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How To Travel with a Musical Instrument
TL;DR: Carry your axe on your back, not in your hands. Lugging an instrument around is worth it if you make it worth it. Don’t let your music gear out of sight, it’ll disappear. You can street perform in ways that aren’t music. Leave expensive/nice/sentimental instruments with someone you trust and travel with a cheap, durable instrument. Likelihood of damage or theft is high. For almost all of the tens of thousands of miles I've traveled in the US and Mexico, I've carried some kind of instrument. Walking, riding, hitching, trainhopping, flying, or sailing, I've rarely ever been out of arm's reach of something I can play. I was recently asked by u/hundr3d___ about the logistics of actually physically carrying around my saxophone. This topic comes up kind of regularly, so I'm broaching it again here for everyone to discuss. For context, I started traveling at age 20, after dropping out of music school at a state university. I had almost ten years of practice and training on stage, and had relatively little experience surviving on my own, traveling, living outside, or making money without a job. With this combination of tones of musical skill frontloaded against relatively little survival skill or travel experience, I came up with an idea of how I could get by. My idea was that I could make up for lack of badassery simply by being good at music. Luckily, I was sort of half right about that particular notion. I was very wrong about lots of other notions. Playing music opened some doors and put some money in my pocket as I traveled, but I definitely suffered unnecessarily until I’d been out there for a while. My initial lack of instincts, sense of direction, and baseline knowledge about how to travel and survive, could not be fully compensated for by my ability as a performer. So as the story goes, I dropped out in the fall, went back home to Walla Walla, Washington in the winter, tied up my loose ends (sort of), gathered my gear, and departed on January 1st. I left my warm, drug-addicted, terminally-ill, dysfunctional family home for cold, clean, uncertain freedom. I left my smartphone and my car, and my Playstation and the girl I was seeing, walked to the nearest highway onramp with my boots, my backpack, and my saxophone, and stuck out my thumb. It was snowing. At this point, I was already carrying WAY too much gear and clothing. The weight of the instrument was hard to differentiate from the near crippling weight of books, a chintzy cooking stove, a shovel, a hatchet, a crowbar, a folding chair, a tent, over-ear studio monitor headphones, extra pants and coats that I would never wear, etc… I did manage to get a couple rides, and even a place to stay on a moored sailboat that first night, but every yard I had to walk in-between kind strangers was load-bearing agony. Making my way east to Portland, then south through Oregon to San Francisco, I slowly shed the aforementioned unnecessary bullshit. At one point in California, I actually bought a big-ass plastic tote from an office supply store and buried a bunch of clothes and gear on the cliffs above the beach. That was like the one and only practical use for that freaking shovel. It took a little while for the saxophone to really earn its own salt. Two weeks in, by the time I was strolling through Santa Cruz, I had kind of figured out what I really needed, and had started to get the hang of this whole hitchhiking thing. The last item I held that didn’t seem to have a daily use was my saxophone. I’d played it a few times for myself, sort of tried to entertain the sailboat people that first night, but hadn’t put much serious effort toward making money or friends with my music. I really considered finding a way to mail the damn thing home. Some kind of inner wisdom got the better of me (maybe it was just pride) and I held on to the horn until I landed in the Southern California college party town of Isla Vista, near Santa Barbara on the coast. I had been moving relatively fast up until this point. The 7 hour drive from Santa Cruz had been completed in one jump: a pair of rocker dudes in their van. These guys were from LA, had long hair, wore leather jackets and black denim jeans. Their van called “The Butt” had curtains and stickers and stories. I picked these dudes’ brains from the back seat the whole way down, and told them my plan to make it to Hollywood and get famous playing saxophone. They sized me up pretty quickly as being a dumb kid, said that being homeless in Downtown LA would likely fuck me up or kill me, and insisted on dropping me an hour north in Isla Vista instead. As a joke, my angel saviors in black bought me a lotto ticket and a 24-rack of beer, seeing as I wasn’t old enough to buy booze myself yet. They dropped me off a couple hours after sunset and sent me on my way into the night. I had no idea that I was walking into one of the most highly-concentrated, densely-populated party zones in the world. Isla Vista is one square mile that is home to 40,000 people. The vast majority of these people are students at the University of California at Santa Barbara: easily ranked Top 5 among West Coast party schools. The beer was enough to get me into a backyard party at a fraternity. The fresh traveler grit and the saxophone were enough to make every single person there take an interest in me. Here emerged the other useful skill I gleaned from my own time in college: the ability to quickly drink alcohol. About an hour