hi,
i am 16 years old and this month i started learning the keyboard. i
took 7 lessons till now.i am not sure what musical instument should i
play?is there any tests or questionarres that i can take on the web 
that can help me decide which musical instrument i should play(it must
be a serious one)?
note:i am not sure what musical genre i like the most too.

My cousin is a band teacher and she was talking about the fact that at
the beginning of the year a lot of kids are not sure what instrument
they want to play. But after trying a bunch of them, the right
instrument usually finds them. They either like the sound that the
instrument makes, or feel very comfortable with it. Is there a way for
you to try out a bunch of different instruments at school to see which
one you like best?

Guitar players get the girls when they are young. Piano players get
them when they are older (and probably need more help).

When I was young, I learned to play piano, guitar, violin, and flute.
I found the guitar to be by far the easiest and most versatile of
these instruments. Piano is nice, too, but you can't carry a piano
around with you. Violin was, for me at least, extremely difficult to
learn to play well, and a violin that is played badly is a horrific
thing.

Pink, the "'cordeen" is perfect for wannabe piano luggers!

Ooo, Hishmat, learn to play the accordion!

Accordion?? You might as well learn to play the bagpipes; although
I've always kind of liked the bagpipes.....maybe it's the Scottish in
me. Go for the guitar, hishmat.

 - artqs

Don't follow the crowd ...

Take up the Harp!

I am extremely musical, having played everything from trumpet to
piano, from singing to drums. Out of them all i loved the drums and
singing the most. There is nothing more portable than your voice and
you are only restrained by what you can do.

On the other hand the most fun instrument is the drums. When you have
had a tough day your trusty drum kit is there to take a beating :D

usrhlp

I reckon that a dusty carpet takes a lot of beating.

Your choice of musical instrument really depends on what you want to do.
This seems obvious, but since no one has mentioned it ...

Almost all instruments can be played solo, but there aren't so many
opportunities to do so unless you become quite proficient, and then it
may still be difficult to find people who want to listen  - if you
want to play by yourself to entertain others.
"Band instruments" are so named because they are mostly played in a
band, together with others, which is a different social atmosphere.
Some instruments require a better sense of pitch  - violin, cello,
trombone, etc., whereas your keyboard and piano, guitar, banjo, flute,
harp, etc. don't require one to be able to recognize and produce the
correct tone.  Of course, one still has to be able to recognize when
one hits the wrong note, but almost anyone interested in music can do
that.

Piano/keyboard and guitar are perhaps the socially most "useful"
instruments, finding greater acceptance in informal situations.  They
also have wider use in popular music groups.  And the choice of music
one can play on them is most varied.  You can pick your genre later
and still play either one.

So, it really depends on what you want to do.

As a little inspiration, a guy I went to school with at your age took
up the banjo and later was said to be the best banjo player at Yale (I
assume that there were more than three  ;-).  He did start by
practicing half an hour each day, but that just shows that application
brings results.

Good luck!

Im telling you man... Go buy two technics 1200s and a mixer... learn
to DJ... just spend like 3 months playing around learning how to
control the records... if you can DJ you can play every instrument

What are these "records" Riodjnarrow speaks of?

pre-computer, vinyl ROM hard disks

ok, well, I'll kinda give you a bit about each:

First off, if you have problems with your teeth, I'd suggest not
playing a wind instrument, but playing a stringed instrument or
percussion instead. However, you can still play wind instruments..but
you may have more difficulty on a few of them.

First off, if you want to play a more delicate, "classical"
instrument, go with a stringed instrument, flute, or maybe even
clarinet or oboe.

If you want an instrument that can be loud (like in pep and marching
band), jazzy, and in concert band, I'd reccomend trumpet or trombone,
or a tenor saxiphone or baritone saxiphone. Tuba and baritone are also
instruments that can play various pieces, but you won't see them in a
jazz ensemble usually.

If you'relooking more for an instrument to get a scholarship on, play
something that a lot of people don't play like bass clarinet, bassoon,
or oboe. If you learn to play clarinet or bass clarinet, it's easy to
switch back and forth between the two..if you know one, you can learn
the other in about an hour, which is nice.




I personally know a lot more about band than I do about orchestra, so
I'm going to go into some more detail about band instruments:

-Flute is considered a "woodwind" instrument, although it does not use
a reed to be played. Flute is a jazz band instrument. Flute plays a
lot of melody lines in concert music.

-Clarinet and Bass Clarinet are woodwind instruments. Clarinet shares
fingerings with the bass clarinet. Clarinets are common instruments,
however bass clarinets aren't as common. You might see a clarinet in a
jazz band, you probably won't see a bass clarinet in one though. If
you're looking for a scholarship for college, go with a less
well-known instrument, like the bass clarinet.

-Oboe isn't a very common instrument. It's probably easy to get into
college on a scholarship with oboe aswell. It is a double-reeded
instrument..rather than making sound with a reed vibrating against the
instrument, the vibrations are made with the reed [which is actually
two reeds] vibrating against itself.

-Trumpet is a brass instrument. It's important in pep/marching band,
and is commonly featured in jazz band. Trumpet has a small mouthpiece,
so it's hard for a lot of beginners to produce a "buzz" on the
mouthpiece.

-Trombone is a brass instrument. It is in jazz band, and is very
important in pep/marching band. It is the only instrument with a
slide. This also makes it the instrument that can be most or least
precise..if you're out of tune, you just have to move the slide in or
out a little. However, if you're inexperienced, you may miss the right
position and play out of tune freqently. This means it takes practice
to master, but is a very good instrument to play. It is not uncommon,
but is less common than clarinets and trumpets.

-Baritone is a brass instrument. It can play in both treble and bass
clef [if you play keyboard, you probably know what thoser are.] If you
play in treble clef, you share the same fingerings as trumpet, and
probably french horn as well. If you play in bass clef, you share the
same fingerings as a tuba.

-Tuba is a brass instrument. It plays in both treble and bass clef. It
is, again, important to pep band and marching band. It may however be
hard to march with, but gets a lot of attention. It shares fingerings
with a baritone when the baritone music is in bass clef. You can share
music with trombone players, however, you probably will take their
music down an octive.

-Percussion players play almost all percussion instuments..bass drum,
snare drum, triangle, timpony, bells, claves..everthing! Again, they
are important to both pep and marching band. Often times, when people
are marching in marching band but the band isn't playing, the
percussioners play "cadence", so they are almost always playing.



Lastly, like has been said before, piano is considered a very
sophisticated, romantic instrument. It is in jazz band, and there is
only one piano player, so they stick out to the crowd. Plus, playing
piano will lay a foundation making it easier to learn all other
instruments.

Anyways, I hope this helped. Good luck in your decision!


Michael