Hello,

When you decided to learn an instrument, what made you pick the instrument you now play? Did you want to learn how to play a musical instrument and then picked one or did you already know what you wanted to learn?

I got asked, with a few of my class mates, if I would like to learn the violin at school. Without that I would have probably not even thought of it - and neither would my parents....
then piano followed naturally,
flute because I'd always wanted to play it and there is nowhere to play stringed instruments here and I missed ensemble playing, and singing because I discovered a great teacher through my daughter!

My first instrument was stood in the front room of the house where I grew up - I couldn't leave it alone!

Subsequent ones were picked because I was attracted to the sound.

My first love was Cello!!

But when I decided to play an instrument I had to consider the following:

1. I didn't have a car then and I didn't want to carry a Cello everywhere.

2. I had to do a lot of air travel which means I can't carry a Cello with me (or spend a fortune transporting it).

3. And I have a tiny flat and I couldn't possibly find a place to keep the cello!

So I chose Flute! But I was also researching on Clarinet which was an unknown instrument to me! But only few videos of Clarinet music on Youtube (Mozart Concerto, Messager's Solo de Concours etc) was need to convince me to give it a try.

20 months later, I am now taking Grade 5 Clarinet exam and I love it.

I do often get an urge to get into Cello (sigh) but I have decided to let it wait till I get to Grade 8+ standard in Clarinet.

I had piano lessons as a child. All they did was to convice me that I could not play an instrument that required you to move two hands independently.

I did learn to play recorder at school, got quite good at it and quite enjoyed it. I have also sung in choirs at church, school and other places since I was quite small.

{mumble, mumble} years ago, I sang in a performance of the Bach St. Matthew Passion which had full orchestra and professional soloists. In the aria and chorus for I would beside my Lord, I heard this wonderful singing, reedy sound from an instrument that looked a bit like a recorder, and thought - "I could play that!", so I bought an oboe. (This was the days before wife and children, when I actually had money.)

Lo, these many years later and now retired, I have the time to try and learn the instrument properly, and can actually make a reasonable stab at I would beside my Lord, which I discover is a Grade 7 piece.

Desperately wanted to play piano when we had one at home when i was about 10. A friend who was learning taught me what the notes were. Piano went on the bonfire (best place for it really!) and I never really expected to be able to learn. Then at 14 the church organist who was leaving mentioned that the new organist had been his piano teacher. I asked about lessons and he was charging such a low sum I finally got my wish. I'd never forgotten what my friend had taught me.
I'd been learning Clarinet in school. It was offered and I suppose somehow I had to play something. Gave up clarinet after 3 years (a lot to do with not liking the teacher much but also that when I went to a music services ensemble I was so all at sea and got very confused over all the shiny keys). Played cornet in the school and music centre bands til I left school but didn't actually have lessons.

Kept up piano though there were some gaps then one day there was a forum challenge and a forumite lent me her clarinet. I'd forgotten everything except how to put it together and which way up but picked it up fairly quickly. It was never intended to be serious, just something to play in forum event ensembles....

So I chose piano and it looks like the clarinet chose me.

I didn't conciously choose the Oboe..





It chose me and I was too weak to resist it's charms.

Like Andrew except that I did resist for many years - mainly due to my own perceptions of its difficulty, not to mention the expense. Instead I took up viola which I played for a while but didn't achieve anything with, then spent some time singing, dabbled briefly with classical guitar (but only because I really wanted to play blues) before a spell on recorder led me inevitably to my holy grail. It took some getting here but I'm unbelievably happy that eventually I arrived.

I just wanted to play Elgar

There was a rumour that someone was having recorder lessons at infant school, so keeping up with the Joneses and all, I had to have a go. Then the violin man came in junior school to test anyone who wanted, so the whole class trooped to the hall for what I remember as "write down whether the second note is higher or lower than the first" type questions, and sometime later was presented with and then quickly deprived of a half size violin as it was too big. Then sometime later again was presented with a quarter size. Then in secondary school I found grandad's clarinet and a history teacher reluctantly agreed to give me some lessons, probably on the basis I was terrible at history so might be good at clarinet. Then a guitar and piano came along and she pootled away.

