Survey - How Musically Literate Are You?

I have a bucket for carrying tunes in. I’m neither competent nor qualified to use it. That’s right - I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. At least I’m arrhythmic though.... I love music, I am forever a listener.

 

Didn't have the opportunity to have private lessons. Living in Hawaii, and being in a family with Martin and Kamaka ukuleles meant I would learn the ukulele.

I swore if I had kids I'd get them into music on a more formal basis.

My oldest took piano lessons for 8 years and played the violin in the school orchestra for 8 years without a lesson. My youngest took piano lessons for 3 years and is in his 4th or 5th year of violin lessons. The youngest has the most talent, but is lazy as heck and grumbles and half-assed-ly prepares for auditions and solo/ensemble festivals. The oldest was a jock, and he just played to get an easy "A" for 4 years in high school and make sure he had friends in all the AP and Honors classes. lol...

When I wind down my career in a decade and a half, or when I'm not supporting my kids, I'd like to take guitar lessons as well as start math classes again and see if I can go beyond Calc I (never had to do more). At least I can ask my oldest for help - he aced his math up through Differential Equations and does s**t in his engineering classes I can't even comprehend.

If, when all is said and done, I make it past Calc III and manage to play guitar (rather well) and read music, I will have addressed two of my bigger regrets from my youth.

 

Sorry about the long ad after the performance.

 

My parents insisted I take piano lessons when I was 9yo (did the same with my older brother and sister too). At age 11, I switched to clarinet, joined the band in middle school. In HS, also learned to play the bass clarinet, flute and baritone sax. I was never good enough to progress beyond that level though and haven't played since. I can still read treble clef music in a pinch. As many others have previously stated, I'm a listener now.

 

Am admittedly not the greatest musician. I struggle with certain aspects of intonation and having good rhythm while I'm actually playing (and not just listening). But yes, I did play instruments, can read music, learned some musical theory, and took lessons for some amount of time. Parents suggested it in middle school for me, but only wanted me to give it a fair shake. If I were already retired, I'd probably get back into it with more and try more different instruments with no expectations of being great.

I think I've always been more interested in the "back end" and writing music though. Which is how I guess I ended up getting into audio equipment.

 

The world of headphones is appealing precisely because I can't play musical instruments. It helps me get closer to the music, of course.

Every once in a while I toy with the idea of getting a cheap, used bass guitar and futzing around with it. I was lucky enough to have clarinet lessons in school, learned to read the treble clef to a rudimentary level, but had no real aptitude for playing, not for the want of trying. I remember this every time I think about getting a bass guitar. And then don't. If I could have any talent, it would be to play a musical instrument.

At least a nice knock-on effect of this hobby is learning things like how to read and understand measurements (I'm getting there very slowly) or re-learning, alas, what I've forgotten - mathematics, the basics of electricity, sound, physics... I should add music theory to the list (of things to learn, not forget).

 

Practiced piano from when I was 6 and took lessons until I was 14 or so. Was in a band for a while in my 20's and wrote music for it. I can still someone read music but I play a lot more ear these days. I can figure my way through a guitar or bass but I'm okay more on bass than guitar. Can't truly sing for crap, but I still do okay with backup. Record short passages on a DAW on the computer mostly with my keyboard/synth setup before my ADD kicks in and I want to do something else, lol. Picked up some music theory but I'm more intermediate with it than expert.

 

Too damned right it does...



I find even the small accomplishments of musicians amazing: being able to count; play in tune and in time; know when to start...

On being innumerate and music, I got some good advice from a drummer once: visualise squares for 4, triangles for three. On a good day, that can get me 16: four corners of four squares! Music actually helped me out with numbers.

 

I'm glad it does. I used to be able to play OK. Never kept up, though.

 

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I'm a trombone hack. I play mostly Bass Trombone but could play tenor too if the band is desperate.

I've played most brass instruments but could only play low brass now.

I taught myself bass and played for a couple of years at church.

And I can read music and know where the notes on the a piano are.

I'm hopeless a playing by ear, I need dots on the page - or at least chords on the page.

And I can read treble, bass and tenor clefs, but get badly messed up when the clefs change.

 

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Sam Altmann, we consider it both a pleasure and honor to host the fruits of your labor on our droll audiophile bulletin board, but I think your LLM might not fit in so well when it belly's up to the bar. Dear Jalcantar, please formally introduce yourself and your robot overlords to us in the new member introduction thread.