Learn A Second Instrument
It’s pretty common for band
geeks like myself to play more than one instrument. There’s always your main instrument that you love and then a
second instrument that you just play for whatever reason. When I was in grade school and high
school, it was uncommon for a band geek to not play at least two instruments
(some of us even played three and four different instruments throughout the
school year).
Most young people in school
band programs end up playing two instruments for the same reason I did;
shortage of musicians in the band.
In Junior High School, our orchestra was short an upright string bass
player. I was already a violin
player (my second instrument to drumming), but not very good at it, so it
didn’t take much arm-twisting for me to switch instruments. I put in extra time and hard work
switching from treble clef to bass clef and learning technique.
The Benefits of Learning a
Second Instrument
How Being a
Multi-Instrumentalist Saved My Gig
Many moons ago, I was hired
to play drums in a cover band at a private function. The gig was unrehearsed and all of the musicians had to read
the tunes from charts. The
bandleader was sweating and in a bit of a panic because he forgot the drum
charts. He didn’t have time to run
home and get my charts because he lived 45 minutes away and we were on in 15
minutes. I put his mind at ease by
saying, “Do you have an extra copy of the bass charts?”
Leader- “Yeah, why?”
Me – “I play bass as well and
if you give me the bass charts I will know where the hits are and have an idea
of what to play and what not to play”.
Leader- “Seriously? That’s great! Yeah, I do have an extra bass chart!”
Problem solved. Gig saved. I guess I should’ve mentioned earlier in this blog that it’s
also important that you learn how to read music as well. Without that very important detail it
would’ve been a lot harder for me to salvage the above gig.
The Last Thing
If you suck at your second
instrument it’s OK. Don’t beat
yourself up about it. I sucked at
violin for years and still managed to somehow enjoy the experience. The same can be said with upright
string bass. Even though I wasn’t
as bad at bass as I was at violin, I could never ace first chair because I was
the late starter bringing up the rear against guys that had been playing
already for years while I was wasting time on violin. Be that as it may, I still thoroughly enjoyed playing bass
in the orchestra. With a second
instrument, allow yourself to simply enjoy the experience of playing the
instrument without any pressure.
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