EDIT: Fixing some shocking and misleading typos....

Interesting question.

At school it was all by default. At the start of 2nd form we all started on an instrument. At the end of the previous term we were asked to list preferences 1,2,3. I must have been a pessimist because I didn't think I'd stand a chance getting to play trumpet or similar so I went violin, viola, cello.

I got my third choice

Around 2000 I started going to early music workshops as a singer. I started encountering various early instruments - recorders, viols, sackbuts etc. About 2003 I decided to opt for a bass viol as it was similar to the cello which I'd played at school back in the 70s but I was advised "not as difficult to learn" Yeah, right!

To be fair, repertoire is generally less demanding (in terms of gamut bit repertoire can be ferocious on th etiming front - Byrd Fantasias anyone?) and unless you fancy some serious French Baroque solo stuff by Marais, then you generally don't get virtuosic repertoire. So if you already known how to play a string instrument, the viol is not going to be too hard to pick up. The obvious differences being 6 strings, frets, and under-hand bowing.

Couple of years later I bought a tenor viol.

Finally, last November I returned to the cello after 35 years.

I didn't choose the oboe. I played recorder (descant and treble) at primary school but at high school there weren't any opportunities to play recorder (until me and my friend started a recorder ensemble, but that's a different story) so my mum asked at a parents evening if the school could recommend me something to play that wasn't flute, clarinet etc (I just wasn't interested in learning them as so many other kids did) and they suggested the oboe. I didn't know what one was until I turned up for my first lesson

Total serendipity.
My daughter had graduated to a professional flute. I was finding that as a dancer, I could tell if she was playing something wrong, but I had no musical vocabulary to describe what was the problem. Many years ago, when I was at stage school, my two room mates were at a music conservatoire. They both played flute, but used to say that there were more opportunities for players of low uptake instruments. So, one evening I was waiting for the student before my daughter to finish her lesson, and chatting to the Mum, who asked me what we were going to do with the student flute. I replied that I wanted to learn an instrument, as I wanted to be able to share musicality with my daughter, but as I couldn't afford a bassoon, I was going to take over the flute. Sitting in the waiting room, was a person I'd never seen before, who said "I've got a bassoon you can have!!!!!"
It turned out he'd been given it by a friend three years previously, and had never used it. He wanted it to go to someone who would use it, and refused any payment at all.
And that's how my instrument chose me

That's a lovely story.

I am not religious at all but I think it's kismet. You were meant to be bassoonista!!

For all of them, it was nice sounds. Simple as that

I was desperate to learn the piano when I was a little girl - no idea why. My first piano was given to me by someone my dad knew on his rounds as the Co-op coalman. I still remember the excitement on a Saturday morning when my piano arrived on the back of the co-op coal lorry - it must have been a heck of a job to get it on and off there!

Those were the days - when the Co-op had coalmen - and a bacon counter

In a moment of deep soul-searching, the oboe just spontaneously popped out... and rescued me from deep despair.

I started learning the flute at school... but my big sister played it too and I never much liked following in her footsteps.....
So when the opportunity came up to play the clarinet I jumped at it!
When I was nearly 11 and had a car accident and lost my front teeth, my teacher told me to take up another instrument as I'd never be able to play the clarinet again. My Dad got a 2nd opinion and found this out to be false..... and so i carried on with false teeth...

At 15 I took up the double bass as the school had one!

As an adult, when my youngest started school, I took up the piano. My Dad was a pianist and he wouldn't let anyone else teach us but he never got around to teaching us either- he would have disagreed with the teacher about many, many things.....He once disagreed with my sister's flute teacher about the interpretation of a Lennox Berkeley piece and he was convinced he was right as he had proof read for Lennox Berkeley....
So i started lessons...and my dad was actually thrilled.......

