10 ms·

Has someone here picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? If yes, it would be helpful if you could point

Has someone here picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? If yes, it would be helpful if you could point to resources that were helpful to you and any daily practice schedule you followed? I have tried learning piano and I found a lot of stuff irritatingly hard to get right and got bored. Like for some reason I am not able to transition to other keys well when I am using both hands or when some finger involuntarily moves because of motion of neighboring finger. Also, I seem to get finger fatigue which is surprising considering the amount of time I spend on keyboards anyway.

kosma 6y ago
Violin at ripe old age of 25. The key for me was enjoyment... playing with others, picking the kind of music I vibe with, not bothering with exercises that are devoid of emotion and joy. I slapped frets on my violin to make the learning curve easier, which made a few people raise an eyebrow, but... I don't care. I'm here to enjoy it, not to become a purist. Can I real sheet music? Nope. Do I understand all the fancy words describing techniques? No. Am I good at this? Good enough that when I play, people dance. That counts as a success in my book.
- cipherboy 6y ago
  \o fellow violinist here. Never thought about frets, but a lot of people (myself included) started with tape on their fingerboard. Usually it'd only go to about 2nd position at most. You have a reference point for where to place your finger, but it doesn't impact pitch (and prevent vibrato) as much as a fret would. Just something to think about... :)
  - madhadron 6y ago
    > a lot of people (myself included) started with tape on their fingerboard. I have come to dislike this method. It gets the student focused on looking at the fingerboard and using the small lateral muscles in their fingers to try to reach for the tape rather than finding the large muscle positioning and biomechanics that produces in tune fingerings. Hold up your hand with fingers straight. Try spreading your fingers and then pulling them together fast. They kind of "pop" between the two positions, and if you look at the spread position, they're basically the same distance apart. So if you can arrange your arm so that spread drops an in-tune whole step on the fingerboard and together drops an in-tune half step, you will play in tune. You do that by rotating your elbow under the instrument. The farther toward your back the elbow is, the more your hand is angled from the neck, and the closer the spacing between where your fingers fall on the fingerboard. The more your push your elbow forward, the more your fingers fall farther apart on the strings. There's an in-tune position for each of the four strings, and kind of inbetweens for double stops. Training your gross muscle memory to find that position is vastly easier than searching for tapes, you don't get in the habit of looking at the fingerboard (because there's nothing there that makes a difference), and you don't get slowed down later because your lateral muscles in your fingers are tense and making your fingers move slower. The funny thing is that I think this was described in Geminiani's treatise, which was the first manual of violin playing ever.
    - cipherboy 6y ago
      OP was using frets, so I mentioned tapes... :-) Fundamentally, technique differs a lot based on size of the player. Ricci vs Perlman vs Shaham vs Midori vs Hahn vs Paganini, they all make the technique looks effortless. And the a lot reason why is because they've spent a lot of time removing bad tension from their playing. While elbow positioning does matter, it is more a function of string and third vs fifth hand position. The fingerboard is curved, not flat, and you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. Look for the work of Sol Babitz, or if you can't find it, Borivoj Martinic-Jercic's forward to his exercises. For me, what helped the most was removing the shoulder rest during practice. You become accutely aware of the the delicate balancing act that needs to occur, and the forces you put on the instrument. With time, you can develop balance in the left hand and achieve better dexterity than before. For anyone with sufficiently long neck, you can no longer rely on continual holding, and need to support the instrument (in fixed position sections) via the thumb. This encourages you to release pressure on the digits as you play. :-) But like OP said, they're happy so why mess with what works for them. :-) P.S. what rep are you working on? Feel free to drop me an email if you're interested in discussing more.
      - madhadron 6y ago
        > Fundamentally, technique differs a lot based on size of the player. I'm not sure about this. I'm tall and have huge hands, but I've seen the same approach work for quite small people. The actual technique you end up with can look quite different, but I think the goal is pedagogy that directs attention to the right things and let the rest fall in place around it. > you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. It's not clear to me why that would be. I don't have access to a music library anymore, so the Babitz stuff looks like it might be hard to find, but the Martinic-Jercic book looks really interesting. Thanks! > For me, what helped the most was removing the shoulder rest during practice. When I decided I didn't have time to maintain both a Baroque and a modern technique, I ended up merging them. Haven't used a shoulder rest in years, but I do use a low, center mount chinrest with a gel pad on it. I'm actually starting on the Bach two part inventions on piano these days in my small amount of time I allocate to music. I haven't touched my violin in months, sadly.
