I've been playing just over two years as well. I hope you stick with it. It's a really nice instrument, and playing the piano is an awesome skill to have.
All skills are awesome skills to have I'm planning to stick to playing at least two instruments, piano being one of them. Just like I'm planning to stick to writing, drawing/painting and about any other skill I have.
I've played the drums for most of my life, and the guitar since college, self-taught on both. I also played baritone horn in high school, but haven't touched a brass instrument since the end of my first year in college. I had been drumming fairly regularly, but haven't picked up a stick since I started my current project about a year and a half ago. I keep meaning to get back to them, but I'm rather obsessive when it comes to my current project. It's all about choices.
I play bass, and have been since I was 12 or so. I tried a six string guitar once and I just ended up fingering bass notes on the top four strings after a while. Honestly, I'd like to pick up the banjo one of these days lol. I think it'd be a concept fairly close to a bass.
i can play guitar in a very bad manner, but am looking to take lessons for it, but my only issue is, i cant decide whether to take lessons in Jazz, Rock or Classical guitar....
Which kind of music are you interested in? That determines what you want to study. The great thing about the guitar is that, at the beginning, the learning curve is really steep. You get from nothing to basically competent in almost no time. After that, though, things get dicey. You decide what kind of music you want to play and work on that. Classical guitar is very different from speed-metal shredding. Chicago blues is very different from John Fahey folk. Chicken pickin' country is very different from power-chord rock. Jazz is an entity all by itself - Pat Metheny? Al Di Meola? Wes Montgomery? Joe Pass? Django Reinhardt? Come on. Totally different styles; totally different techniques. The guitar is probably the most popular instrument in the world, and it adapts well to almost any style of music. It sounds different in different contexts. My advice to you is to practice basics - plectrum and fingerpicking - until you decide where you want to go. The guitar is a universe of music.
All good advice. Pretty much everything I was going to say. Learn the style that appeals most to your ear. It's the best way to stay interested. After a while you'll probably feel the urge to diversify anyway. @minstrel makes a good point when he says to practice both plec work and finger picking. I left the former way too late and never really got the hang of it... too set in my ways. Bugs me to this day. I'd be a lot more versatile if I'd paid it a bit more attention. When it comes to lessons, it really depends on the teacher. If learning theory is your thing, since you can play already, I'd go with either Classical, or Jazz. Many budding rock guitarists would go with Classical as an option. I was taught Classical from an early age. I hate to admit it but most of theory has long since been forgotten, but style-wise, I can turn my hand to nearly anything. The picking means I can play folk, the stretch allows for some great rock riffs, the arpeggios some lead. (Albeit played with my thumb or the edge of my nail. ) Jazz is nowhere near as daunting when coming at it from a classical background. That's been my experience at least.
I have friends who would argue passionately that the trombone is the only real instrument. I'm not here to make that argument. What I will say however is that if there's no place for it in a symphony band or symphony orchestra it's status as a real instrument is in great jeopardy, and might not exist at all. This includes the piano. Anyone who reads music can play the piano.
Wow, really? Your definition of an instrument is far too restrictive. Some of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard come from instruments you wouldn't find in a symphony. I doubt it.
Are you kidding? 88 keys, seven octaves and a minor third? No breath control? No string tension? No fingerings, or lip movements? No embrasure? No callused fingers or splinters in your tongue? You mean all I have to do is press a single key to make a single note? And the harder I press the key the louder the note? And as long at the key is pressed the note continues? And all the keys are arranged neat and tidy, with spaces between the octaves? Fuck yes, I can play the piano.* *as anyone who can read music
1. I don't have a concert piano laying around the house. I lent it to my girlfriend and then we broke up, so I haven't asked for it back yet. 2. being able to play an instrument does not mean that you are a virtuoso with that instrument, or that you will be able to play it without practice. 3. I guarantee you I'm better on the piano right now then you are with the trombone after six months.