I actually quite liked the idea of the trombone, but decided my neighbours might not feel so enthusiastic and that it might be less than convenient on public transport, so I chose the flute. Why the flute rather than another woodwind instrument I suppose comes down to many years before, when James Galway started appearing on the television and I thought how lovely that sound was.

My choice of instruments was heavily influenced by my family background:

1 Nobody in my immediate family (apart from me) is remotely musical, so music wasn't so much disapproved of as totally off the radar;
2 Money was tight, and so affording either an instrument or lessons was out of the question.

With this in mind it was hardly surprising that my first instrument was voice. It's free, and you can participate in musical events before having had lessons. I eventually started lessons in my late 20's having the money to fund it myself.

Second instrument came about totally by chance. I was 16 and one of my classmates announced "anybody wanna buy a classical guitar, 4 quid?"
Next day I proudly came home clutching my prize, much to the bemusement of family, who were a bit but tolerated it as long as I didn't make any nasty loud noises on it and kept it in the bedroom.

Thanks to the help of a friend who was having guitar lessons and who wrote out a crib sheet of what the notes were and where they could be found on the instrument (I couldn't actually read music at the time) I managed to get to a level where I could join in the (free) group lessons at school, and, eventually, a guitar orchestra.

At Uni the same story continued, as I managed to blag my way into free lessons that were being offered to those studying to become teachers. I wasn't on the teacher training course but there were places left over, and eventually the teacher gave me individual lessons (still free!!) as I'd progressed way beyond the chord-strumming that the others wanted and he found it more interesting to teach me!

I stopped playing in my 20s but recently restarted after some threads on this forum about learning guitar gave me itchy fingers.

I do sometimes wonder what might have happened if the classmate had come in that day with an affordable flute/trumpet/violin/bagpipes...

At the risk of sounding cheesy:
I didn't choose it, it chose me. It just happened, unlike with the other instruments I also play, but which I wouldn't call "my" instruments.

I started clarinet after getting a leaflet out at primary school (I was 7 at the time). It had a whole list of instruments that pupils could learn, all independent teachers, 30 minutes individual lessons. I did not learn until much later just how good that school's music provision was. There were just about every instrument from the orchestra, I knew I wanted to learn an instrument and my first choices were piano and violin.

My mum refused to let me play the piano as it was "too big", little did she knew that aged 12 she would be buying me a piano anyway ... and she hated the sound of the violin , doubt she'd really heard one played well, though

So, in the end it was between flute and clarinet. Clarinet won. For a year I had lessons at school, until my parents moved and then I carried on with lessons with the same teacher adding piano at 12. Unfortunately, more or less had to relearn piano at 21 because my teacher had taught me practically NO technique.

I started playing flute at 16 and progressed very quickly but now I have decided to give the flute up, after taking up Alto Saxophone at 22 and finding another instrument that I'm interested in.

So, basically here I am now a diploma level clarinettist who teaches the instrument that I set out to learn all those years ago. Piano has become my new musical passion, though. Currently I'm about Grade 7 level but continuously improving, infact I play much more piano than clarinet. From exam accompaniments to Sonatas and everything inbetween, my aim is to be up to diploma standard by 2015 and teach piano. No idea of my level on saxophone but I can play all of my clarinet repertoire on it, with a little bit of re-jigging notes about to take into account the limited range ...

You mean you haven't had a look at the altissimo range on the sax yet?...

Started looking, yes

Not got too far from the "standard" range Was also talking about bottom notes too.

Well, I've recently been invited to play guitar at a medieval day at a castle. But I had to reply no, I don't play guitar any more. Further conversation revealed the violin playing lady who asked me also plays recorder, and they are short of a bass player. Happy memories of playing in a school recorder ensemble 30 years ago caused a wistful look in my eye, and before I knew it I'd been invited to join them, not having played a note for decades. My Dad who is an early music nut has given me an old tenor recorder and has helped start me off playing again. I hope to see the lady again on thusday and let her know I do want to join the group.
I guess this is another example of how an instrument can choose you! I would never have thought of recorder, but I am beside myself with excitement about it now.