after I arrived and set down my pack, I was dancing shirtless on the beer pong table next to the speakers, ripping a sloppy saxophone solo over a Drake song. I made a bunch of friends who I never saw again, and blurrily sauntered to an apartment with a guy named Kevin who was apparently the president of the frat. Gleaming morning sun punched me in the face, streaming in parallel lines through the open blinds. The couch was wet with something that I feared was piss, but upon further inspection smelled a lot like bong water. I stumbled through the refuse of beer cans and discarded clothing in the dim, unfamiliar place, and drank straight from the faucet in the little kitchen. The water was tepid and tasted minerally and bad. It turns out that the municipal tap water in SoCal isn’t quite as crystal clear as the spring-fed system in my mountainous little Northern hometown. Taking stock of my surroundings, grabbing onto the counter to fight the aggressive spinning in my head, I started to piece together the night. There was my backpack, okay good. There was my saxophone case, shit it’s empty, where is my actual horn? There is my journal, did I lose my pen? Where is my hat? Oh man, okay there’s my sax, it’s under the couch. Got lucky this time, got to put it away next time before I pass out. Jesus do they have any Tylenol? I managed to collect myself and my gear, more-or-less, and scribbled a note of thanks to Kevin. The cheap wooden front door creaked open and I emerged into the late-morning sun. The light blasted my bleary eyeballs, and I immediately tripped as I trod barefoot on the concrete balcony walkway of the four-story apartment building. After a couple hours of wandering around this weirdly idyllic beach town, cursing the Pabst Brewing Company, I found a bench, sat down, and wrote most of this story you’re reading in my journal. As I traveled on, exploring Baja California and Western Mexico, then traveling to Northern California to trim weed, my go-to move became “appearing randomly in a new place, unexpectedly playing saxophone, and see what happens. Occasionally people would think I was crazy, ignore me awkwardly, or get mad and tell me to leave. The majority of the time, however, this bold ridiculousness got a pretty positive reaction. Many, many rides came from people who approached me while I was playing on the street or at a party. The fact that I was down to jump in and play with anyone would often get me invited to social events that I had no business attending. I very quickly learned how to apply my ear training and jazz improvisation skills to allow me to pick up and play songs I didn’t know with musicians I’d never met. Busking became my main source of income. At least half of my food came from dumpster diving, the only things I drank were water or free beer, and I had very very little in the way of bills to pay. I’d occasionally buy reeds for my saxophone, keep stocked on a few essential, non-perishable food staples, make sure I had small, important pieces of gear like lighters, dental floss and sewing needles, batteries for my headlamp, paint pens/spray, etc. I really kept myself vigilant about spending any money, seeing it more like a tool than a resource. Most things I needed I could get for free if I looked long enough. For things like greyhound bus tickets or gas money for craigslist rides it made sense to save up a little cash in order to keep moving. I would sometimes do really well busking in a particular area and stay there for two or three days to keep working it, but generally I traveled alone and kept moving. I usually had enough cash in my pocket to get what I needed, and at that point in my life, that was plenty to satisfy me. The term “busking”, and a lot of what I share about it also applies to other types of performance besides music. If you want to lug a typewriter around and sling poetry on the street, do it. If you want to bring art supplies with you and sell your art, have at it. If you randomly just happen to be a killer juggler, or magician, or Tarot card reader or you can do cool tricks with a soccer ball or hula hoop, or literally whatever the fuck else, follow your passion, and do it at people for money. It’s called Busking. Actually, you don’t even have to be that good at what you’re doing; relying on a talent to survive is a really fast way to grow that talent. I wrote about busking in detail already, right here As mentioned, art, craft and just general trading definitely have their places in the nomad economy. Everyone has a hustle. I’ve learned a ton about herbalism and natural remedies/foods from wise travelers who forage and process these items for a living. Knitting, embroidery, natural fabric dying, whittling, metal smithing, jewelry making, voodoo practitioning, and tattooing are all pastimes that I’ve seen travelers make into professions. Special mention here for the “Gem n Jam” kids who literally carry around suitcases full of rocks to turn into wire wrapped jewelry, and sell Many, many travelers have at least some type of drug that they trade. Like music, all of these trades can make you money, but take time and skill, and require you to carry more shit around There’s also a lot to be said for the value in lugging around a laptop. Similar to a musical instrument, tech is expensive, kind of heavy, highly-theftable, and generally delicate and breakable. More and more people are building their lives and incomes around working online, however, and if you figure out a way to do that while traveling, more power to you.
