Learning a noisy musical instruments

[Yellow Fang]

I am keen for my son to learn a musical instrument when he gets a bit older. His gran would like him to play the cello, but I was thinking more trombone, or maybe the piano. When I was a boy I was in the Air Training Corps band, playing the trumpet, but I was rubbish at it. I found it hard to practise, because the neighbours complained. Anybody have any tips?

 

[ColinJ]

Copy these 2 guys?

Oh, I forgot something really funny that @colly and I encountered on an otherwise quiet country lane between Stamford Bridge and the cycle path taking us back into York ...

We spotted two cars parked in the gateway to a field. Standing next to the cars were two men playing bagpipes... After we had ridden past them we discussed what we had just seen and concluded that their respective families and/or neighbours had probably banished them to the countryside for their weekly bagpiping practice!

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I am keen for my son to learn a musical instrument when he gets a bit older. His gran would like him to play the cello, but I was thinking more trombone, or maybe the piano

Maybe ask your son first, before making a definite decision?

 

[DRM]

I am keen for my son to learn a musical instrument when he gets a bit older. His gran would like him to play the cello, but I was thinking more trombone, or maybe the piano. When I was a boy I was in the Air Training Corps band, playing the trumpet, but I was rubbish at it. I found it hard to practise, because the neighbours complained. Anybody have any tips?

First & most important thing is ask what they want to learn, as that way they will likely stick at it, for things like guitar there are headphone amps, so you can practice night & day without being heard, same for keyboards, use headphones, the usual school suspects of brass, woodwind, strings & percussion are more problematic regarding noise

 

[DRM]

should say, if he decides to be a guitarist, go on to the guitarist & bassist thread, there's loads of collective knowledge on there

 

[briantrumpet]

I am keen for my son to learn a musical instrument when he gets a bit older. His gran would like him to play the cello, but I was thinking more trombone, or maybe the piano. When I was a boy I was in the Air Training Corps band, playing the trumpet, but I was rubbish at it. I found it hard to practise, because the neighbours complained. Anybody have any tips?

Easy peasy - trombone and trumpet have a special gizmo called Silent Brass made by Yamaha... it's the canine's cojones. It's a mute that kills the sound escaping pretty much stone dead, but you can hear yourself sounding vaguely normal via a box of tricks. You can even take a feed out and record, but the people in the next room won't have any idea you're playing.

Sorry, it's me in the video, but... I have the thinnest walls, and the grumpiest neighbour with the most sensitive hearing, and she doesn't even know when I'm doing this...

 

[Yellow Fang]

Maybe ask your son first, before making a definite decision?

Nah, he's learning Latin and he's learning a musical instrument.

 

[briantrumpet]

Nah, he's learning Latin and he's learning a musical instrument.

My mum hoped I'd learn the violin, because she already had my grandfather's two instruments, but we had a demonstration from the brass teacher at school when I was about 8, and simply went home and told mum that that was what I wanted to learn, and please could she buy me a trumpet. (The lessons were free back then for those who did well on the Bentley Ear Test.) She sold the violins to pay for the trumpet. Suffice to say that weren't Stradavarii... or if they were, she was ripped off.

 

[briantrumpet]

Trombone would be my top tip, if he's big enough, and fancies something brassy. It's easy to get going (the embouchure is easier than trumpet), the instruments are cheap, they are still a shortage instrument, so players are always in demand, and they are used in pretty much every idiom.

Oh, and you can make rude noises with them.

 

[briantrumpet]

Saddest story was a pupil of mine who saw a trombone in a shop window, but thought that it was called a trumpet - went home and told his parents he wanted to learn the 'trumpet', so they bought him one, which he then felt duty-bound to learn. His embouchure on it was terrible (big overbite), so I swapped him over to tuba. Much happier.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I don't know you, so I don't know if you're joking when you say they are learning Latin and an instrument (of your choice)! But if they are forced to learn something they don't want to then it rarely lasts, as it becomes a chore.

Ask them what sort of music they like? Any wind or brass instrument is going to be loud. I would choose piano (full size keys with headphones are then an option) or guitar (again, headphones are an option) or even an electric drum kit. My son has friends who play drums and bass, but none who play orchestral instruments. It's what they want to achieve with it that's important IMHO

 

[steveindenmark]

An electronic keyboard with headphones.

 

[figbat]

When my daughter was learning the cornet we also faced neighbour issues. She tried using a mute but found it harder to play, so we agreed a timing schedule with the neighbour.

 

[DRM]

I don't know you, so I don't know if you're joking when you say they are learning Latin and an instrument (of your choice)! But if they are forced to learn something they don't want to then it rarely lasts, as it becomes a chore.

Ask them what sort of music they like? Any wind or brass instrument is going to be loud. I would choose piano (full size keys with headphones are then an option) or guitar (again, headphones are an option) or even an electric drum kit. My son has friends who play drums and bass, but none who play orchestral instruments. It's what they want to achieve with it that's important IMHO

This in spades, if they’re forced into something it won’t last, however learning an instrument that they want to is a different kettle of fish altogether

 

[derrick]

I am keen for my son to learn a musical instrument when he gets a bit older. His gran would like him to play the cello, but I was thinking more trombone, or maybe the piano. When I was a boy I was in the Air Training Corps band, playing the trumpet, but I was rubbish at it. I found it hard to practise, because the neighbours complained. Anybody have any tips?

Get him to try a saxaphone, Sound proof a small room if you have one, A couple of people i know drive somewhere out the way and practise in the car, If it's played at sensible time of day the nieghbours have no right to complain. We have kids either side of us, both learning piano, sounds ok they are both a year into it. sounded awful for the firdt couple of months. Have had no complaints about my sax playing and i am awful.