- jonfromsf 6y ago
  Putting frets on your fiddle is a brilliant idea. Well done!
- madhadron 6y ago
  > I slapped frets on my violin to make the learning curve easier It's not totally crazy. Fretted, bowed instruments have a long history, such as the viola da gamba. The frets there have more to do with tone than pitch, though.
_0o6v 6y ago
I'm enjoying working through the Faber Adult Piano Adventures books: https://pianoadventures.com/browse/libraries/piano-adventures/libraries-piano-adventures-adult-piano-adventures/ https://pianoadventures.com/browse/libraries/piano-adventure...
- sabellito 6y ago
  I started learning the piano in my 20s, and now have been playing it for over 10 years. The key for me was to forego all theory learning and just have fun with it. Eventually, I got into it enough to go through all the memorization bits. If piano sounds appealing to you, I recommend using software like Synthesia to make the first few months as easy as possible, to get excited about it. I have the impression that many people learning instruments, and sadly also many teachers, take an approach that kills motivation. It seems to me that very few people want to become professionals, and that most just want to be able to play a few songs and have fun. For that you don't need perfect posture, or learn all the scales, sight read, etc.
diggan 6y ago
> Has someone here have picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? Yeah, I've learnt piano and drums just last few years (I'm 28). I'm no professional, but I also had difficulties with using both hands, involuntarily movements and fatigue in different parts of the body. Best thing I done was just to practice, practice and more practice. Practice with one hand first until you know it without thinking, then add the other hand slowly. Same goes from drums (and other instruments I'm assuming), start slowly until you know it by heart, then speed up. No strict schedule, I just play when I feel like it. If I want something intense I play drums. If I feel like melodies, I play piano. Otherwise I mostly use a Novation Circuit and Octatrack (and some other smaller gadgets for bass lines etc) for playing electronic music, mostly just improvisation.
pengstrom 6y ago
Self-learning any instrument is exceedingly hard. I cannot recommend a tutor highly enough. There's a lot of, well art to it that's difficult to convey other than in person. Self-learners often pick up bad habits which limits them and drain the fun out of it. I picked up clarinet a few years ago, and while I made good progress just from practicing it was not until I engaged with a tutor I really got going.
- bartkappenburg 6y ago
  This, times 100. Other commenters in this thread recommend apps like simply piano. That is bad advice. I have a tutor 30 mins per week and made my progress exponential. All the popular apps are just video games with high scores etc. No feedback on posture, fingering, tempo and lots of other stuff. Please, please, find a tutor and be amazed about what he or she can make you accomplish.
dkarp 6y ago
I began learning piano at age 27. Piano fingering technique is very important. That's not just which finger hits which key, but also the posture of your finger. That could be what's straining your fingers and giving you trouble reaching keys. I found a local piano teacher and took weekly lessons. The piano teacher caught these bad habits like finger technique, but also how hard to hit the keys and other things that I wouldn't have noticed on my own. If you are set on self-learning, getting a few lessons every once in a while will help you stay on track.
tgittos 6y ago
I picked up the guitar a few years back in my mid 30s, did lessons for a year, took a year off and got back into it through Covid-19. > I have tried learning piano and I found a lot of stuff irritatingly hard to get right and got bored This maps to my first experience. Your first obstacle is the UI and getting your hands to do what your brain wants them to do without thinking about it. For myself learning guitar, this was the hardest obstacle. Once you sort out the mechanics of playing without thinking, you can start thinking about the music and actually having fun. My only question is, do you really want to learn the piano? Cause you need to want it, to get through those first few weeks/months of getting used to the UI. Until you break that barrier it's going to be un-fun and sound terrible and be very frustrating. The desire to play needs to be great enough to push through that. If you don't want it, you'll struggle to force yourself to push through. To answer your actual question, Youtube and other musicians are what I feel most help me grow right now. I've done in person classes, bought books, bought multiple online classes and trawled Youtube for endless hours looking for lessons and song play alongs (getting a sense of the pattern of how important really wanting to learn to play is?). It wasn't until I started playing with other musicians that my abilities and understanding really took off.