The Logistics
Any item that you carry while traveling must be worth it’s weight. My philosophy is, when I’m going primarily on foot, anything I carry around must be useful and make an impact on my life on at least a daily basis. The heavier and bulkier an item is, the greater impact it must have on my experience to be worth it. My Yamaha Series 62 Alto Saxophone, in it’s pine wood case, weighed 17 pounds. Anyone who’s done so much as a day hike knows that that’s a lot. That’s heavier than two gallons of water. That’s a 24-rack of beer. This wasn’t a student model beginner horn, it was a professional-level instrument with soft metal, finely tuned mechanisms, over a hundred moving parts, tiny springs, sensitive leather pads that have to make airtight seals. Heavy, delicate, vulnerable to changes in temperature and weather… the saxophone is far from the ideal instrument for a traveler, sleeping outside and running to catch moving trains. There was one advantage to this particular choice, however; it was unique. The VAST majority of traveling kid musicians carry an acoustic guitar, a banjo, a ukulele, or a harmonica. I’ve had five (?) six-string sidekicks so far on the road, with varying levels of quality and damage. Guitars are great. They’re cheap, they’re simple, you can often fix them yourself. Everyone recognizes a guitar, just about anyone can play one, and acoustic ones don’t need electricity. Where they suffer, however, is from their own popularity. If you’re playing and singing a six string in any popular tourist destination in the Western Hemisphere, someone else has already done it there. The very stereotype of a street musician usually includes some kid playing Wagon Wheel or House Of The Rising Sun or a Bruno Marz song on a guitar. Busking requires you to stand out. If you’re doing the same thing that everyone else does (and often there will literally be other people up the street playing a guitar) you have to be exceptionally talented to stand apart from the rest. I don’t care how good you are, some people will immediately discount you for playing guitar, because they’ve seen a hundred other people in that same spot playing that same instrument before you. Now, sit down with a really well played accordion, or a sitar, or a monkey playing a tiny organ, and you’re going to offer something novel and compelling. This element alone made carrying that persnickety hunk of metal worth it. Thanks to a foundation in Aural Skills and Ear Training, combined with years of practice in the street, I As far as actually taking care of my instruments, I’ll admit my track record isn’t great. That high-end, $5000+ Yamaha I mentioned earlier? The one I’d played all the way through college? I left it in a friend’s car in downtown San Francisco. She parked and we went on some hectic mission, and we came back later to shattered glass all over the pavement. No mo saxobro. I had another horn stolen in New Orleans, out of a stash spot that I wrongly assumed was undiscovered. What about a smaller Soprano saxophone? Got stepped on at an outdoor mountain rave. I eventually learned a super important lesson: a cheap instrument that is diligently cared for will serve you far better than an expensive instrument that is neglected and abused. Maintaining your instrument is part of playing your instrument. Caring for an instrument takes time and energy. While traveling, a well-maintained, cheap, beginner-level instrument is a way better idea than an expensive, delicate, high-quality instrument. Take the time to learn a little bit about how to do basic repairs. For most people that means learn to change the strings on your guitar. You will pop strings, it’s inevitable. For horn players, that means swabbing out your horn every time after you’re done playing. It also means not playing right after eating/drinking sugary drinks (including booze.) If you rely on digital tech to make your sound, stock extra batteries, do the updates and software maintenance that you should, and have a backup plan for when you experience technical failure in front of an audience. As with any other aspect of traveling, developing and holding to routines will allow you to keep doing your thing for miles and miles.