So you agree that the piano is an instrument then? That was the original point of this argument. Anyway, yes, it's easier to hit a note with a piano, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its own learning curve. When I think of playing an instrument, I think of actually being able to play moderately difficult songs. The piano gets harder as you go along because it's one of the most versatile instruments (assuming you take the time to learn the different styles). It can take years before you get the hand coordination down for even pop and jazz songs. You also have to take into account the three pedals.
it's an instrument in the same was an abacus or a calculator is an instrument. In that anyone with passing math skills and some time to waste can learn to use it. I'm not saying there are no great pianists or great songs written for piano. I'm saying that any french horn player can do your job just as well as you can, with only a little time to think it over. (also you can't play the french horn. don't even try.)
I play the piano. I can play the whole 1st movement of the K 545 piano sonata by Mozart with both hands at full speed.
thank you both for your advice, it is much appreciated. my logic behind the choice of the three is that i want a good, versatile base to my playing, so im not stuck playing any one style, and as much as i love my metal (and listen to a LOT of it) i feel its time to expand my horizons, and as i enjoy both jazz and classical to a minor, not very well acquainted extent. As for Chicken Pickin' one of the guys that i like, Zakk Wylde, uses it a lot in his music (and yes he is a raging rock act on guitar). Chris Broderick and John Petrucci both have classical backgrounds whereas Alex Skolnick has a Jazz background and plays in both jazz and metal bands...
Zakk's pickin' is mighty, but it pays to remember when he first was doing the rounds as a replacement for RR, one of the reasons he drew the eye was that, both he and Randall both dabbled in Classical and so Oz felt him up to the task. If you like that style, you would have more to learn from Classical than Jazz. Jazz is great for improv and thinking outside of the box but it won't make yer chicken pickin' any better, in and of itself.
yeah, but we all know what Ozzy's like... ive nothing against him, but his rather colourful past hasnt exactly made him the best of people to look at choice wise. and if it werent for Oz's firing him, we wouldnt have Black Label Society. when it comes to what i want to learn, im more of a improv type person as it is. i tend to just go with whatever takes my fancy, which is partly why im kinda wanting to go towards Jazz
That was really interesting, you ever listened to Slipknot's first demo "Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat?" As for myself I'm a guitarist, I've been playing for three years. I've been writing songs on the guitar before I even ever picked one up. I was devastated to hear this up coming band "Royal Blood" as they have quite a similar sound to me, however they're a few years older and have beaten me to it.
@ChaosReigns Looks like you've answered your own question, then. If you lean more towards improv, Jazz is probably the better bet. Classical is great and it lends itself to versatility, but you learn very much by rote and you are not greatly encouraged to do your own thing.
This reminds me of an anecdote about Andres Segovia and Django Reinhardt. Segovia was at one of Reinhardt's concerts, was amazed, and approached him after the show. "Where can I get the sheet music for what you just played?" Reinhardt answered, "You can't! I just made it up!" Classical music teaches technique, but it does not teach improvisational skill. I think it would be interesting to do a study of how many classical musicians move towards jazz versus how many jazz musicians move towards classical (like Miles Davis did in "Sketches of Spain"). I know that many jazz musicians, proud of their technical skills, try their hand at classical music, but I think it's rarer for a classical musician to attempt to improvise.
That wouldn't surprise me in the least. One of my biggest problems when making a move away from classical was that I couldn't improvise. I started playing at age six, and I can remember sulking upstairs in my bedroom, trying to figure out a way for the metronome to accidentally break in such a way that I wouldn't get the blame. Ooopsie!
A polite way to say we suck? All seriousness aside, those are pretty old recordings by now, and we've moved on a bit from that. We're just putting finishing touches on the new stuff (only got a few vocal tracks left before we start mixing/mastering), but you know how it is, deadlines come and go before you even notice them. I have. Wish they'd kept that up, an interesting blend of funk/metal. That's the way it used to be in Finland as well, but nowadays most of the new classical guys I've seen (professional guitarists, I mean) dabble in several genres from classical to jazz to metal and everything inbetween. I started at six too, and the metrone... that bastard was always off-beat! I had, of course, perfect time.
