Which NLifers plays musical instruments? What do you play? Do you enjoy it, or did your parents make you learn something? I play the guitar and enjoy the heck out of it.

I play the contrabass balalaika. Here is a picture of me.

That's a boss beard, boss.

i play guitar, and trumpet for band in school,unfortunately

I've been playing the drums for about 26 years. Did some recording with a few local rock bands back in the early 90's. Haven't played in a band in about 8 years. In truth, I don't even get to play my drums much anymore. I have a set of Drum Workshop Collector series drums that I have in storage. My cymbals are in my game room closet here.

@Corbie nice. How old were you when you started? I've only been playing the guitar for about a year and got a very late start at it. I totally suck but enjoy the heck out of it. My coworker has been learning the drums for the last year or two, but he also got a late start.

Break those suckers out and join our NES music cover-band. We also need a church organist to help with the Castlevania cover.

I was 12 when I started playing. Got a used drum set from a friend who was selling his. They were Ludwig drums. It was a blue 5-piece. It was a nice set considering how cheap they were. I also play bass guitar, but not as often as I used to. I sold my Ibanez bass about two years ago. Just no time and no room.

OK, I fibbed a bit. That's not me, and I don't have a contrabass balalaika. I do have a boss beard though, and a prima balalaika, which I've only recently gotten.

I started music on bass guitar in high school, then moved to guitar. Eventually got a keyboard to mess around with, but I'm not coordinated it to play it skillfully. I just like playing with the different voices, really. On the occasion that I come up with a song on keyboard, I end up figuring it out on guitar before actually doing anything with it.

Very recently I've realized that knowing one strummed instrument, you should really be able to learn any strummed instrument. Only a few months before the balalaika I got a ukulele which has quickly replaced the guitar as my most played and enjoyed instrument. I had my grandpa's uke as a kid, but before I could learn how to play (it was the first instrument I'd ever had), I was banging on it randomly and the neck just came off, haha. Whoops.

I spent a few months trying to learn violin, but bowed instruments are crazy. Crazy. Fortunately, I got an almost free melodica out of the deal, which I love, so it wasn't a total waste.

I hope to get a mandolin soon. I'm always playing it at the local music store, and I think it would be the perfect lead to go with my uke, though the melodica does work often, too. Depends on the song. One of my life goals (after going to the moon) is to learn accordion, but they are darn expensive, so that will have to wait.

I played in bands in high school and college and still do on and off, though I'm really not into it anymore. Rock music tends to get old quickly. Play the same songs over and over, and you start to hate it. Of late I'm more into post-rock and folk, but not only is it hard to find people for such a band, it's also hard to find an audience. Plus, I'm not a big fan of performing. I rather just record.

In short: I love music.

Are you seriously in an NES cover band? Color me jealous, if so. I wish I could pick up music by ear so I could do something like that, but I can't, and relying on tabs is just not worth the effort, I'd think. I did figure out the Tetris theme though. Sounds great on balalaika, obviously.

I play guitar, piano, bass clarinet, and normal clarinet In order of favorite to least), also picked up some sax stuff that i never enjoyed much. i been at piano longest, in the conservatory grade 9 but i just love guitar cuz with guitar i dont have to do exams and testings like i do with piano, so i have more time for just me playing for me and me only, no examiners to impress.

I played the bass in high school and I sing if you wanna call that an instrument lol

Not really, but the co-worker and I always joke about it. The mario, zelda and tetris themes were some of the first things I learned though. I love trying to play video game music more than real music. Coworker always says he's trying to convince his grandma to join with her church organist skills.

I started playing guitar when moderately young, and went through the phase where one focuses too heavily on technical skills like speed and running scales etc in high school, but in college I changed a great deal in my relation to music. I took every music theory class I could, even though that wasn't my major (but fortunately my university had an excellent music school), started listening to much more classical music, jazz, and 20th century composers, started playing a nylon string guitar when I did play guitar, but more importantly, turned to the keyboard as the main thing I like to play around with.

For years now, I haven't really played instruments in the usual way, eg. building up a repertoire of songs or focusing on technical skill, but instead I just like to sit at the keyboard (sometimes the guitar, but much more rarely) and play with musical ideas. I might have just heard something when I was out, and I'll quickly pick out the chord progression and analyze it. Pretty much everything I do now is just using music theory and my ear; I haven't really looked at anything written in ages.

What it boils down to for me: I love music theory more than anything about music. If I hear something interesting, I'm not satisfied until I can explain precisely how that substituted chord, odd phrase against the backdrop, unusual bassline, or other feature achieves its effect in the song. A favorite of mine amongst current bands, as an example, is Radiohead, so there is a whole world of clever but subtle complexity to work out just in those songs, and in Thom Yorke's often unusual uses of rhythm.

That being said, while I'm proud of my music theory and analysis skills, which are probably an outgrowth of an early obsession with math, I don't feel that I'm very good at all in the realm of musical creativity. I can come up with something technically complex with some work, but I don't have the knack for musical creativity at all in the usual way. The only role related to music in which I believe I could excel is musicology - never performance and probably not composition.

@warioswoods that's excellent. Besides some novelty NES music I spend most of my time just learning theory and messing around. I don't really care for sung music, and love classical and things where I can hear the music over the person. It's great fun to me.

@sigrim

Theory is great fun, isn't it? I never understood how there are some career musicians who don't enjoy the theoretical side. When I was taking all of those music theory classes, I was the odd one out, always the only non-major in the class, but I also seemed to be the only one who actually enjoyed it. All the majors were just moaning about how hard it was and how they hated it. So strange.

Yeah there's a lot of musicians that can't even read music too. I've spent most of the last year just learning these two. You probably know a LOT more than me, but I am the type that enjoys learning every little thing. I still have major gaps, but will fill them in eventually.

I'm not into theory. I never took a music class or lesson. I don't know anything except how to play a basic major scale and pentatonic. But I'm not uppety about it. I never make claims that I somehow write better because I am not "limited" by theory. I think people who say that are foolish and probably no more theory than they let on. But it also hasn't hindered me enough to make it worth learning. Of course, I also enjoy frustrating my friends when they tell me chord names or scales and I respond with a blank stare until they show me what they're talking about. Always fun... for me.

Like a lot of musicians who start on electric guitar in their teens, the first step was starting a punk band in a garage with friends, and while I'm not into that kind of music much anymore, I still idealize the three-piece band. Writing music in collaboration is an unparalleled joy, but any more than three people in the group and I feel there are too many competing ideas. I really enjoy free jamming, too, but preferably on bass. I don't like the pressure of coming up with leads on the spot.

It's interesting how people can like music but in such totally different ways.

@adam you're crazy. I like you. But you're crazy. OK, I like you because you're crazy.

I play the ocarina (seriously) and I've been practicing for only about 6 months, but it's a pretty easy instrument to learn. I want to learn how to play the piano as well but I should probably focus more on the ocarina for now.

i played the flute back in high school... i remember all of us flutes in band were so pissed about people cracking the same dumb jokes after American Pie came out. no one with any kind of respect for their instrument would do that kind of thing. sigh.