How many of you are multi-instrumentalists?

[PerryE]

I know that a lot of people here have been playing guitar many years and are incredibly good musicians. There are also many who either have a strong background in other instruments and then switched to guitar

I am curious about those of you who actively tries to improve in several instruments- reasons why and benefits.

My background is classical piano which I started 46 years ago. I also played a little bit 2-octave marching band bell lyre although it doesn’t really count. 4 years ago I left my job and took one year off. I enrolled at university and started studying music theory, logic as well as some other stuff but more important I started playing guitar. I suppose playing classical music gives you some experience with structured practice which helped to some extent but it was still difficult. After one year I started working again but the damage had been done. I took two courses in music production and produced an EP, studied more music theory, arranging and composition, started with blues harmonica which lead to tin whistle which lead to soprano and alto recorder (which I always hated). A few weeks I started playing bass guitar as well.

I truly believe it is all beneficial to some extent and I am having really fun as well. A tin whistle or harmonica is something you always can carry

Sorry about my long rant but now I am curious to hear about other people here - the instruments you play besides guitar and the benefits you see

For music production it is easy to use midi-controller instead of a bass guitar- sound is great but you still need to understand how to create good bass lines.

[j3ffr0]

I can play the bass pretty well. I can play the piano well enough to fool someone for a minute or two into thinking I can play. I can play few beats on the drums.

It helps ones perspective to at least dabble in other instruments I think.

[Wade Hampton]

Perry, my first instrument was the mountain dulcimer, which is a traditional instrument back home in my native state of Missouri. Then I took up mandolin, and five string banjo after that. For a couple of years I was playing gigs and getting paid to perform and actually resisted learning the guitar for a long time.

Because it seemed as though everybody and his brother played it. So I didn’t think the world needed another guitarist.

But then the band I’d been leading broke up after our weekly Thursday night slot at a nearby tavern ended. Hoping to get other bookings I tried to hold things together, but the other guys just sort of drifted away. Deeply annoyed by that, I decided to hell with trying to keep the band together. Since I no longer had a band I chose to develop a solo act so I wouldn’t have to depend on anyone else.

Thinking it through, I realized that having the low end provided by guitar would be advantageous if I was going to play solo. The instruments I had gotten good enough to gig out on by that point were either midrange to treble - like the dulcimer and banjo - or all treble, like mandolin.

I figured that most audiences would need some sonic cushioning with some lower register sounds, as well.

I had been the lead singer as well as the leader of the band, and already knew an evening’s worth of songs. So it was merely a matter of figuring them out on guitar. I bought a used all-solid wood Harmony Triple O copy for $50, and within three months was using it onstage.

While that might seem quick, I already knew lots of songs, understood basic music theory and could keep solid time, plus I already had calluses on my fingers from the other instruments I’d been gigging with. So it was simply a matter of transferring what I knew on dulcimer, mandolin and banjo and figuring it out on guitar.

That was decades ago now, and I’ve continued to add other instruments to the list. It turns out that I have a natural aptitude for fretted stringed instruments. Instead of tuning all of them like a guitar, as some instrumentalists do, I keep them all in the standard tunings that they normally get tuned to.

On the instruments that have a large number of tunings that get used, like clawhammer banjo and mountain dulcimer, I have three or four tunings that I stay within, rather than play in the myriad other tunings that exist. With those instruments I found some tunings that I can find my way around in, and stick to those.

When I first started learning the guitar, I experimented with a LOT of alternative tunings, but have found that I can play everything I want to play on guitar by using standard tuning, Dropped D and Double Dropped D tunings.

While I love playing the blues, like virtually every other steel string guitarist, I’ve got one of the whitest-sounding voices on the planet. Every time I sing a blues song I sound like the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem trying to sound like Muddy Waters....

I do okay on the hillbilly blues songs, but it’s not one of my strengths.

Since for me the most compelling music played in alternative guitar tunings is the blues material, and I can’t really make that work onstage, I don’t use many guitar tunings any more.

Just because I like some musical styles doesn’t mean that I can credibly pull them off, so I focus on what I can do well.

As for playing a whole bunch of different instruments, it’s not really any big deal at all - to me they’re all basically the same thing.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Bob from Brooklyn]

I play bass in my band but I hardly regard it as a different instrument.

I have a keyboard and a mandolin at home that I dabble at.

[Cameleye]

While mainly a guitarist I also play dobro, uke, dulcimer and bass.

[LifesShort]

In addition to guitar, I play bass and ukulele. I consider both of these in the guitar family, though, because if you can play guitar, you can play bass and uke.

[roylor4]

I started on the Blues Harp and was fairly accomplished (or so I thought) until I heard recordings of my playing. It was in the pocket, but horribly busy, like I thought I had to play as many notes as possible. That taught me that less is more and sparse, tasteful playing has more substance than a busy hot mess.