I know I was slightly winding you up, P*P, sorryyyyy

Violin and cello were offered at my primary school. I tried out for both (the idea of NOT doing so hadn't crossed my mind), and was offered violin. Several years later I became drawn to the viola. The slightly unusual has always appealed to me. Particularly when it has such a fantastic voice as the viola.


Hi Adultlearner. I see that you joined the forum ages ago and have posted very few times. I'm intrigued as to what it was about this thread that suddenly made you post on it!

I didn't really had a chance to choose my instrument. My parents decieded. So I had to learn the flute instead of cello, what would have been my choice.
But I love music so much, that I took this chance. Later I added trumpet (for the church brass band) sang in the school choir and the church choir, played in the school orchestra and just loved to do everything I could fit in that had to do with music. Later I added piano, but I only had lessons for four years.
Many years later I decieded that flute is the wrong instrument for me and started to learn tenorsax. Then many things occupied my time and after a while I didn't play at all.
I restarted to learn the flute nearly four years ago and I love it.

Maybe there will come a day to buy a cello and learn how to play it.

The five instruments for which I have received formal instruction:

1. Recorder Primary School offered free lessons. Given wooden recorder by family. Learn to read treble clef and play simple tunes. Lessons end. Recorder put away. Somehow ceases to function. End of Recorder career.

2. Piano Mother buys 2nd-hand piano. Teach self elementary stages using old copy of Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Learn to read bass clef. Now 15. Friends at High School enquire as to which piano book I am using. Refuse to divulge title of book to fellow teens. By time I reach John Thompson's 2nd grade book, mother, possibly concerned at bad habits self-instruction can nurture, finds local piano teacher. Continue with her into early twenties. Piano career continues. Piano remains first and abiding love since first bashing on Nana's piano at tender age. Other instruments are flirtations and in case of number three, a blind date.

3. Euphonium High school offers free instruments and cheap 30 minute lessons on Saturday. Go to music room. Have taken up offer too late and choice is "reduced" to battered old euphonium. (Apologies to brass players). Take lessons for a while but heart isn't really in it. Invited to join school's brass band but out of depth and only play one note. End of Euphonium career.

4. Guitar As young Uni student, think it would be cool to learn the guitar. Given acoustic guitar for Christmas. Take lessons in popular and classical guitar.(Two different teachers). Formal lessons end (I think both teachers offered a fixed course of about 10 lessons). Slow progress, but loathe to quit altogether. Friend of flatmates visits flat, offers to buy guitar. Refuse to sell guitar but lend to him. Move out of flat and lose contact with him and with guitar. Could easily afford to replace same but never do. End of Guitar career.

5. Violin Go through a stressful time in middle-age. Start to dream of learning the violin. Brother took violin lessons when he was a boy, but no longer plays, so a free violin can be mine if I want it. Enquire about a violin teacher. Music shop where I buy strings, rosin and a tuner recommends a good one. Ukrainian, Jewish, he has been trained in the Russian school from a tender age and relishes all styles and genres: classical, tango, celtic, klezmer...
Gives me a book of Russian exercises. At my age I go slowly, but teacher is glad to see I can read music, and know a good deal of music theory. That helps. Still persevering with violin. Get a kick out of just being able to play simple tunes. Prepared to go at own pace. So far, Violin career continues...

What all five instruments have in common is that they were all available free...

Ever since hearing one of my friends play her clarinet at our first class music lesson at secondary school I was hooked and spent almost 20 years longing to play one. Just over three years ago I was in the position to be able to buy an instrument and take lessons

I've recently also been able to try another instrument I'd wanted to have a go at for a long time, the oboe, not sure how long this journey will continue for though, will depend on how long I can have the instrument for for the timebeing.

I have a history of various instruments going back to childhood none of which I chose myself. My first love though was the piano but I haven't played one for over 20 years

I now exclusively play the Viola And I chose it - love at first sight/hearing.