Lugging the damn thing
My number one recommendation for carrying a musical anything is to find a way to carry it without using your hands. What I mean is find some way to attach your gear to yourself. It might not make sense that you need your hands free just to walk around, but trust me when I say that you do. Try getting on the subway with a banjo in one hand. Try bushwhacking through the woods while holding a snare drum. Try looking tough, ready to draw a weapon in a sketchy situation, when you’re fumbling around with your ukulele. Needless to say, hopping a train requires two hands free. As far as how exactly to attach your precious music maker to yourself is going to be something you’ll have to figure out yourself. I can give you a few tips from my own experience. As a general rule, if your instrument is small enough, it’s a good idea to put it in or strap it onto your backpack. If you have a good hiking or military pack, the suspension system there is designed to carry and distribute weight well. Rather than messing with an additional strap for your instrument, it might be best to let your backpack carry the weight. Guitars and similarly shaped instruments are kind of awkward to carry around, until you figure out how best to do it. I wrote about it here, check it out! Everyone has a method. I’m curious to hear what the community has to offer on this one. I’ll leave you with one great memory of a traveler who stands way out to me. It was in Santa Maria, CA and I had been hanging around downtown for a couple days, waiting to play a gig at a brewery with a friend who lived there in town. I had tried playing the mall, the cute breakfast spot, the parking structure, the coffee shop by the park, and after only marginal success, I dumpster dove a couple books and sat down on a park bench to read. After a few minutes, there came a strange sound floating down the street. Through the din of traffic and Thursday afternoon pedestrans, it was hard to tell what I was hearing, but something compelled me enough to get up, haul my gear onto my back, and walk up the block to investigate. The sound materialized into chords, electronically produced, played with chunky voicings, with the root always on the bottom. Someone was pounding out triads and wailing incoherently. The someone in question came into view around a corner. The heavily tattooed traveler before me was sitting cross legged with a full 77-key electronic keyboard on his lap, seemingly improvising music and lyrics. He had an old US Army Issue camouflage coat, and the white plastic of his early-2000’s keyboard was completely scrawled over with what looked like ancient Nordic runes in red Sharpie. I sat and played saxophone with this wild new friend. A local homebum came and shared some weed with us. It was weird and beautiful. I think we made like $2. After we were done this guy says “I’m headin’ to Reno, brother!.” And walks off with this 4-foot long white plastic rectangle powered by like 8 D batteries hanging around his neck by a shoestring. I never saw him again. Travel well, friends. Peaceably, -Tall Sam Jones
Thoughts after 1 week of learning the cello as an adult beginner!
I’m a 28 year old who has been learning and playing the cello now for exactly one week, and I thought I’d make a post here about some things I’ve discovered about being an adult beginner of this instrument at this point in time. I realise most of the posts on this subreddit are questions or information intended for intermediate to advanced players, but I thought it could potentially be useful for future beginners! I hope it’s ok to post this here; if not, I’ll remove it. (I couldn't seem to spot a set of community rules.) As a 1-week-old child in this world, I'd appreciate any advice you might have about any of these things! 🙏 1 week is probably a bit too early to make a post like this, but I like penning my thoughts, and my fingers need a bit of a break from cello practice. (I've been at it 3~4 hours a day and the fingertips of my left hand are completely numb. And to think I thought playing electric bass guitar would prepare me for this.) I did a little bit of research on the internet about starting out on the cello before I started on lessons, including reading the beginner’s guide at this very subreddit. Generally what I found was that people seemed to recommend/advise the following:
That the cello must be learnt from a teacher if one wants to reach a decent standard of performance and build good playing habits, as opposed to self-teaching from books/videos
That going for a rental/rent-to-buy scheme is best (the general idea being that beginnecheaper instruments are not always very well made, and that a decent cello costs more money than is wise to immediately drop on without knowing for certain that you will continue learning the instrument).
Based on these considerations, I decided to sign up for a 3 month cello rental and 3 months of lessons at my local music school (more on these two below). Most sites recommended trying out on a rental for about half a year to up to a year, but I live in a country with a very limited number of cello rental stores (and renting from a US-based online store is not worth the astronomical shipping fee) that are on the pricey side once you factor in all of the costs, so if I am renting for more than 4~5 months… I might as well get my own cello. Personally, my reasons for learning the cello are as follows:
I love the sound of the instrument, and have been wanting to learn it for about 10 years. I enjoy going to classical concerts and attend them often. Some of my most favourite pieces of classical music are cello concertos, although I am fully aware that I won’t be playing any of them anytime soon.
