Childhood Musical Instruments

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When I was a child despite the fact that I am blatantly tone deaf my parents insisted on shelling out on piano lessons to make me a more marriageable prospect. I passed grade 1 with distinction, scraped grade 2 then chucked it in. And then of course there was the recorder.

This was inspired by one of Pete's birthday presents. A recorder. Oh dear. Surely everyone in the universe had to learn to play this ridiculous instrument as a child. Did you? Can you still play it? Would you like Pete's?

― Emma, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I only ever got those plastic toy instruments, and a mini casio when I was about 10. I could've been the new Nick Rhodes. But I never had any lessons.

― jel, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My parents' friend bought me a Muppet Show drumkit. I banged on it for HOURS on end. Until my parents complained of headaches due to my Shaggs-like percussion. They threw it out... and sadly I never played another instrument. Oh yes, I did. In 8th grade we had to play the flute.

― nathalie, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No avant-garde composer you could name has ever scored anything as dissonant as 20 primary school kids trying to play "Little Donkey" simultaneously on recorders.

I did piano for the best part of a decade and ended up failing grade 3. I then learned acoustic guitar for 2 years and was OK with it but never kept it up.

― Tom, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My parents made me learn piano aswell, and I gave up after scraping grade 2 aswell. The teacher was a real witch, I never used to practice and I finally called it quits when I fucked up some piece and she she said I was "thick as the wood". Actually this is a horrible story.

― Ronan, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The "penny whistle" (which is neither a whistle, nor costs a penny, but I digress.) I still have it. In my college days, I took to running around with it everywhere playing the free jazz at the most inappropriate times. I wonder where it is right now, in fact...

― jess, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And Ronan, I really (truly) don't mean to make light of childhood trauma, but "thick as the wood" = grate.

― jess, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At my middle school Mrs Bunce was in charge of the Reject Recorder Group made up of kids whose natural gifts fell short of their urge to be musical. Whenever the school did a concert at Xmas or whenever, the parents would all visibly wince when the dreaded cacophony started and I believe many would bring earplugs along to subtly stuff in during Mrs B's recorder group (I wasn't in it, for the record).

― Emma, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's ok, I agree. It was my first act of rebellion actually cos I left the lesson as soon as she said that. I mean that's so hurtful, her piano had thicker wood than normal ones even.

― Ronan, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They made a record Emma? I deserve what I get after that admittedly.

― Ronan, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was lead recorder at my school. My previous experience on the tin whistle (the Irish recorder?) had given me a natural advantage against the other beginners. But people complained because my recorder was different from regulation recorders and had a slightly different tonality. The pitiable excuses that children will come up with to cover up their own musical inadequacy. I was shot down in my prime.

― nickie, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

piano and recorder. when at primary school they asked who wanted to learn the recorder, i put my hand up. i still vividly remember having a picture in my head of me leaning over some kind of elctronic equipment making some cool sounds. imagine my disappointment when i was handed a stupid stick thing that squealed.

― gareth, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Recorder at primary school. Mine was a hand me down from my grandparents and was therefore made of wood unlike the plastic ones everyone else had. It sounded much better but when it came to performances I had to use a crappy plastic one as it showed everyone else's up. This might have been tolerable but the plastic ones were much more sensitive to overblowing. Result: a young RickyT squirming with embarassment in front of his parents as howls and squeaks emitted from his infernal instrument.

I tried to learn the flute at secondary school but I couldn't really get the hang of it. I had breathiness of timbre issues.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Was there anyone in your school who used to have dribble coming out the bottom of their recorder and dropping on their laps? Were you this child?

― nickie, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Piano for three years, tenor sax for five. I gave up piano when I decided I'd much rather spend my summers/afternoons climbing trees than practicing. (I regret this decision now.) I gave up tenor sax because I was being taught through the school system and when I hit tenth grade, they told me I could continue being in the band (and therefore get free sax lessons) and the chorus or I could pick one and take biology with the rest of my class. I chose singing because it was easier and more fun. It was the right choice in retrospect, but I wish I'd never had to make it.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought everyone had dribble coming out of the tin whistle. If I had to play the theme to Glenroe another time I would have gone mad.

― Ronan, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't leave your heritage behind, Ronan.

― nickie, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

RTE left it behind sadly. Don't worry I'll never forget that show. Or Mileys brief musical career.

― Ronan, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

After about 3 school lessons the teacher pulled me aside and said why dont you do a book report . I was that bad.

― anthony, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Recorder in elementary school, cornet/trumpet/flugelhorn for seven years after that, euphonium for three years in high school, electric bass for the following four years of college, piano lessons for one year (plus 23 years of noodling), guitar lessons for one quarter in high school, drums on the sly whenever I get the chance to sit down at a set.

― Phil, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what exactly is the fugel horn

― anthony, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I had piano lessons between the ages of five and eighteen, reaching grade 7. I haven't lived in a house with a piano for seven years and there are times when it really does my head in. I now play for about an hour a month, when I visit my parents, but am pretty rusty. Last time, I bashed through the first page of some Haydn in about an hour, 'performed' for the grandparents and my Dad immediately followed this by putting on Glenn Gould (one of the greatest pianists ever) playing the Goldberg Variations. Cheers Dad.

Best instrument of my childhood was the tenor horn, which (in common with a lot of brass instruments, I think) has a special saliva hole that you hold open while you tip the goop out of the instrument, on the back of somebody else's blazer, if you have any sense. Classic.