I was learning to play the violin a few years ago and enjoying it well enough. One day my teacher showed me the viola she had just had made by commission from a local luthier. Bravely, she let me play a few notes on it.

Well.... THAT SOUND!!! I can't describe it - it just sent shivers up my spine and I was IN LOVE After that it was ALL I wanted to play and although I sometimes play intermittently due to other commitments I finally feel I have found THE instrument for me

Have I gushed enough?

Piano? Well, it's the middle-class curriculum syndrome
Oboe? Mum said I could add a second instrument, an orchestral one maybe. I asked for trumpet and she was appalled, offering clarinet, oboe or flute instead. Didn't like the sound of either clarinet or flute that much, opted for oboe....and sounded substantially worse than a trumpet for a very long time .

Then the recorder and I chose each other by mutual agreement. My oboe'd broken, I was a student with no access to any regular piano-playing opportunities, I could only afford a recorder......and discovered that wow, I can actually learn to play this thing. The power I'd acquired in learning the oboe had to be rechannelled into proper support, the finger dexterity was also already there, and at the same time I didn't need to put so much energy into sound production. Bliss . I was given twenty one of the new one pound coins for my 21st birthday, kept on squirreling any other pounds I got until I had enough, and splashed out on a decent treble, and it (eventually) took off from there .

So, just maybe, you might, at a push, find the viola to be an acceptable alternative to the violin? I wasn't sure as you seemed to be prevaricating

The viola isn't a substitute for anything. It's a grown up violin

Now if you want an instrument that is the full size for that pitch you need a tenor viol: it sits on your lap between your knees, uses same C3 alto clef, has 6 stings with bottom string being a 4th below viola on G... what more could you want?

Ah but....... What gives the viola it's particular gorgeous sound quality is the fact that the body is actually too small.

First instrument as many others quoted - recorder. I remember there being several learning groups and quick as a flash I was in the advanced group, being only about Year 3, along with my brother and other Year 6's

Not sure how I got into playing the clarinet, I think I heard someone else in my year was having lessons and I fancied having a go I remember, not sure how, it taking a few attempts to get a note but I managed it! My first lesson, my "audition" comprised of, "play E", then "play D", then "play C" and I got lessons at that time, I think the first couple of years were free, and then about a tenner a term thereafter. I progressed to doing Grades 1 and 2 at primary school and did Grades 3, 4, and 5 at secondary school. I stupidly missed out on doing my Grade 7 in my last couple of years of school to concentrate on my GCSE Music. Same happened at college. Looking back, I wish I'd done it at school as A Level Music was so much more difficult than GCSE!

Before leaving school, I remember being interested in the flute and so asked my mum about getting me one. Once I did my GCSE's she bought me a second hand Boosey and Hawkes one, really good at about ?95. Anyway, I naively thought with a scale book and a few nice books here and there, I could teach myself how to play it, and so I played it every now and again, probably avoiding it for a year, 18 months at a time! Then I was on Facebook one day and someone mentioned about having bought a flute and wanting lessons and so a friend of mine offered, and so this piqued my interest and so I asked her about them and after having a flute for 8 years I finally started to have lessons! After playing through a few different pieces she thought I was Grade 3 standard already but I started looking through Grade 4 music and took the plunge in doing my Grade 4 this term, after only having lessons since September! I'm hoping to do Grade 5 but if I'm to do it under my current teacher I need to do it next term, she leaves for uni in September/October!

I still wish I'd started having flute lessons sooner, and perhaps taking up the saxophone, and piano. But it's never too late

I started playing the recorder at primary school, I seemed to be able to play the descant recorder quite easily so I was given a treble recorder. I kept up playing until I went off to secondary school, then I got back into it when I realised how much I loved Baroque and Renaissance music. I got a wooden treble for my 22nd birthday and a wooden descant for my 23rd.

My mum played the piano when she was younger and when we used to visit my grandparents I used to try and play the piano. Finally at around 8 my parents said I could have lessons and my grandparents piano was brought up to our house. I continued with that until I was 18 but A-levels got in the way and I never passed my grade 8, over the last few years I've started playing recreationally and I intend on taking my grade 8 within the next few years.