I learnt piano as a child for about 5 years, but never took the ABRSM exams, and never really enjoyed the instrument. The piano experience failed for a number of reasons including: lack of interest, lack of time, passive teachers, lack of appreciation of classical music at the time.
Quarter (?) / third (?) / mid (?) life crisis (?)… some kind of crisis lol. I just want to learn something completely new and feel like I’m opening my eyes for the first time again.
Here are some things I’ve decided on in order to ensure that I continue being interested in the cello. When I get into things, I really get into things - but I get bored of things just as easily, so I’ve thought about how I’m going to prevent myself from throwing in the towel on this like I did with the piano (and other things). Here are some of my ideas:
With cello, I want to take the ABRSM exams (both music theory and cello), because I think having achievable, concrete, step-by-step goals like this are a way of keeping myself motivated in the long run. I also think it would be cool if I got the chance to perform at some point in the next few years (even if it’s just at a music school recital or something) or, more ambitiously, join an amateur orchestra at some point in the next 10~20 years. For the latter scenario, having the certification to prove my worth prior to the audition would be useful.
I'm going to make audio recordings of, and take videos of my practice sessions. This is so that I can observe myself playing from a third person perspective and evaluate what I need to work on. This is also to ensure that I have something to look back on and hopefully think "wow, I used to suck donkey balls - I've gotten so much better now" later on if I hit a point where I feel like I'm not improving.
I've booked tickets to see classical concerts & chamber concerts, especially for cello-centric pieces, all the way up to the middle of next year. I'm seeing basically one concert every month until May. I always get excited about things when I go to see them live, so I'm hoping this will help me keep up my enthusiasm.
And of course, just for fun, I'm also following some of my favourite cellists (Gautier Capuçon, Ng Pei-Sian, 2CELLOS... sadly Misha Maisky doesn't use Instagram) on social media in addition to listening to them.
My musical background is as follows. I’m noting this here because an ability to read music and a basic understanding of music theory is of tremendous help in learning the cello:
Apart from formally learning the piano, I taught myself how to play acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and ukulele. I’ve performed on an amateur level before for fun (okay, so that’s basically just a neat-sounding way of saying “a friend’s band desperately needed a bassist to bust out a miniature solo and some simple and repetitive bass lines for about half an hour, so I stood on a cool stage for a bit, got my rockstar moment, I caught the attention of some beautiful ladies, and it was fun”). I also spent some time as a volunteer performer at an old folks’ home, strumming some chords on the guitar while my friend sang. I also like to mess around on the kalimba and ocarina but these are truly just for fun.
Again, I never took the ABRSMs, but my piano teacher taught me some basic music theory, and based on the ABRSM syllabus that is available on the internet, I have about an ABRSM Grade 3~4 understanding of music theory. Essentially, in relation to the cello, I can read music, and sing a simple piece of music that I’ve seen for the first time (sight-read) as long as you give me the first note.