alphabetter 6y ago
In reddit /r/piano there are a lot of similar questions, and as someone learning piano in their 50s is always amuses me. I self-tought to about an ABRSM grade 1 level before getting a teacher, but I had done a little bit (less than a year) as a small kid. Particularly the early stages are very hard and it takes a lot of practice to do seemlingly trivial things. It is a differnet skill from touch typing. I find the "Dozen a Day" books of studies really good for training your fingers to do what you want them to, instead of what they want to do.
- astatine 6y ago
  I tried to learn guitar a couple of years ago. I wanted to learn something which required me to use my fingers differently than on a keyboard. But, as someone in their 50s with a lifetime of working on software I found it practically impossible to get my fingers to curve the way they needed to for the guitar. The physical pain eventually made me give up. If anyone has any tips to work around this limitation will be great to hear
  - bluescrn 6y ago
    I’ve never understood why the ability to play music is still locked away behind such difficult, even painful ‘user interfaces’ of traditional instruments. Why don’t we have more beginner-friendly and ergonomic instruments? Is it just because they’re seen as ‘cheating’?
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Finger fatigue suggests you're holding tension in your fingers and wrists. A good teacher can help you with that. You need to learn to keep your fingers and wrists as relaxed as possible - which is unbelievably hard to do when you're also trying to learn how to read music. Watch some slow piano music being played by a concert pianist, and you'll see that - except for the odd flourish - they move fingers and wrists as little as possible. The hands float, they don't hover in a tense way. It also depends on the keyboard you're using. There's a big difference between a soft and fast keyboard action and a piano action with real or simulated hammers. The latter is much harder on your fingers to start with, but gives you more control and stamina later.
- skeeter2020 6y ago
  your last point is spot-on; I have a decent yamaha electric piano and the action is quite a bit heavier than my sister's Boston acuostic. It's not suprising but still notable how much more fatigued you feel after an hour of playing mine vs. hers.
gokhan 6y ago
Although I learned (and forgot) playing guitar <20, I got interested again in playing these days/months. From what I see, https://www.justinguitar.com/ https://www.justinguitar.com/ is a great resource if you got the self discipline. I believe guitar is a very accessible instrument and an electric guitar is easy to practice silently late at night, relatively cheap (Squier Stratocaster Pack etc.) and easy on the fingers compared to, for example, an acoustic guitar. With learning 4-5 chords, you can perfectly cover lots of great songs. Learning pentatonic scale is not that hard for improvising soloing over those chords with a cheap loop pedal. All under 200-250$ and half an hour a day for, let's say, a year.
Andrex 6y ago
> Has someone here picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? If yes, it would be helpful if you could point to resources that were helpful to you and any daily practice schedule you followed? Self-learning piano is, overall, a boondoggle. You want a teacher. I started learning piano in December 2018 at the age of 27. For the first couple months I stayed on my own to build up at least some base knowledge before getting a (remote) teacher in April 2019. I mostly used a service called Flowkey (sorta like Synthesia for the web), the book Music Theory for Dummies, and a course on Udemy by Ben Westenra. I highly recommend getting a teacher, even remote, using a site like TakeLessons.com. They'll keep you motivated, answer your questions, and set accomplishable goals. > I have tried learning piano and I found a lot of stuff irritatingly hard to get right and got bored. Like for some reason I am not able to transition to other keys well when I am using both hands or when some finger involuntarily moves because of motion of neighboring finger. Cumulative hours of practice are necessary to learn even a single piece, and short of Matrix-style skill uploading, there's no shortcut to putting the time in. > Also, I seem to get finger fatigue which is surprising considering the amount of time I spend on keyboards anyway. Not all keys are the same. :) Your fingers are getting a much different and more intense workout by playing. Edit- Updated language since someone focused on pulling a "gotcha" on me for upvotes over the context (in this case, piano.)
- bluedino 6y ago
  >> Self-learning is, overall, a boondoggle. You want a teacher. “I play the guitar. I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision because I didn’t know how to play it, so I was a [bad] teacher. I would never have went to me.”
