Hi all adult learners,

I was just wondering what led you all to start on your musical pathway? Mine is quite an interesting story. I was given an electric keyboard as a Christmas gift one year and I was unimpressed to say the least. However, in order to not upset the person who gave it me, I thought I would take a few lessons in order to seem like I thought it was a nice gift. Well, 5 years, an acoustic piano and 7 grades later I am 100% committed to becoming a good pianist.

Share your story!

Shelton

Hi Shelton,
I love music because we have lots of all kinds of music at home. My parents also took me to a lot of ballet in London when I was very young like Nutcracker and Giselle and so on. I love going to the pit where the musicians were. I asked my mum to let me learn the violin but she didn't.

But then later when I was 6 or 7, there was this TV program called Professor Allegro which I watched with wonder! It was fantastic! I fell head over heels in love with the violin and decided that I simply HAVE to be a violinist!!! The violinist in the programme was called Steve. I still remember him very well now. He was playing "March Hare" by Jennie Muskett, I think. That's what led me to pester my mum again to study the violin. I pestered her for 4 years in all, I think! In the end she let me.

VIOLINUTTER here!

I am off to bed now. *yawn*

Russ Conway.

I am 54. Younger readers will not remember evenings of tv torture in black and white, inflicted on small children back in the days when there was 1 (yes, that is '1', not 1000) channel available on tv. As a little boy, my mother inflicted upon me The Billy Cotton Band Show on Sunday nights, alternating with the equally dreadful Bladk And White Minstrel's Show.

Happlily, the BC had a regular spot for Russ Conway, a 'light music' pianist with considerable facility and a fantastic smile. Aged 6, I was entranced. I wanted nothing more than to play like RC. I found out later on that he had a finger missing on his left had, too. Wow.

I still cannot play like him. I thank God (or whatever replacement for this entity readers have) for this. I also thank Russ for setting me on a path that lead to a fantastic career.

Steve

I think I was in love with Russ Conway when I was 6

I had finished an OU degree, and had the learning bug. I decided to learn something creative and exercise the right side of my brain for a change. So I decided I would learn music.

The violin just chose itself...wonderful instrument (well in the right hands ).

Only regret is that I didn't start sooner. It has changed my life

Well, i wanted to start learning a musical instrument at a very young age, as i grow up, i still wanted to learn. But with a different reason. When i was a child, i wanted to learn the piano, because the sound of the piano just simply mesmorises me. When i was a teenager, i wanted to learn the guitar, because i thought i could impress the opposite sex with it. When i was in my early twenties during my university days, i wanted to learn the flute, because i realise that i can make some pocket money through busking with the flute. When i was slightly older, i wanted to learn the violin, because violin seems more sophisticated and challenging than the flute. But once i learnt the violin, i've really began to fall in love with the expressiveness of the violin, and no other reasons matter anymore. I just simply love the violin for what it is. I've becomed obssesed with the violin like never before with other instruments.

We talked about this back in February, and got a lot of interesting histories from people: here is the thread.

Cheers

Katyjay

I guess my introduction to the joys of music is rather strange also.

Being a young 12 year old (back in 19....ahem) I was the proud owner of a Commodore 64 home computer. So I played the games, played them again...got bored of the games about a month later and picked up the programming manual.
One of the programs I typed out mimicked a monophonic synth - which you played using the computer keyboard. For all the expensive games, I think I played with this little program the most and my love of the sound of music started.
The sound chip in the C64 was pretty advanced at the time, and led to some wonderful creative tunes with-in the games - I'd sometimes buy a game just for the great sound.

After a couple of synths I've finally taken the plunge (many years on) and my instrument of choice is piano.

The funny thing is I can still remember so many of the addictive old tunes from the C64 and even play a few !

I just think it's an odd ball way of getting into music - but what the hey !

We still have a working Commodore C64....
Gameplay used to matter then as the graphics were limited.
Nowadays it's all fancy graphics and soundtracks attached to games which are too complicated to play.

Thought I would throw in my 2p for what it is worth...

As a child I dabbled in music, recorder, violin but gave up after getting a G in my school report....lowest recorded mark for music ever....!!!

Then 20 years later aged 29 I visited a friend who had a grand piano in her house (left over from a previous tenent who was unable to move it)...she could only play very simple tunes on it but the sight of her sitting in front of it and the sound that it created was amazing.....I was hooked and really wanted to learn to play. A few months later I bought a second hand electric keyboard and proceded to teach myself. After mucking around with it for 4 years my husband as a Christmas present bought me a set of piano lessons....just to see if I was serious or not....Now a year later I am still learning to play (hoping to do Grade 1 soon) and still love the piano...I have also picked up the recorder again and love playing that too....

I believe even though I was terrible at music as a child I had the music bug in me...I was just to young to understand that you needed a lot of dedication and though fun is hard work.

Well, the reasons for starting the various instruments I've played over the years and too many to list here but the reason I started the piano at the particular time was as follows. Our house was flooded to 1.5 metres in 2000 and we lost thousands of books for which we managed to receive a large insurance payout , so I started thinking about buying, among other things, a small digital keyboard & some software so I could have a go at composition, but when I started looking at the keyboards and all that was on offer, this ambition gradually grew to wanting to learn to play piano on the best digital instrument available . I bought a top of the range Clavinova in May 2001 and didn't take lessons for the first couple of years, but taught myself from books, and thankfully didn't develop any seriously bad habits !

I remember being in primary school (being aged about 7 or 8), and being shown a video with lots of singing/music, and watching a man playing the piano, and thinking "that man is GOD!" (sorry to offend any Christians)...ever since then I have a had a fixation with the piano and just knew I HAD to play like him! Dunno who he was but he was a blimmin good pianist....

My late Grandma got me into it when i was 5 yrs old (ish) 32 years ago.
She had un upright piano in her front room which i couldnt keep my hands off .I kept making a bee -line to it everytime we went round-you know- it was a massive thing when you're young and very small ! and every time you press a key sounds came from it.
My Grandma use to sit me on her knee as i cudnt get on the stool ( she was an expert at playing by ear but couldn't read music to save her life ! ) she wouldn't let all of my other cousins anywhere near it as they would use their fists instead of of fingers like i did.After a while,before we moved up north,she advised my parents to " find him a teacher because he's got natural talent !" which they did and that was 30 yrs ago.
Ive now got her photo on top of my Clavanova.

Similar kind of thing. My granddad was the musical one in our family. He played in various Beecham orchestras. Bequeathed me his violin though I'd learned to play the piano and took a few lower-grade exams ages ago. So this is why I took up the violin later in life!

Peggy

I was 4 when i started pretending to play the piano on the kitchen table- my parents finally let me have lessons when i was 6............i went upto Diploma level, then stopped at 18, but im just starting again- when i get a piano back in the house!
i started recorder at school, and started trying to play it sideways like a flute!- then at 12ish i started the flute at comp........same as above then i got another a few months ago- and im trying to get bck into that too- but pianos my passion really- a flute is just more compact in a compact house!!!!

jen