your main instrument?

My story: I started on piano lessons at the age of 7. I continued piano through 2 different teachers for quite a few years. I think I was somewhere around 14 years old when I stopped the piano lessons.

At some point in school, they came around offering band instruments to those interested in music. Due to the fact that drums were the least expensive.... a pair of sticks and a practice pad.... that's what my mom decided would be good for me. I stayed with the drums up through high school and was in the orchestra and the marching band. I missed one too many marching band events and was thrown out of the band. Goal achieved!
At the age of around 10, I became interested in the guitar from hearing the councilors at a summer camp playing Dylan songs. So began my journey into the world of 6 strings. I was practicing the guitar several hours daily and spending maybe 20 minutes on the piano lesson of the week. That resulted in my piano teacher at the time suggesting that the lessons from her was a waste of time and money. I continued to spend countless hours playing and learning songs and eventually, joined a couple of bands that were full time bands. Making a living playing music was something I did for a number of years. When the touring bands ended, I was not in any band for a while. Then one day, in a new town, I got a call and an invite to help start a house band gig. That band had some of the best players I've had the pleasure of sharing a stage with. We had that gig for a full two and a half years and had a good time. At the end of that band was when I started thinking seriously about building a studio and writing and recording my original music.

So that's how I came to play the guitar. I still dabble in the piano, and have a set of virtual drums that are nothing but e-sticks...(another story for another day).

OK I'll start.
At 10 I started trumpet lessons in school. At 14 I saw an older teenager playing a guitar and a lot of girls were around him. Thus I got me a guitar! In high school I also learned the French horn. In marching band I was first chair trumpet but in symphonic band I was first chair in the French horn section. During high school I was playing in rock bands. In one band I was the lead guitarist for that older teen that I admired above; I was playing in bars with him when I was a teenager!

After high school I was in a rock band playing trumpet and lead guitar. We were offered but refused a contract with Atlanta records. Back then I was one of the very few guitarist that could read music so after that band broke up I was hired in a wedding band with horn players, thus I quickly picked up on reading in Eb, Ab, Bb, and F I played in my wedding band until I retired from gigging.

I should add that around 15 I started piano lessons. I wanted to play like Jerry Lee but my teacher, the organist from our church, won't teach me that. So I quit. Something that I regret to this day.

But with BiaB I can still play. After playing for audiences I am now only playing for my enjoyment. I have added bass, wind controller, breath and keyboard controllers, and a MIDI guitar controller to my weapon arsenal.

One last thing is that I have been teaching guitar since the late 1960s, both from home and in music stores. Around 2014 I added teaching bass. Covid ended my teaching as I really haven't tried to get any students.

Music was my avocation.

Oops to answer your question guitar is still my instrument of choice.

Trumpet didn't work so well for me when I was 7. Guitar and ukulele did a couple years later.

When I was 11, I started noticing the bass and that was all it took. Although I learned to play anything with strings, upright and electric basses were my main gig till my 2009 stroke. I gave my main performance basses to one of my daughters yesterday. I have another set for my other daughter—though she doesn't play, her husband does.

My main performance instrument is now an iPad playing bass and keys live. In the studio, I can play a bass one-handed and record by using different guitar/banjo tunings on different takes.

I never stopped singing and conducting.

I started out strumming on guitar, and then figured out how to translate that onto the piano. Those had been my main instruments for years. For accompaniment, piano is my instrument of choice.

I've dabbled with many other instruments, and can get by on the bass and cajon. They're a lot of fun to play, and don't require constant practice.

Of course, I'll sing when I get a chance.

But right now, the EWI is probably my instrument of choice. It gives me access to instruments that I've struggled to play for years with little success, but I'm now able to play credible imitations of. The cello on the EWI is especially flexible, as I can play melodies in the high register, support vocals in the middle register, and play bass lines in the low register.

I started as a Guitarist at a very early age, but after some time, started playing Bass out of necessity... eventually I taught myself to play Piano, and paid my way thru school, playing Keys with local bands in bars... at some point I realized I had to make a major lifestyle change, so I enlisted in the US Navy... It was a whole lot easier to keep a Guitar, instead of a Keyboard on-board ship... so Guitar it is... mostly.

Great thread...

Believe it or not, I started out on trombone back in 1971. I played in our school band and a few events around town. I really wanted to write songs, so in 1974, I bought my first acoustic guitar and started my writing journey. I also play a bit of electric guitar, mandolin and keyboards, but the acoustic guitar has always been the one I consistently use for songwriting.

Bob

For as long as I remember, my favorite toys were ones that made music, toy pianos, trumpets, and so on.

In the 7th grade, I joined the school band. I wanted to play baritone horn (euphonium) because it had a beautiful voice, but the school's rental was already claimed. In fact, all the rental instruments had been claimed so, like all new band students, I got a pair of drumsticks and a practice pad. In retrospect that was lucky, because learning to play drums has helped me immensely in my career, and I think all pop/rock/country musicians would benefit from learning to play drums, too.

Much later, the family of the tenor sax player moved from the area and the band director asked if anyone would like to try the sax, I guess I said "I do! I do! I do!" more enthusiastically than the others. This was even luckier than the drums. I wasn't thinking about a music career at the time, but I ended up having one. There isn't much work for euphonium players.

I took to the sax quickly, went from beginning band to advanced band, quickly, skipping intermediate band altogether. In high school, I sat first tenor sax in the all-state band every year. I also got section leader, which be default goes to the first alto player.