  - Andrex 6y ago
    I was speaking in the context of the piano. I'm told it's easier to self-learn the guitar, but you're working against your own interests if you're violently opposed to the idea of a teacher, no matter the instrument.
    - 6y ago
bufordtwain 6y ago
I tried guitar in my 20's but it didn't stick. Then I picked it up again in my 40's and it did stick. I needed a distraction in my life. I used free youtube guitar teachers such as justin guitar and found songs to play along with. Initially I used tabs (written guides for what strings/positions to play) and eventually was able to figure out songs by ear. Most recently I've switched to bass guitar and am having a blast. I play most days. I think the most important thing is to have fun with whatever instrument you pick. When listening to the radio I listen for songs that have a good bass line. When I hear one I send myself a message or add a bookmark and try to play it later.
markvdb 6y ago
Professional guitar teacher here. One of the many things a good teacher will help you do is avoid technical pitfalls. If you do this on your own unchecked, chances are you will end up blocked somewhere down the road and having to relearn basic techniques. Another thing is they will have plenty of interesting musical practice material that suits your skill level and interests. They'll also help you manage your expectations. I've got quite a few students who were very uneven in their growth. They've had to learn basic things in one area while very advanced in another. More often than not, they've had to relearn things they learned to do the wrong way from scratch. Learning to play a musical instrument is usually not easy. If you can afford the investment of time and/or money, get a teacher. The good ones are worth their weight in gold, and the good news for you is, they're relatively cheap. They get paid peanuts in comparison to you as a techie.
aaronax 6y ago
Yes, guitar primarily via the game Rocksmith 2014. Very rewarding overall and amazingly fun.
XCSme 6y ago
Learning anything is just muscle memory. The muscle memory can only be developed by constantly doing the same thing over a long period of time, every day. Every time you sleep is when the skill learned during the day is actually "saved" and increased. Trying to do everything perfect at once from the start is impossible. Only once something gets into your muscle memory you can focus on other things. At first you might not be able to find the correct key and have to constantly look at the keyboard, but once you are over that you can now focus on coordination, rhythm or other stuff. Learning and getting better is just the process of constantly embedding something in your muscle memory so you can consciously focus on something else.
trianglem 6y ago
I did. I was able to self learn the guitar and can play relatively well. I used Justin guitar for the basics a long time ago and then jumped right into learning songs. Using a metronome is the most important thing since it puts pressure on you. You have to do a “performance” every so often and that works for some reason. Initially it was my roommates but later in life it was my wife :) The interest to grasp theory for me came a lot later and I know a lot of it but don’t do much in the way of composing or using it too much so there’s that. But I’ve heard that the recommended way is to get a tutor from many many people.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
Learned Tabla (a South Asian percussion instrument) this year at age 31. A teacher is must. Not only does a good teacher give you customized advice on what to practice, based on your weaknesses, but is also able to tell you when you are ready to move on. More precisely, a good teacher, will constantly keep you in the slightly uncomfortable phase of not too easy, not too difficult practice.
j3th9n 6y ago
I started playing guitar when I was 25, with the help of some random youtube videos and a growth mind set. And now piano at age 39, so far just doing random things, as long as it sounds nice.
palimpsests 6y ago
In my 20s, I self-taught myself drums, percussion, piano/keyboard, Ableton, DJ (live mixing and remixing in multihour sets using vinyl records, samplers, and other bits of gear - very much a kind of musical instrument - perhaps it’s more of a meta-instrument). I play a lot of instruments (have been playing guitar, bass, woodwinds, and singing since age 10), and my practice routines on various instruments have a lovely way of informing my development and expression on others.
ben7799 6y ago
I worked on Piano in my 20s and a bit in my 30s and had several different in person teachers. I did almost no music as a kid. Sometimes you just picked the wrong instrument.. The day I officially gave up piano (with RSIs from piano even) I bought a guitar as a consolation "I didn't really give up" thing. That was about 6 years ago.. I've taken guitar lessons the last 4 years and have had great success compared to piano. I would say my guitar teacher is a much superior teacher than the piano teachers I had though. Sometimes you just picked the wrong instrument. I don't miss piano at all really. I still love the piano but it wasn't for me.. and guitars are far more affordable which is very nice.