My Cello Rental Experience (so far) I live in a very small island country in Asia (if you have been/lived here before you know which one I'm talking about - no, rendang is NOT crispy), and there are only 2 places in the entire place I could find that offer rentals of cellos that are full sized. There are plenty of places that sell musical instruments, but most of them don't do rentals. I went to one of the places in order to take a look, and ended up renting from there. The other place did not reply to my requests about their prices - I suppose they were busy. I entered a 3-month “rent to buy” agreement, where I rent a new instrument that I can choose to own at the end of the 3 months. The rental is 65.30USD/month for the new beginner model cello, 21.8USD/month for the carbon fibre bow, and another 21.8USD/month for the hard case (which I specifically asked for - I’m not sure if a soft case would have been free of charge). There was a deposit of 217.6USD which would be returned to me if the cello is returned in good condition. Hence, I gave them 544.3USD and walked out of the store with my rental cello. Separate from that, I also purchased an endpin rest and a piece of rosin, as the store does not rent out these items. The beginner model cello costs 428USD to purchase, and I can use 50% of the cello rental fee (but not the rental fee of the bow or case) as credit to go towards a purchase of either the same cello that I rented, or another cello from the same store. I can also choose not to buy a cello from this store at all, in which case I would only get my deposit back. The staff at this particular music store were very insistent that I come out and try their cellos for myself, and were reluctant to tell me the prices over the phone beforehand. Having tried the instrument for a week and having heard some different instruments though, I see where they are coming from. Each instrument has its quirks, and I think what they were trying to communicate (with what I realise were very good intentions, though it came across at the time as being a tad businesslike) was the idea that you should try out a couple of different instruments before deciding on one to be your buddy for the long haul. Ultimately, I am happy with my decision to rent with them because at this point, I just want to try out with something that looks like a cello, sounds like a cello, and functions like a cello before I decide whether to pursue this in the long term. I’ve read some sites that advise renting the best cello that one can afford even at the very beginning, but I simply don’t have that kind of money to burn (the rental fee for the next best cello was almost 4x). But after having played for a week, I am quite convinced that if I still do want to continue with this instrument after the 3 month period, I want to check out a number of different cellos, not necessarily from the same store, and find something that I really like. The one I am renting is honestly not a bad cello (and my teacher agrees, though she says it'll eventually need to be replaced once I hit a more intermediate level of playing), but having practiced on it for about 3~4 hours a day, I notice some small details about it that suggest that it’s a little bit sloppy in its construction (e.g. bit of a sloppy paint job, fairly cheap looking wood... and that's the things I notice as an amateur, so I shudder to think what the seasoned eye would notice). My feeling is that if I’m already going to spend somewhere in the vicinity of several hundred dollars to over a grand on a musical instrument, I want to get something that is halfway decent, and something that I feel good playing. But y'know. At this point I can hardly do even my beginner level instrument justice in the first position, so we'll see. My Experience with Lessons & Music Schools (so far) I decided from the get go that whatever teacher or school I sign up for has to be within a comfortable distance from my house. In the past, with a sport that my friend convinced me to join, travel distance & time was a major contributing factor in my reasons for ultimately quitting it. (Waking up at 7AM every Sunday to travel 2 hours to the class and 2 hours back… no thank you.) The nature of my job means that I am not so busy during this time of the year, so I have signed up for two 1-hour lessons every week. Once 2019 hits, I will either downsize to one 1-hour lesson every week, or one 30-minute lesson every week. I’m trying to practice and learn as much as I can to build a strong foundation during this period. Again, there was only one music school near my place that actually gives cello lessons. Here are some things I immediately found out about learning the instrument at a music school:
Almost every single other student will be a child. I like to be at the school at least 10 minutes before my lesson so that I don’t miss out on a single minute (I did the math, and the cost of the lesson is about 1.45USD/minute. This is more or less the industry standard in the country where I live, although it is on the expensive side. I'm guessing this probably sounds high to US folks? Idk. But it's fairly normal here, especially if you want a well qualified teacher with plenty of teaching experience.) Every single person I see waiting for their lessons in the reception area is less than half my age. The youngest I’ve seen so far was a child of about 3 years old, carrying a violin case that was longer than she was tall. I learnt not to give a shit by my 2nd lesson, but this was quite daunting at the start.
For this same reason, if you are an adult with a steady income, you should probably sign up for individual lessons instead of group lessons. I haven’t tried out group lessons myself so I wouldn’t know, but when I inquired about group lessons, I was told that everyone else in the lesson would be about 10 years old, was that okay?… I quickly told them I’ll just opt for individual after hearing that.
Find out which textbook/music book the cello teacher likes to use beforehand, so that you can look up the prices and purchase from a cheaper source before committing to a purchase at your music school. I don’t know if this is standard practice at music schools, but my school jacks up the prices of the textbooks at 2x what it goes for on places like Amazon and BookDepository. I don’t feel too bad about it because I needed the book immediately in order to maximise my lessons/practice time, and I’m thinking of it as having paid for express shipping… but I won’t make this same mistake again and will be ordering my music books online in the future.