Back to junior high. After school, I got in this rock band. We were terrible, but so was everyone else back then. Nobody taught rock because it was the devil's music.

We got a gig at a junior high dance. There I was on stage with my best friends at the time, doing our best to cover the hits of the day. People were dancing and when I looked down, that cute girl who didn't even acknowledge my existence in English class was 'making eyes' at me. At the end of the night, they actually paid me money for having the time of my life (so far). That's when I said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

I was classified 4F when I wanted to join the Air Force, so instead I traveled around the country in a rock band playing singles bars in college towns and eventually opening for major stars in concert. Almost had a record deal, but that's another story.

Since every songwriter doesn't have the wisdom to put a sax solo in every song, the other guys in the band taught me bass, rhythm guitar, and some keys. Our drummer could sing, so I would sit in on the drums for a couple of song, and he would get out front.

When saxes were out of demand in the acid music era, I played bass for a living. It's really a fun instrument, and there are a lot of opportunities to be creative while still supporting the band.

I also taught myself flute and wind synthesizer, as the finger similar to the sax. Much later I decided to learn some lead guitar, I'll never be a Jeff Beck, but I can crank out decent leads in pop/roc/country songs.

The hardest instrument I have learned so far is voice. It took quite a few years, starting with easy songs while gigging, and progressing (if you can't practice on stage, where can you practice?).

So now it's sax, wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals.

My instrument of choice? It's a tie between saxophone and wind synthesizer. But I'm having a lot of fun progressing on lead guitar, too. But if I had to choose one, it would be sax/wind synth (woodwinds in the sax family)

Notes ♫

I'm enjoying reading all the unique but similar stories here.....

Keep them coming.

Parents owned a music store, so everything started very early.
Piano lessons very young, before there was a chance to find trumpet in school .. guitar, because, well I had to work at the music store when I was young, and they were everywhere, others just came along out of curiosity .. but I always see a piano when I am using theory in any way, be it transposing, reading, improvising on any instrument, etc
So I guess that's my 'base instrument'

Helping clean/fix instruments in the summer meant at least learning how all of them worked

From a very young child I loved to sing. I had secret aspirations of performing in a musical. I did quite a bit of choir but never really took to it. I used to sit on the floor of my bedroom with Andrew Lloyd Webber records and one of those small suitcase turntables and sing away for hours.

I started playing guitar at about 14 when it was all the rage amongst my friends. I always was, and remain, one of those people who played to accompany myself singing rather than for playing the instrument’s sake.

In about 1990 something, I heard that you could download midi files from this new thing called the “internet” and I went crazy finding songs. With these, I played in a pub band called “Alice Band” with my best friend and we drank a lot of tequila but we must have sounded terrible!

I have also dabbled in keyboard, ukulele and electric guitar. A year or so ago I swapped my large Taylor guitar (that I hated playing) for a bass with my music partner, lebz. I am now really enjoying using BIAB backing tracks, playing bass and singing at the local farmers market every Saturday morning.

A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t get my iPad (with my BIAB tracks on it) to work because the cable was faulty. I just sang and played bass and everyone loved it! Life is full of surprises.

Unlike most of the posters above, I grew up in a musically-starved household. Growing up blue-collar with the wolf never too far from the door, music was not a priority in the family.

I was always fascinated by mathematics and the English language and started to realize that music might be a language too, with rules and structures of its own. From my crackly AM transistor radio, I could “see” paragraphs, sentences, call and answer, phrases, grammar and even punctuation in the songs I listened to. This fascinated me, it was almost magical.

So, I saved up my paper route money and started buying 45s and in high school bought a beat-up set of drums, and taught myself how to play by jamming along to rock classics, now on FM radio. Only recently I learned that I taught myself how to play left-handed even though I’m not a “south paw”. [Footnote: this is not derogatory in any way; you south paws have more symmetrical brains.]

Fast forward to 9 years ago I craved something more musical than percussion, so I bought a bass guitar, an amp and a Hal Leonard book. With YouTube and other online resources, I began teaching myself bass. Along the way I picked up an electronic keyboard and an e-drum pad. As soon as I discovered BiaB and this thing called the DAW, my skills began to grow.

These 4 fat strings are my primary instrument.

Interesting enough, music played a role in getting nice and close to the opposite sex, for sure not from being in a band but on the high school dance floor. I was one of the few guys that never saw them as having “cooties” plus I had rhythm. The girls were there to dance (and find husbands) so I and 3 other guys were in high demand.

Despite not having the music training and resources that others have described above while growing up, I’m having the time of my life studying, learning and interpreting this wonderful language called music. She is infinite and mighty pretty.

I honestly don't know what I consider my "main" instrument. My first love was drums, but that wasn't allowed so I played piano first. Played alto and tenor sax in middle school, then finally moved to drums in high school when my teacher begged my parents to allow it (the other drummers in the school band weren't very good lol). Stopped playing drums when I moved out because I lived in apartments lol, but years later I eventually picked up bass and guitar which are what I mostly play now - drums are still very much my most "comfortable" instrument to play though.

Honestly I think my main inspiration behind pursuing drumming was to annoy my parents - which in the long run didn't work, once they realized I was actually good at it and it was a lot more than just smashing things as loudly as possible. I was also influenced by my musical tastes as a teen - Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine, Rush, Dream Theater, all of which feature incredible drummers. Funny enough I had very little interest in guitar before I got into the Guitar Hero games, which became very competitive between me and my best friend, and he bought me a bass for my birthday one year shortly after he bought himself a guitar, and the rest is history.