kosma 6y ago

Violin at ripe old age of 25. The key for me was enjoyment... playing with others, picking the kind of music I vibe with, not bothering with exercises that are devoid of emotion and joy. I slapped frets on my violin to make the learning curve easier, which made a few people raise an eyebrow, but... I don't care. I'm here to enjoy it, not to become a purist. Can I real sheet music? Nope. Do I understand all the fancy words describing techniques? No. Am I good at this? Good enough that when I play, people dance. That counts as a success in my book.

cipherboy 6y ago
\o fellow violinist here. Never thought about frets, but a lot of people (myself included) started with tape on their fingerboard. Usually it'd only go to about 2nd position at most. You have a reference point for where to place your finger, but it doesn't impact pitch (and prevent vibrato) as much as a fret would. Just something to think about... :)
- madhadron 6y ago
  > a lot of people (myself included) started with tape on their fingerboard. I have come to dislike this method. It gets the student focused on looking at the fingerboard and using the small lateral muscles in their fingers to try to reach for the tape rather than finding the large muscle positioning and biomechanics that produces in tune fingerings. Hold up your hand with fingers straight. Try spreading your fingers and then pulling them together fast. They kind of "pop" between the two positions, and if you look at the spread position, they're basically the same distance apart. So if you can arrange your arm so that spread drops an in-tune whole step on the fingerboard and together drops an in-tune half step, you will play in tune. You do that by rotating your elbow under the instrument. The farther toward your back the elbow is, the more your hand is angled from the neck, and the closer the spacing between where your fingers fall on the fingerboard. The more your push your elbow forward, the more your fingers fall farther apart on the strings. There's an in-tune position for each of the four strings, and kind of inbetweens for double stops. Training your gross muscle memory to find that position is vastly easier than searching for tapes, you don't get in the habit of looking at the fingerboard (because there's nothing there that makes a difference), and you don't get slowed down later because your lateral muscles in your fingers are tense and making your fingers move slower. The funny thing is that I think this was described in Geminiani's treatise, which was the first manual of violin playing ever.
  - cipherboy 6y ago
    OP was using frets, so I mentioned tapes... :-) Fundamentally, technique differs a lot based on size of the player. Ricci vs Perlman vs Shaham vs Midori vs Hahn vs Paganini, they all make the technique looks effortless. And the a lot reason why is because they've spent a lot of time removing bad tension from their playing. While elbow positioning does matter, it is more a function of string and third vs fifth hand position. The fingerboard is curved, not flat, and you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. Look for the work of Sol Babitz, or if you can't find it, Borivoj Martinic-Jercic's forward to his exercises. For me, what helped the most was removing the shoulder rest during practice. You become accutely aware of the the delicate balancing act that needs to occur, and the forces you put on the instrument. With time, you can develop balance in the left hand and achieve better dexterity than before. For anyone with sufficiently long neck, you can no longer rely on continual holding, and need to support the instrument (in fixed position sections) via the thumb. This encourages you to release pressure on the digits as you play. :-) But like OP said, they're happy so why mess with what works for them. :-) P.S. what rep are you working on? Feel free to drop me an email if you're interested in discussing more.
    - madhadron 6y ago
      > Fundamentally, technique differs a lot based on size of the player. I'm not sure about this. I'm tall and have huge hands, but I've seen the same approach work for quite small people. The actual technique you end up with can look quite different, but I think the goal is pedagogy that directs attention to the right things and let the rest fall in place around it. > you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. It's not clear to me why that would be. I don't have access to a music library anymore, so the Babitz stuff looks like it might be hard to find, but the Martinic-Jercic book looks really interesting. Thanks! > For me, what helped the most was removing the shoulder rest during practice. When I decided I didn't have time to maintain both a Baroque and a modern technique, I ended up merging them. Haven't used a shoulder rest in years, but I do use a low, center mount chinrest with a gel pad on it. I'm actually starting on the Bach two part inventions on piano these days in my small amount of time I allocate to music. I haven't touched my violin in months, sadly.
jonfromsf 6y ago
Putting frets on your fiddle is a brilliant idea. Well done!
madhadron 6y ago
> I slapped frets on my violin to make the learning curve easier It's not totally crazy. Fretted, bowed instruments have a long history, such as the viola da gamba. The frets there have more to do with tone than pitch, though.

