How Musical is Your Family?

[llew]

My grandmother (Dad's side) was a Juilliard grad (piano) and played/taught. Dad had a good voice. My Mom sang and played piano. Wanted me to play too. After five years she figured out (long after I did) that I wasn't cut out for that. I wanted a guitar. Started out on a baritone uke at about 13 I believe? Wasn't long before the top E & A strings came along. Wish I had been as serious about it then as I am now?

[DukeX]

Grandfather was a honk tonk player.

Dad was master clarinet player (sax, guit, uke also).

[menhir]

I have no recollection of anyone of my relatives being a musician. Not one.

On the other hand, I met my wife in the college band. She played clarinet and, like me, also had taken piano lessons...We were both church organists, too.

She never persued music much after college, and although our two daughters played strings in the high school orchestra, they didn't follow up either.

I guess I'm the only one.

[BoneDigger]

My family, not at all.

[DupleMeter]

My paternal grandparents both played instruments. My grandfather played mandolin & harmonica. My grandmother played concertina. I never knew them, but from what I heard they would play the "old songs" from their home country (Italy).

My dad was a drummer & singer in a jazz band all his life. I practically grew up at the side of a bandstand. My mom was a music lover, but I don't believe she ever played an instrument.

My 2 older brothers both played professionally. The big joke between me & my sister is that she took 1 lesson on almost every instrument she could think of. She couldn't carry a tune if you put a handle on it

Many of my cousins (on my dad's side) are musical as well...albeit untrained. Family gatherings tend to turn into a hometown jam pretty quickly.

Music definitely flows through our veins.

[WaltH]

In my family, there is me . . . and me. I played saxophone for a dozen years (not great) and spent hours upon hours in my room listening to music - from Blood, Sweat and Tears to Frank Sinatra to Sarah Vaughn. I gave up musical instruments for a number of years because I knew I didn't have the physical dexterity to be very good. However, I've always written lyrics, and now that I feel some of them are halfway decent, I want to learn guitar so I can chord those songs and maybe, just maybe, accompany myself.

On my wife's side of the family, besides her, there was her father, who also played saxophone. On the side of the family, we also have a nephew who plays guitar, and his oldest son also plays.

[jaybones]

My dad, not a bit. Can't carry a tune even if you hand it to him in a bucket.

Brother is alright. Played oboe in middle school band, sousaphone in marching band, string bass in concert band then switched to percussion for 2 years.

He learned to play piano by himself (and probably with my mom's guidance) and taught himself to play The Entertainer, which I was never great at.

My mom played piano when she was a child, and sang in her high school's choir. Very good choir, even now 60 years later their Christmas concert always sells out.

She was the one who got me interested in music. Started me on piano lessons when I was 6 years old. I'd burned both palms severely (third degree) when I was 3 and the plastic surgeon said I should do things to work on my dexterity. Piano fit right in.

Stopped taking lessons when I was 10 (didn't really want to play it for me, and I hated being outside playing with my friends when my mom would yell "JAY! TIME TO COME IN AND PRACTICE YOUR PIANO!! REMEMBER, HALF AN HOUR!!" She'd even have a timer set.

For 4th grade everyone played recorder in music class then decided if they wanted to join band.

There was an evening assembly in the auditorium/gym where a local music store brought in all the instruments. I went to the brass table, and was told my lips and mouth weren't the right shape to play trumpet or coronet (which was what I would have chosen). I could do the lower brass instruments, but baritone, tube and trombone weren't what I was looking for. Let alone French horn.

At the woodwind table I tried the flute and blew so hard I almost passed out, so that wasn't an option. Clarinet I didn't want to do either (both those were girl's instruments), so we decided on saxophone.

Ended up buying a well used alto from the sister of a guy in my class. I was the third person to play it in that school system and it wasn't a very good one when it was brand new. Twice in 4 years I had to have it worked on.

I wanted a tenor, but it wasn't in the cards.

After 4 years of that, I switched to percussion for 2 years of high school.

A year off from music, then I bought an acoustic when I was a senior. Been playing 28 years, and I should be WAAAAAY better.

[Toby Walker]

Nobody was musical in my family. I picked stuff up on my own listening to the radio, then earned enough money to buy a record player. Later on, I learned from my friends... we all taught each other.

Learning to play music was the way out of my hometown, which by the way now has the highest crime rate second only to Newark, NJ.

[Andromeda]

My parents could not sing or play an instrument, my four siblings cannot sing or play an instrument. My mother's brother, my uncle, did sing and play the acoustic guitar and he was one of my early influences. Other than my uncle, who has long passed away, as have my parents, I am the only one with musical or any artistic talent in the family. My daughter did inherit my talents I am happy to say.

[TBman]

My grandfather played piano and guitar. I'm told he had a band, but all before my time. My aunt is 75 and has a great voice, she still sings for a church group. My mother and sister played piano very well, but stopped as they got older.

[TwoMartinMan]

I'm the only one in my family with musical talent. I play piano, harpsichord, guitar, fife, tin whistle, rope tensioned field drum, and recorder.

[BBWW]

With the exception of me pretty much tone-deaf.

[cigarfan]

My son and I play guitar. My youngest daughter sings like an angel and is now a music teacher (voice). She is hinting she would like to take up the Cello. My brother got started on guitar because of my friends and I jamming back in the 70s. He's pretty good which is more than I can say about myself.

[AndrewG]

Apart from my daughter who sang until her children came along, nobody in my family was remotely 'musical'.

[devellis]

My father was a professional violinist in his youth but during my childhood, he worked in a factory, which was rough on the hands. I remember him digging the violin out maybe 4 or 5 times in my lifetime. So, he had the skills and experience but it wasn't much of an influence. I had an older cousin who was a professional sax player but I only saw him play once or twice at weddings, as his family wasn't close with mine.

Downstream chronologically, I have a nephew who's a professional musician (multi-instrumentalist but primarily sax and violin) with a couple of masters degrees in music. I also have a younger cousin (daughter of my first cousin) with a masters in music who is a professional classical guitarist. But again, there's little shared influence as I rarely get a chance to see them because we live in different parts of the country. I have a grand niece who is very musical and plays mostly violin. Once again, other side of the country and I see her only every few years.