Easy Start Instrument

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Vidor06

Long term loafer
Over the Christmas holidays I turned 40 and was thinking about what skills/talents I have. I spent 30 years mainly running into people, playing rugby. Truthfully no great skill involved but it kept me occupied. So now I have decided that I should learn an instrument and the obvious mid life crisis answers are guitar and drums.
I dont really want to go down that route and would like to start something relatively cheaply and that I can pick up fairly quickly.
So Im turning to the good folk of CC for ideas. Whats a good instrument to start from scratch with little talent?
 
Keyboard
 

Ganymede

Veteran
Location
Rural Kent
The easiest thing to play is the ukulele. Don't buy a really cheap one though - those ones you get for £15 - 20 are rubbish.

Keyboard is not difficult if you learn the chords way - classical piano is quite hard, though if you like it then you progress pretty quickly - I'm on grade 3. My nephew (now 21) has taught himself to play the piano and is now brilliant at chords. His secret is that he just loves it and plays all the time for fun so he learns as he plays.

Guitar is good too - I wouldn't play the drums as you can't do much without a band and you drive everyone nuts. However if drumming really is your thing then that is the burden you must bear! The thing with guitar, uke and piano is that they can all be social instruments - I have often had impromptu singing sessions with friends when I have the songbook out, we end up going all through it finding things to sing and rattling through the old faves.
 

Custom24

Über Member
Location
Oxfordshire
It really depends on what you'd like to be able to do, and what sort of music you enjoy.

Bass guitar is fairly easy to get started on, although like drums, its gets a bit tedious if you are not playing along with music or with others. It's also fairly versatile - you can play it with almost all types of music. And unlike say the ukulele*, it's not limited to a beginner's instrument.

*I love ukulele, and play it myself, but it is fairly limited.
 

sight-pin

Veteran
The guitar is good, just pick up and play/learn any time, all you have to do is keep it in tune which is easy now as you can use electronic tuning aids (you'll probably not bother using them later on)

Edit, Bert Weedon's "Play in a day" was and probably still is a very good book to start with
 

Ganymede

Veteran
Location
Rural Kent
*I love ukulele, and play it myself, but it is fairly limited.
This is true. More a fun instrument than a beautiful one! I have a friend who plays amazing stuff on his so you can go quite far in terms of technique but it's more of a jokey thing, eg playing rock and pop stuff in unexpected ways. It helped me immensely working out chords on the piano - I realised I could do on the piano what I had learned on the uke.
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
The tin whistle - relatively cheap. There's plenty of online tutorials out there and if you are gripped, you could move onto a low whistle which is an octave lower or even Uilleann pipes.

Don't expect to be playing tunes immediately but you will pick up sight reading music quite quickly though plenty of whistle music uses fingering diagrams showing you which holes to cover for each note.
 

Spinney

Bimbleur extraordinaire
Location
Back up north
Recorder - there's a reason they use recorders in primary school...


 

EltonFrog

Legendary Member
Don't buy a drum kit, its harder than hard to play well, most folk sound they like they are kicking them down the stairs, and its nigh on impossible to get a good sounding one for less than a grand.
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
Funnily enough.. I bought a drumkit today.. Pearl.

drumkit.jpg
 
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