_0o6v 6y ago

I'm enjoying working through the Faber Adult Piano Adventures books: https://pianoadventures.com/browse/libraries/piano-adventures/libraries-piano-adventures-adult-piano-adventures/ https://pianoadventures.com/browse/libraries/piano-adventure...

sabellito 6y ago
I started learning the piano in my 20s, and now have been playing it for over 10 years. The key for me was to forego all theory learning and just have fun with it. Eventually, I got into it enough to go through all the memorization bits. If piano sounds appealing to you, I recommend using software like Synthesia to make the first few months as easy as possible, to get excited about it. I have the impression that many people learning instruments, and sadly also many teachers, take an approach that kills motivation. It seems to me that very few people want to become professionals, and that most just want to be able to play a few songs and have fun. For that you don't need perfect posture, or learn all the scales, sight read, etc.

diggan 6y ago

> Has someone here have picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? Yeah, I've learnt piano and drums just last few years (I'm 28). I'm no professional, but I also had difficulties with using both hands, involuntarily movements and fatigue in different parts of the body. Best thing I done was just to practice, practice and more practice. Practice with one hand first until you know it without thinking, then add the other hand slowly. Same goes from drums (and other instruments I'm assuming), start slowly until you know it by heart, then speed up. No strict schedule, I just play when I feel like it. If I want something intense I play drums. If I feel like melodies, I play piano. Otherwise I mostly use a Novation Circuit and Octatrack (and some other smaller gadgets for bass lines etc) for playing electronic music, mostly just improvisation.

pengstrom 6y ago

Self-learning any instrument is exceedingly hard. I cannot recommend a tutor highly enough. There's a lot of, well art to it that's difficult to convey other than in person. Self-learners often pick up bad habits which limits them and drain the fun out of it. I picked up clarinet a few years ago, and while I made good progress just from practicing it was not until I engaged with a tutor I really got going.

bartkappenburg 6y ago
This, times 100. Other commenters in this thread recommend apps like simply piano. That is bad advice. I have a tutor 30 mins per week and made my progress exponential. All the popular apps are just video games with high scores etc. No feedback on posture, fingering, tempo and lots of other stuff. Please, please, find a tutor and be amazed about what he or she can make you accomplish.

dkarp 6y ago

I began learning piano at age 27. Piano fingering technique is very important. That's not just which finger hits which key, but also the posture of your finger. That could be what's straining your fingers and giving you trouble reaching keys. I found a local piano teacher and took weekly lessons. The piano teacher caught these bad habits like finger technique, but also how hard to hit the keys and other things that I wouldn't have noticed on my own. If you are set on self-learning, getting a few lessons every once in a while will help you stay on track.

tgittos 6y ago

I picked up the guitar a few years back in my mid 30s, did lessons for a year, took a year off and got back into it through Covid-19. > I have tried learning piano and I found a lot of stuff irritatingly hard to get right and got bored This maps to my first experience. Your first obstacle is the UI and getting your hands to do what your brain wants them to do without thinking about it. For myself learning guitar, this was the hardest obstacle. Once you sort out the mechanics of playing without thinking, you can start thinking about the music and actually having fun. My only question is, do you really want to learn the piano? Cause you need to want it, to get through those first few weeks/months of getting used to the UI. Until you break that barrier it's going to be un-fun and sound terrible and be very frustrating. The desire to play needs to be great enough to push through that. If you don't want it, you'll struggle to force yourself to push through. To answer your actual question, Youtube and other musicians are what I feel most help me grow right now. I've done in person classes, bought books, bought multiple online classes and trawled Youtube for endless hours looking for lessons and song play alongs (getting a sense of the pattern of how important really wanting to learn to play is?). It wasn't until I started playing with other musicians that my abilities and understanding really took off.