― Madchen, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lo, flugelhorns.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My mum teaches the recorder (and, luckily for her credibility, the piano). There are all sorts of different types I bet you primary school recorderists never learnt about. mmmm. People actually take grades on them now as well. Luckily, I never got very far, but I do have grade 3 on the trumpet, and could maybe have gone up to grade 5 if I'd ever have been bothered to practise.

― Bill, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As a child, I was very much like Stevie Wonder, except not blind. I played the flute, then went through my "experimental" phase, where I proved quite skilled with all manner of rudimentary instruments (most notably the mini-marimba and the tenor recorder or alto recorder or whichever the low mini-bassoony one is). Then I played the bassoon, although I'd always get up during band and sneak over to hang out with my friends in the French horn section, because I'd decided that when I played their parts un-transposed for bassoon, it created some really cool parallel harmonies. Then I started playing guitar, which I am not as good at as I'd like to think.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That is all.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life. I played flute for seven years and became really good at it. The only thing was, I was faking my music reading abilities the whole time. I just learned by listening to things and playing them over and over. When I got to high school, home of the World Champion Marching Spartans, my musical illiteracy was exposed, and I was placed further back than I should have been. Plus there was this little Country Club Bitch named Joanne Bonanno who used to verbally abuse me and slap my face, etc. Then my flute broke and I couldn't afford to fix it, and the band director (who is still there) was a dickhead anyway who demanded that the band members put band above all else, including grades (5- and 6- hour-a-day practices). I wasn't about to jeopardize my college plans for this asshole, so I quit. But I still have my flute, and it's still broken, and if I ever get the money to fix it, I'll play it again. I love the instrument - for a while, it was uncool, but people have forgiven the "hippy" connotations of the instrument by now, I think. I was told I had a really beautiful tone on flute.

― Kerry, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kerry, that's awful. The only way that story could be worse would be if you were currently getting your flute fix as part of a Jethro Tull tribute band.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My sympathies, Kerry. As you know I love flutes in pop music.

Childhood instruments much as with others here: piano, recorder and a succession of crappy base-level synths, slowly becoming slightly more advanced.

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My dad had an autoharp which I would noodle on. I saw a band who used an auto-harp last week which brought it all back for me. The harp- player in question was wearing a really bad rug and videotaped us while we were talking to him.

― Sam, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I started piano lessons when I was six and am still playing. Oh dear, that makes it 10 years, and I'm still horrible. I don't practice very often. I took up flute in fourth grade but quit at the end of the year because I absolutely couldn't stand the teacher. This summer I started learning guitar.

I always wanted to play recorder. I felt stupid for being the only kid I know who couldn't. I'll take Pete's!

― maria, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thirty answers in and not one mention of the flutophone. damn.

― fred solinger, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eight years pass...

I played the piano for nearly ten years but it never came naturally to me and I was a lot worse than I should have been after all that time. Basically I hated it and never practiced nearly as much as I should have.

I took up the violin and fell in love instantly. I played all through HS and most of college. I almost majored in music performance but sort of burnt out and haven't picked up my violin in over 10 years. I'm sure that I can still read music and think about trying to play again often but I'm scared. I'm scared that I'll sound like shit and give up too easily out of frustration. I should probably do this though. I think it would be sort of great to play again regularly.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, 25 September 2009 02:17 (sixteen years ago)

The excuse I've been using for the past 10 years is that my violin is broken. That is true but it could easily be repaired. Hmmmmm.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, 25 September 2009 02:18 (sixteen years ago)

Thought about this tonight after hearing a Bach piece that I used to know by heart. Hearing it made me really sad and nostalgic.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, 25 September 2009 02:20 (sixteen years ago)

In my earliest years, I played a mean

http://www.aliviastoys.com/fisherpricevintagetoys/870xylophone.jpg

I wish I'd stuck w/ piano & cello, but I was stubbornly resistant to musical training until I took up guitar & drums at age 12 or so. Cello skillz esp. would be awesome to have right now.

― Andrew "Nice" Clay (Pillbox), Friday, 25 September 2009 02:52 (sixteen years ago)

HEY EVERYONE WITH KIDS OR WHO LIKES FUN: These are so cool that I want to rep for them.

You just hit them against things, and they sound a note. You can play songs in parts! Like X-treme handbell choir!

― that stupid-ass cannibal pen-pal of yours (Laurel), Friday, 25 September 2009 13:37 (sixteen years ago)

WANT THOSE ^^^^^

I took piano lessons when I was very young and didn't like it, but fell in love with the french horn when I was 10. Played until the end of HS, considered studying music but dropped it for engineering, then didn't play for 20 years. When I picked it back up (I still have my original student horn), it was like finding an old friend and I've been so glad I did. I was happily surprised by the tone and range I had.

― Jaq, Friday, 25 September 2009 14:31 (sixteen years ago)

I played the triangle in kindergarten. And now I've been a rock drummer for 20+ years. Go figure.

― Nate Carson, Saturday, 26 September 2009 01:33 (sixteen years ago)

I played the clarinet but I should have been a drummer. I could have been a pretty rad ladydrummer.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Saturday, 26 September 2009 01:51 (sixteen years ago)

I badly wanted to play clarinet in the 4th grade but allergies/breathing issues relegated me to the percussion in the back of the room. Thank Satan!

― Nate Carson, Saturday, 26 September 2009 02:05 (sixteen years ago)

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