/ot/ - off-topic

Yes! I'm a music performance major at my university. I also play violin. And, as long as youre having fun, dont worry about sounding bad. With enough practice, youll sound good

>>105757
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard anon

Been playing drums for 12 years, it's too fun

>>105757
Lead guitar in a small local band, we're not that great though honestly, it's hard to find members that give a shit about it.

I have a friend who plays viola though, and is pretty great at it, he says he sucked for two years. It's an instrument that takes a long time to sound even slightly decent on from what I've heard, unlike a guitar where you can learn four or five chords and be able to strum along to some simple stuff in a month or two of practicing.

But with any instrument, you always think you suck until you go back and play something you used to really struggle with and it's just a complete breeze. That's the only way I can note progress apart from being able to increase tempo in any scale or picking practice I do.

Keep at it anon, it's worth doing if you enjoy it, no matter how you sound.

I'm actually a musician who can't play any instruments lol, I have the musician brain and good enough understanding of music but noNE of the bodily training to express it in any way but singing or writing sheet music. I only have beginning skill in piano and uke. I have mad respect for instrumentalists b/c of the dedication it takes. It's awesome that you're enjoying it.


Classically Trained singer, got a ba degree in music. I dabbled in composing and arranging. I plan on pursuing composition and production later in life (too busy with conflicting pursuits atm)

All i can think to recommend is learning music theory separately from your violin work. :) and getting a keyboard or piano app and tinkering around with it, even of you have no interest in playing piano it's really convenient to access to notes, chords, and intervals for ear training and theory.

>>105758
that is awesome
i cant even imagine performing i would cry
>>105770
hearing about how good people sucked for a while really helps me
imo violin is the easiest intrument to give up on
so thanks

>>105787
>i cant even imagine performing i would cry

I think everyone feels this way to a degree. Why do you think so many artists go up on stage drunk or on drugs? It's stressful as hell

>>105787
Stage fear is something that takes years to overcome, I still struggle with it a lot. But dont let that discourage you! Prepare a little concert and play for your friends and family, theyll enjoy it a lot and itll help you with stage fright

I have a gift for composing/arranging music in addition to this I sing and have played the clarinet for 8 years and the saxophone for 4 years:) I love making and performing music the most since practice on your own is boring

>>105757
I played violin for a few years. Just keep working at it; you'll get better.

I haven't had time to pick up any other instruments in ages though. I'd love to try learning guitar or bass.

>>106539
Both of those are definitely easy enough to pick up, you can learn some basic stuff for both and be able to play along to stuff pretty quickly, unlike a lot of other string instruments.

But bass is way harder to start off with, simply because of the thickness of the strings, it's much harder to fret them until you've played for a bit and developed finger strength.

Guitar's easier that way, but depending on the style you want to play, gets pretty hard pretty quickly. Bass does too if you want to be a funk player though.

Yeah, I can play guitar, bass, ukulele, flute, drums and piano - but I haven't played piano in about a year because I don't have one I can use (currently saving up for one though). I taught myself everything except piano (taught by a public school teacher when I was 5) and flute (also from a public school teacher). My favorite instrument to play is definitely bass, though.

Practice is the most important thing and "natural talent" is really just hard work tbh. If anyone reading this has been feeling discouraged, just remember that all of learn at different paces and play differently - embrace that.

>>105757
I play guitar and write songs

I've been playing clarinet for 10+ years and perform in a couple public concert bands. I was in a pit band for a few theater shows (where I also played bass clarinet) but it ended after our music director moved to another state. I also played violin as a kid but it was kind of difficult to do because I'm left-handed so I just kinda stopped after a while.

I think it would've been nice to go to a University for a music major but I don't think I'd be able to afford it. Are there any fun computer programs to use for composition?

>>106564
What do you mean by composition? There's a few programs out there that let you do different stuff, you can just pirate a lot of the software people use to produce and mix music, but it's not exactly fun to learn, there's like a 300 page manual in most I've seen or attempted to use.

There's one I've never used called garage band or something that's supposedly pretty user friendly, but I'm not sure exactly what it does.

Anything by pro tools or fruity loops studio is pretty much guaranteed to be of a pretty high quality though. And reaper is apparently quite good too, and doesn't cost hundreds of dollars if you're considering actually buying one.

But with using any of these, you'll need a pretty good knowledge of how to produce music and what all the jargon means and what you want out of it to get much use.

>>106554
What sort of stuff do you write anon?

>>106573
slow and sad or pop. I can't do anything complicated so it's mostly poppy easy stuff. I want to get into using music software, don't really know where to start, garageband is a bit too simple

>>106578
Don't stress about whether you're some virtuoso or not, very few guitarists ever get that good, and the best practice ridiculous amounts, like 8-10 hour days of just practicing aren't uncommon for some of the best of them (think people like Guthrie Govans, or Steve Vai for example. Eddie van halen spoke about similar too). And look at groups like the Beatles for proof that you can do a hell of a lot with relatively simple stuff. Your ability to hear melody is what makes for great songs, technical ability just lets you make different sounds to add into that melody.

As for musical software, the stuff I listed is considered some of the best, but I've got no idea where you'd look into learning how to use it. There's probably a for dummies book on music production, and all of these software's come with huge manuals you'll want to sift through.


Though it's really understated how much you can do with just audacity, which is really easy to do simple stuff with like adjusting mixes or adding in background stuff, cutting out shit parts. The other softwares just add a whole heap more, and are a bit better at doing some of that stuff, but it's not necessary for a beginner. And I doubt anyone here is much more than a beginner at music production.

You'll need some hardware depending on your instrument too. If you play electric you can get away with just hooking up through a 1/4" to USB cable generally, but you need good microphone setups to get much quality from other instruments.

Hope this helped at least somewhat.

>>106580
thanks :D

>>106581
No worries anon, good luck with any future endeavors.