alphabetter 6y ago

In reddit /r/piano there are a lot of similar questions, and as someone learning piano in their 50s is always amuses me. I self-tought to about an ABRSM grade 1 level before getting a teacher, but I had done a little bit (less than a year) as a small kid. Particularly the early stages are very hard and it takes a lot of practice to do seemlingly trivial things. It is a differnet skill from touch typing. I find the "Dozen a Day" books of studies really good for training your fingers to do what you want them to, instead of what they want to do.

astatine 6y ago
I tried to learn guitar a couple of years ago. I wanted to learn something which required me to use my fingers differently than on a keyboard. But, as someone in their 50s with a lifetime of working on software I found it practically impossible to get my fingers to curve the way they needed to for the guitar. The physical pain eventually made me give up. If anyone has any tips to work around this limitation will be great to hear
- bluescrn 6y ago
  I’ve never understood why the ability to play music is still locked away behind such difficult, even painful ‘user interfaces’ of traditional instruments. Why don’t we have more beginner-friendly and ergonomic instruments? Is it just because they’re seen as ‘cheating’?

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Finger fatigue suggests you're holding tension in your fingers and wrists. A good teacher can help you with that. You need to learn to keep your fingers and wrists as relaxed as possible - which is unbelievably hard to do when you're also trying to learn how to read music. Watch some slow piano music being played by a concert pianist, and you'll see that - except for the odd flourish - they move fingers and wrists as little as possible. The hands float, they don't hover in a tense way. It also depends on the keyboard you're using. There's a big difference between a soft and fast keyboard action and a piano action with real or simulated hammers. The latter is much harder on your fingers to start with, but gives you more control and stamina later.

skeeter2020 6y ago
your last point is spot-on; I have a decent yamaha electric piano and the action is quite a bit heavier than my sister's Boston acuostic. It's not suprising but still notable how much more fatigued you feel after an hour of playing mine vs. hers.

gokhan 6y ago

Although I learned (and forgot) playing guitar <20, I got interested again in playing these days/months. From what I see, https://www.justinguitar.com/ https://www.justinguitar.com/ is a great resource if you got the self discipline. I believe guitar is a very accessible instrument and an electric guitar is easy to practice silently late at night, relatively cheap (Squier Stratocaster Pack etc.) and easy on the fingers compared to, for example, an acoustic guitar. With learning 4-5 chords, you can perfectly cover lots of great songs. Learning pentatonic scale is not that hard for improvising soloing over those chords with a cheap loop pedal. All under 200-250$ and half an hour a day for, let's say, a year.

Andrex 6y ago

> Has someone here picked a musical instrument seriously for the first time in their 20s and managed to self learn? If yes, it would be helpful if you could point to resources that were helpful to you and any daily practice schedule you followed? Self-learning piano is, overall, a boondoggle. You want a teacher. I started learning piano in December 2018 at the age of 27. For the first couple months I stayed on my own to build up at least some base knowledge before getting a (remote) teacher in April 2019. I mostly used a service called Flowkey (sorta like Synthesia for the web), the book Music Theory for Dummies, and a course on Udemy by Ben Westenra. I highly recommend getting a teacher, even remote, using a site like TakeLessons.com. They'll keep you motivated, answer your questions, and set accomplishable goals. > I have tried learning piano and I found a lot of stuff irritatingly hard to get right and got bored. Like for some reason I am not able to transition to other keys well when I am using both hands or when some finger involuntarily moves because of motion of neighboring finger. Cumulative hours of practice are necessary to learn even a single piece, and short of Matrix-style skill uploading, there's no shortcut to putting the time in. > Also, I seem to get finger fatigue which is surprising considering the amount of time I spend on keyboards anyway. Not all keys are the same. :) Your fingers are getting a much different and more intense workout by playing. Edit- Updated language since someone focused on pulling a "gotcha" on me for upvotes over the context (in this case, piano.)