After playing the piano for a year my primary school offered some of us the opportunity to take up either flute or clarinet. I liked the sound of the clarinet so decided I wanted to play that. Fortunately I was allowed and I fell in love with it. I am now at the stage where I want to teach other people so I'm looking to doing my teaching diploma.

I then had a brief fling with the guitar, self-taught during my teens, in a few bands that got nowhere as guitarist and bass guitarist but nothing serious.

My sister started learning to play the flute but gave up after a few years. Last year I offered her some money for her flute and she told me to just have it, so I started teaching myself. I think I need to get a teacher now, but I can't afford it at the minute. I would estimate I'm about grade 5/6 at the minute based on the music I like playing.

Finally, my most recent instrument: the viola. I was trying to come up with a way of raising some money for a good cause, I came up with a physical challenge I will undertake next year (Three Peaks Challenge) and I wanted an arts related challenge. Someone suggested a grade-1-a-thon so I had a think about what instruments I would like to learn to play, and could learn to play cheaply. I went through my list of friends from music college Saturday school to see what they all played. I didn't want to learn to play a woodwind instrument because people might think that was too similar to the instruments I already play, so it was either brass or string. I wanted it to be a proper challenge, I have 4 months to learn to play it. So I came across a guy I was friendly with who played the viola, he lives near me and learning an instrument that uses a different clef to any of the others I'm used to playing added to the challenge, so I got my viola on valentine's day and fell in love with it. My grade-1-a-thon has now become at least a grade-2-a-thon and we shall see what happens in the next month as to whether it becomes a grade-3-a-thon.

Born into a brass band family, and fell in love with the euphonium at an early age what a majestic sound when in a good players hands, the euph is the tenor of the band, became a decent player over the years but not premier league status still get hairs standing up on my neck when I hear the top players on cd etc, stopped playing myself some years ago because of chronic lung problems. Now tinkle on the ivories doing my grade 4 piano in session B.

Everyone was taught recorder in my primary school and I fell in love with music but hated the sound of the recorder.

Then I started violin because I loved the sound of it but lost interest when it didn't sound like that in my hands

Then I started the oboe because two of my friends were starting it. I quit because my teacher detested boys and it was a group lesson with me and two girls who got all of the praise whereas she just moaned at me. She also made me lend them my oboe if they forgot to bring theirs to school but sent me back to class if I ever forgot mine. (As you have probably guessed, it was an ordeal and a half).

A flautist friend of my parents then came round one evening and let me try to blow her flute (oh my!) and I got a sound out of it straight away and shocked everyone so I pretty much started it because I thought I could be good at it (looking back it was obviously somewhat parent-influenced). I don't play it that much anymore but that was the first one I didn't give up

Keyboard I learned because my sister was learning it and she was too young for my parents to feel comfortable sending her to lessons alone so we had joint ones. My sister got bored (being more inclined to art and drama), then I discovered piano music and gave up keyboard and the rest is history really.

Off topic I know, but I hope that teacher was found out and disciplined : how unprofessional...

Started piano lessons at age 9, because two of my friends were doing it. Wasn't ready, didn't practice, and got so stressed about it I had to have tablets to calm me down...

Shortly afterwards, got a wooden recorder. Can't remember why - we weren't doing it in school. Worked through through the two first instruction books and taught myself. Later bought a treble recorder and did the same thing. Was very enthusiastic, and acquired all the initial musical theory which was so useful later.

At 13, was offered an instrument from school. I asked for clarinet, but for some reason was offered a violin (I think it depended on what was in the school cupboard at the time!). Took it up and passed Grade 2 in short order.

Flushed with enthusiasm, then took up piano again as well. This time I loved it. By O-levels I'd passed Grade 5 in both piano and violin.

I think it was all down to being ready (or not) for each instrument at the time.

And from the point of view of playing in an orchestra, the violin offers more opportunities (numerically) than a wind instrument would have done!