I play the Rhythm Bones, and that has given me very good timing.

In both instances, these skills have taught me things that I can also apply to and improve my guitar playing.

[Tico]

I studied classical piano for years, and find my piano to be indispensable for teaching music theory to guitar students.

[Deliberate1]

I have played clarinet since the third grade - back in '66. Ultimately I was principal chair in the Portland (Maine) Youth Symphony and All State orchestras. Along the way, in high school, I developed an interest in jazz. It was pretty easy to add the alto and tenor saxes. Played in college ensembles. And also the penny whistle in law school when contra dances proved fertile ground for meeting women.
Since then, about 40 years, I have played woodwinds in a variety of groups, and currently am lead tenor/clarinet in an 18 piece big band. Also developed a strong interest in Klezmer music and have gigged off and on with a 7 piece ensemble.
It never occurred to me in all that time to play guitar until last year while playing clarinet with a bunch of lobstermen in Stonington, Maine, Sunday morns at 7 am. Just me and my "misery stick" in a sea of stringers. A wonderful variety of tunes from traditional to country to rock.
And as I spent more time with these good people, lines started popping into my head. And then and other, and so on. And I started writing songs. But I soon discovered you cannot sing and play clarinet simultaneously. So last February I bought a guitar and in August found a teacher. And I have devoted most of my musical energies to learning this strange new instrument and writing songs.
Most of my time with my teacher now is learning and applying theory to the guitar. I never had any theory training, and greatly regret it. But over the decades I compensated - I learned my instrument and developed a very good ear and have been able to improvise quite competently even without reading changes on our charts. As long as I can "hear" it,I can play it. That same ear has very much helped me as I learn the guitar. I can hear intervals and the right and wrong notes of a scale. I know what music sounds like. I just struggle to play what I hear. Part of the challenge, of course is the difference between a chordal instrument and one where one note at a time is played. That is going to be a great hurdle as well as the inclination to fall back on intuition. I want to learn the nuts and bolts of music theory to discover how it is all put together. I hope that this will make me a better musician, not just a competent guitar player.

David

[RRuskin]

I started out as a singer and got the bulk of my musical knowledge from that discipline. Guitar came next at 14. I started playing drums at 31.

[Fretboard Phil]

Guitar, bass, and piano.

[Skip Ellis]

Started with violin in 4th grade and played through high school then picked up guitar which is my main instrument. I also play bass, 5 string banjo and pedal steel - played nothing but steel for about 15 years in the 70's and 80's during the 'Urban Cowboy' craze. Have played classic rock, country, bluegrass and many many theater productions over the years. Leaning more toward being a soloist these days. Been at it for 60 years and still playing.

[Chipotle]

Although I've been playing guitar since I was 7, I consider myself primarily a vocalist. I sang in concert, chamber and jazz choirs through college. Guitar was more of a way to accompany myself at first. In college and afterwards, I played in bands where I was the lead guitarist as well as lead singer.

I also played bass in a band for a few years, but since that is just the bottom four strings of a guitar tuned down an octave, I'm not sure that counts.

I did teach myself how to make noise on a pennywhistle, and now a little harmonica, in the last few years, it would be a stretch to say I can actually play them.

[FrankHudson]

I doubt I'm a functional musician even on guitar, but I be on firmer ground if I called myself a multi-instrumentalist.

As already been mentioned upthread, if one has some sense about how to operate a guitar one can more easily learn to operate other fretted string instruments. I've made musical noises on a great many of them, even though I don't really know them to the degree that I know the guitar.

Because the range is so different, and because I make use of fretless versions at times, I almost consider bass guitar to be more distinct from guitar that say banjo or even mandolin: I've sometimes faked mandolin up the neck on a 12 string guitar for example and set my cheap mandolin aside. I have a cheap banjo too, but often use a virtual banjo played with a guitar. How one plays, articulates, and thinks on fretless electric bass differs more.

I've played a tiny bit harmonica over the years and I'm very limited on it.

I've played more mountain dulcimer than harmonica, and a cheap one that I bought way back when actually helped form some ideas I use when playing guitar, particularly in open tunings.

Keyboards are something I've started to branch out into in the past couple of years. My long time keyboard-playing partner now has some limitations that cramp his ability to play, so I hack my way around a keyboard more and more. I'm certainly not a piano musician is any conventional sense, and for more complex parts I'll play left hand and right hand parts as separate tracks. Or I'll play simple little one or two note things to emphasis a part of the chord structure or melody that would sound stupid simple by themselves, but can fit into an arrangement in a way that pleases me.

I've also tackled a lot of bowed string instruments via virtual instruments, playing their lines with MIDI guitar or keyboards. You think differently when playing with those bowed articulations, but in another way they don't really count as multi-instrumentalist in that I'm operating a guitar or keyboard.

[KarenB]

Piano, singer, banjo, accordion, zither (actually a converted autoharp), some bass.