bluedino 6y ago
>> Self-learning is, overall, a boondoggle. You want a teacher. “I play the guitar. I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision because I didn’t know how to play it, so I was a [bad] teacher. I would never have went to me.”
- Andrex 6y ago
  I was speaking in the context of the piano. I'm told it's easier to self-learn the guitar, but you're working against your own interests if you're violently opposed to the idea of a teacher, no matter the instrument.
  - 6y ago

bufordtwain 6y ago

I tried guitar in my 20's but it didn't stick. Then I picked it up again in my 40's and it did stick. I needed a distraction in my life. I used free youtube guitar teachers such as justin guitar and found songs to play along with. Initially I used tabs (written guides for what strings/positions to play) and eventually was able to figure out songs by ear. Most recently I've switched to bass guitar and am having a blast. I play most days. I think the most important thing is to have fun with whatever instrument you pick. When listening to the radio I listen for songs that have a good bass line. When I hear one I send myself a message or add a bookmark and try to play it later.

markvdb 6y ago

Professional guitar teacher here. One of the many things a good teacher will help you do is avoid technical pitfalls. If you do this on your own unchecked, chances are you will end up blocked somewhere down the road and having to relearn basic techniques. Another thing is they will have plenty of interesting musical practice material that suits your skill level and interests. They'll also help you manage your expectations. I've got quite a few students who were very uneven in their growth. They've had to learn basic things in one area while very advanced in another. More often than not, they've had to relearn things they learned to do the wrong way from scratch. Learning to play a musical instrument is usually not easy. If you can afford the investment of time and/or money, get a teacher. The good ones are worth their weight in gold, and the good news for you is, they're relatively cheap. They get paid peanuts in comparison to you as a techie.

aaronax 6y ago

Yes, guitar primarily via the game Rocksmith 2014. Very rewarding overall and amazingly fun.

XCSme 6y ago

Learning anything is just muscle memory. The muscle memory can only be developed by constantly doing the same thing over a long period of time, every day. Every time you sleep is when the skill learned during the day is actually "saved" and increased. Trying to do everything perfect at once from the start is impossible. Only once something gets into your muscle memory you can focus on other things. At first you might not be able to find the correct key and have to constantly look at the keyboard, but once you are over that you can now focus on coordination, rhythm or other stuff. Learning and getting better is just the process of constantly embedding something in your muscle memory so you can consciously focus on something else.

trianglem 6y ago

I did. I was able to self learn the guitar and can play relatively well. I used Justin guitar for the basics a long time ago and then jumped right into learning songs. Using a metronome is the most important thing since it puts pressure on you. You have to do a “performance” every so often and that works for some reason. Initially it was my roommates but later in life it was my wife :) The interest to grasp theory for me came a lot later and I know a lot of it but don’t do much in the way of composing or using it too much so there’s that. But I’ve heard that the recommended way is to get a tutor from many many people.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

Learned Tabla (a South Asian percussion instrument) this year at age 31. A teacher is must. Not only does a good teacher give you customized advice on what to practice, based on your weaknesses, but is also able to tell you when you are ready to move on. More precisely, a good teacher, will constantly keep you in the slightly uncomfortable phase of not too easy, not too difficult practice.

j3th9n 6y ago

I started playing guitar when I was 25, with the help of some random youtube videos and a growth mind set. And now piano at age 39, so far just doing random things, as long as it sounds nice.

palimpsests 6y ago

In my 20s, I self-taught myself drums, percussion, piano/keyboard, Ableton, DJ (live mixing and remixing in multihour sets using vinyl records, samplers, and other bits of gear - very much a kind of musical instrument - perhaps it’s more of a meta-instrument). I play a lot of instruments (have been playing guitar, bass, woodwinds, and singing since age 10), and my practice routines on various instruments have a lovely way of informing my development and expression on others.

ben7799 6y ago

I worked on Piano in my 20s and a bit in my 30s and had several different in person teachers. I did almost no music as a kid. Sometimes you just picked the wrong instrument.. The day I officially gave up piano (with RSIs from piano even) I bought a guitar as a consolation "I didn't really give up" thing. That was about 6 years ago.. I've taken guitar lessons the last 4 years and have had great success compared to piano. I would say my guitar teacher is a much superior teacher than the piano teachers I had though. Sometimes you just picked the wrong instrument. I don't miss piano at all really. I still love the piano but it wasn't for me.. and guitars are far more affordable which is very nice.