On a related note - many people on the internet generally seem to recommend hard cases for cellos, but do consider it well if you need to travel for a bit of a distance to get to your music school, especially if you are taking public transport. I know I NEED a hard case because I am the least careful person I know, but I've had to adapt to using the accessible gantry at the train station & the accessible entrance for the bus when I'm travelling with my cello, because the cello just won't fit through the regular gantry or the regular bus door. 😂 My Experience with Learning Methods & Practice Habits (for now) My teacher likes to use the Suzuki Cello School, Volume 1, for beginners. I’ve read all kinds of things, both good and bad, about the Suzuki Method on the internet, but so far it is working for me for two reasons - one, most of the songs are familiar to me. There was one criticism I read on the internet that the Suzuki Volume 1 songs are generally unfamiliar and therefore confusing and unexciting to the average American child - I don’t have this problem. Second, the Suzuki book, or at least the edition that was sold to me by my school, comes with a CD. I can’t stress how important this CD has already been to me in my first week. Every single instrument I’ve learnt so far didn’t require me to have absolute pitch or relative pitch. Cello is the first instrument that does, and listening to the CD constantly ensures that I have the tune in my head at the correct pitch. This way, I can hear it if I am playing something slightly off, and can self-correct. I should emphasise that my teacher doesn't exclusively use the Suzuki Method, nor does she follow it very strictly - the book is simply used as a resource for practice pieces. We also use the ABRSM Time Piece text, as well as a book of scales & arpeggios. There are 17 pieces to learn in Volume 1, and after two 1-hour lessons and 6 days of practice x 3~4 hours = 2 hours of teacher instruction + 18~24 hours of self-initiated practice, I'm currently at song no. 10. I’ve also found it valuable to record my practice sessions. I thought I was doing fairly well until I listened to a recording I’d made of a practice session, and realised that I was making some mistakes that I didn’t notice while I was playing because I was so focused on getting so many different variables (bow hold, bow stroke, bow length, left hand technique, which notes I’m playing next, etc). I was able to take note of these mistakes, and consciously fix them at my next practice session. This made a considerable difference in the quality of my playing and whether or not I was hitting the right notes. That's all for now! If it's ok to post stuff like this in this subreddit, I'll post another update when I'm done with my first month of trying out the cello!
I'm about 3 weeks in. I've been watching a lot of amazing youtube videos, following beginners books and generally trying to get better at moving from chord to chord. I'm at the stage where this is going to become a healthy wee habit long term for me so that being the case what is the next step? Would it be beneficial to get lessons now or should I continue to go through my books and online tutorials longer? My ukulele is rather cheap so when would be the best time for me to move to a better quality one? For a female singer what would be the best type of Ukulele? Is there any advice you can give me that you wish someone had told you when you started? Thanks so much looking forward to your answers!!
Every day, there is a post on this subreddit asking which ukulele they should buy. I'd thought I'd post this to help. Note: my credentials are pretty good...I own an ukulele company!
Don't listen to anyone on this subreddit. I'm mostly kidding. Of course you can listen to recommendations. Just remember that everyone has their own favorite uke that is guaranteed to be the absolute best uke you can buy. And it is...for them. Purchasing a musical instrument is a very personal choice. It's yours and yours alone.
Set a budget range. First, always spend as much as you can without spending more than you have. You'll always get a higher quality instrument. Next, never say $50 or some rigid number. There are a number of ukes that, frankly, are almost exactly alike in construction and quality but will range in price from one another. Remember that the goal is to...
Play as many ukes as you possibly can before you buy. Within a price range, for example $85 to $125, you will find dozens of options. You need to decide what size you want to play, which one or two sound the best to you, feel the best in your hands and look the best. If you're just beginning, take someone with you who can play a song or two and let you hear it (or ask someone in a store to demo).
Have a minimum setup done on it. If you're a beginner and didn't pay very much for your uke, don't spend too much on this. Make sure, though, that the string height on the first fret isn't too high or uncomfortable (if it is, you won't play) and that none of the strings are buzzing when played. The shop you bought it from should do a minimum setup for $25-$40. If you've found the uke you want but you don't have a good shop where you live, then check the manufacturer's website for dealers. Check around for the best price of the model you want and then, have them do a setup. WARNING: Remember that these are wooden instruments. If you were to do a setup remotely, it may still buzz or have something else wrong when it gets to you solely because it went up and down in a plane and the climate where you are is different from where it was shipped from.
