First music lesson?

[spaceray]

When was your first music lesson ,how old were you,was it a positive experience and how long was it before you began to realize how music worked?

[chopithoven]

I know this has nothing to do with the original question, but I'd like to know when was Beethoven's first music lesson with his "official" teachers, and if there any details about them (obviously we cannot know when he had his first lesson with his father).

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Imagine if Beethoven was your first piano teacher!

[Chris]

I imagine many of us learned about music in school, before we had any real music lessons. Kindergarten, I suppose, was when all that started. Simple things - learning to clap in rhythm, etc. I already knew how to read music and play the recorder (everyone was required to learn these things where I went to school) by the time I was old enough to start learning the violin and join the school orchestra (9 years old). I began taking real violin lessons with a private teacher a few years after that.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited December 11, 2002).]

[chopithoven]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Imagine if Beethoven was your first piano teacher!

He would kick my ass shouting "you're very bad".

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by chopithoven:
He would kick my ass shouting "you're very bad".

Same here with me! My first musical experience that I remember is learning to read music with my mother. She taught piano when I was little, but unfortunately didn't continue with me for more than a year. I spent the next 10 years trying to figure it out for myself (learning bad habits) before I was able to receive formal lessons again.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Sorrano:
Same here with me! My first musical experience that I remember is learning to read music with my mother. She taught piano when I was little, but unfortunately didn't continue with me for more than a year. I spent the next 10 years trying to figure it out for myself (learning bad habits) before I was able to receive formal lessons again.

That's about how it happened with me. I first learned from my Mother and Aunt and then was on my own for a while. I know some bad habits I formed too which are hard to break now and a music teacher would probably get very upset with me, but, I get by and can read notes and play which is very enjoyable for me.

Joy

[spaceray]

Would you be willing to expand on "bad habits" Perhaps give an example?

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Chris:
I imagine many of us learned about music in school, before we had any real music lessons. Kindergarten, I suppose, was when all that started. Simple things - learning to clap in rhythm, etc. I already knew how to read music and play the recorder (everyone was required to learn these things where I went to school) by the time I was old enough to start learning the violin and join the school orchestra (9 years old). I began taking real violin lessons with a private teacher a few years after that.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited December 11, 2002).]

Do you feel that you had 'natural' music ability,did the violin come easily to you?

[Chris]

I think it came more easily to me than to most people. I was always the best out of my peers in school, though that was mainly due the fact that I was far more interested in it than they were. Most just played because their parents made them. But I remember longing to play the violin long before we were at the age when we were allowed to start. When it came time to choose, I didn't even have to think about it for a second.

I was the best in high school since I was the only one who took private lessons (though the music teacher often made me sit second chair just to spite me). My high school orchestra was possibly the most pathetic high school orchestra that has ever existed. We spent most of our time sorting music for the marching band! I had had enough after two years and quit, just continuing with my private teacher.

By the time I graduated, I was a fairly good player. But it was about that time that I began to realize that my private teacher was not very good. Compared to other people my age that were preparing to start music degrees, I was actually a fairly weak player, in the sense that my technical skills were very undeveloped compared to theirs. That wasn't really a problem, since I was going to study engineering (which I hate and have always hated, by the way). I planned to continue with violin lessons in college, but the work load was just too much. I took a lesson here and there, but mostly my skills deterorated severely.

That's where I am now. I really want to get back into it, but don't have the time just now. I still play at mass every weekend, so I don't lose it totally.

So, overall, I think I had talent. Not enough to be a world famous soloist or concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic (even if I had had teachers who cared and knew what they were doing), but some.

But I guess the most important thing is that I love playing. And for all those great pieces that I'll probably never be able to play, I can still listen to the great players play them via the miracle of technology

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Chris:
...That wasn't really a problem, since I was going to study engineering (which I hate and have always hated, by the way).

Just curious...are you an engineer now, Chris?

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Chris:
[B]I think it came more easily to me than to most people. B]

What do you think are the most difficult aspects of mastering the violin,good musicians make it look so easy ,so effortless to squeeze all that gorgeous sound out of that small instrument.

[John Rasmussen]

Music was all around me from earliest childhood. My mother tells the story of her and my two older sisters going out somewhere one evening, leaving me at home with my father, a scientist and fine amateur violinist. I was about ten months old. When Mom and my two sisters returned, my father cried out excitedly, "He was singing!"

I don't remember learning how to read music. Mom insists I was born reading music, and even my sister says that she realized I could read it at about age 8, before I had ever had a lesson. My first piano lessons were at about age 10, for maybe three years; then I struck out on my own on piano. I started playing flute and oboe in ninth grade, but wasn't fortunate enough to get good private lessons till age 17 when I attended the (Nebraska) All-State Fine Arts Camp on the University of Nebraska campus at Lincoln. There my instructor showed me that everything I did with the oboe was wrong and I virtually started over. This instructor was also certified in the Alexander method, a body-mind discipline that many professional actors and musicians use. He taught me that music involves the body and soul, not just the mind; it's a lesson I've continued learning to this day and will continue to learn till I lay down my instruments for the last time.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Just curious...are you an engineer now, Chris?

Won't have my B.S. for about 6 months. I will be after that.

[Chris]

Originally posted by spaceray:
What do you think are the most difficult aspects of mastering the violin,good musicians make it look so easy ,so effortless to squeeze all that gorgeous sound out of that small instrument.

For me, the hardest thing was figuring out how to hold it and getting comfortable with that. It seems like such a simple thing, but it's so essential and definitely not trivial - it takes some serious work to get comfortable holding the violin and the bow like you should.

I think another thing that particularly troubled me when I was first starting was learning to play out with force. You need strong, confident bow strokes to be able to get that beautiful violin tone. But when you're first starting, you don't have much confidence because you sound bad. But you won't sound good until you play with confidence! The only way to break out of that loop of bad playing is just to grit your teath and play out strongly, even if it doesn't sound good for a while. It was a hard leap to make. I imagine this applies to most instruments, though!