Strings, strings, strings. Be prepared to try a bunch of strings in the next year. Every string out there plays and sounds different to another string and to each player. In your experimentation, even if you play a lot, don't change more often, however, than every three months. Give each set a chance to settle in. Also, while we're on strings, try a low g string on one of your string changes. Some people like the sound of their uke better when this is done.
Miscellaneous. (a) If you have a ukulele group where you live, go! They can be very helpful in letting you play their ukes before you buy and they'll be there when you're learning; (b) there are a ton of great sites online to learn the uke. My favorite is ukuleleunderground.com. But there are others too (easyukulele.com, ukeschool.com, etc). and (c) you can also take online/Skype/Facetime/Hangouts lessons from some really great players like Jason Arimoto ([email protected]), Matt Dahlberg ([email protected]), Mitch Chang ([email protected], or Sarah Maisel (http://www.sarahmaisel.com/lessons).
That's all for now. Have fun looking and always check back to let us know what you bought and why. Aloha! [spelling/grammar edits made]
College student with a college student budget looking for some advice as a prospective beginner.
First off, I have read the FAQ pretty thoroughly, I'm just looking for some human advice.
So I have a decent amount of free time on my hands and I wanted to pick up a hobby. Since I've been singing for 8 years and played the saxophone for 7 years, as well as come from a family of musicians (father played alto, soprano, tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet and sister played piano since before I was born, brother played guitar since before I was born), I figured I could pick an instrument to get into. So I narrowed it down to ukulele or piano, but I already have a tiny bit of foreground knowledge in piano because my sister taught me a little and I taught myself a teeny bit as well to help with my singing. To be clear, since I am in college (at a school with no music major as the founder did not believe in music majors) I would plan on teaching myself how to play the instrument I chose, as I don't really have the funds to pay for lessons, nor the resources to get me to a teacher.
Upon further investigation, it looks like the ukulele is relatively easier to self-teach, and it may seem like (feel free to correct me on this if I am wrong) that there are more online resources for teaching. Furthermore, in my price range I could get a good starter ukulele but all beginnecheap keyboards listed on the FAQ are well out of my price range/a lot more expensive than I had anticipated.
So in short, I have free time to learn an instrument, a budget to buy an instrument, a good basis of musical knowledge to build on, but the FAQ has pretty much told me my plans to self-teach are not exactly realistic and even if I did buy a keyboard in the $100-$200 price range, it would not be of the best quality (even though I am looking for something small for dorm life).
So what do you think would be my wisest plan of action from here? Thanks in advance!
I've been wanting to learn to play tenor banjo for a while now, and figured I'd come here for some advice. For musical background, I play trumpet and harmonica currently, and dabbled a bit in guitar 10 years ago or so when I was 15 but didn't have a good teacher, got frustrated, and gave up. So not much fret instrument experience. I already pay a pretty penny for trumpet lessons, so I most likely will be attempting to learn this on my own. There used to be a great school in this city that taught folk instruments like banjo, guitar, ukulele, mandolin, and fiddle...as well as sold instruments...but it recently went bankrupt which bummed me out. I guess I'd be learning from cds/dvds, and youtube. I'm mostly interested in learning traditional Celtic music, like Irish reels and jigs, as well as Celtic rock and punk style like Flogging Molly, the Pogues, and Dropkick Murphys. As for banjos...I know next to nothing about them. I've done a lot of online window shopping and find most above my budget. As a beginner, I'd ideally like to spend $250 or less, and if I enjoy banjo and stick with it I can move up to a better instrument later. I would like to get the best bang for my buck though, and not have to be frustrated with a bad instrument. Not sure if I should go used or not. I heard good things about the Goldtone CC's but unless I get a used one, it's over my budget. Also, done a bit a research on 17 fret vs 19 fret and still haven't decided. I have small hands, so 17 fret sounds better but I heard they have more tone, tuning and intonation problems than 19 fret? Is there a huge difference in stretching fingers with 19 fret compared to 17 fret? Thanks!
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