Ask Lemmy

Started with guitar 21 years ago. Don't remember the exact timelines, but I picked up bass and piano within a couple years. Then drums and singing. Dabbled in mandolin, banjo, cello. Most stringed instruments, especially those in western music, are pretty similar so they're pretty easy to switch between. I even dabbled in clarinet because my older sister left it with my parents when she moved out, but I never put that much time into it.

My talents in each have waxed and wanted over the years. Guitar was always my primary preference.

The problem is that everyone and their mother can play guitar. It makes sense- tons of households have guitars lying around. Acoustics are a really cheap and easy entry point- any college student can pick one up and learn a few chords and start trying get attention. It fits in your dorm or in the car you're halfway living out of. There's also plenty of cheap box kits of really low-quality electric guitars + small practice amps that are affordable for parents, with the added benefit of making kids use headphones so you don't disturb the neighbors. Drum kits, by contrast, are expensive, big, difficult to move around (band practice pretty much always has to be at the drummer's place), and loud. So drummers are usually hard to find.

So I spent time in bands as a bassist and keyboardist. Two separate times I had wealthier friends who played guitar and had younger brothers whose parents purchased a drum kit, but those brothers never learned to play, so I ended up behind the kit even though I couldn't really practice on my own time. For a while I was the basisst in a band where the left-handed drummer didn't have room in his house, but there was room in my basement so I ended up messing around and learning to drum left-handed a bit too. I've been the lead guitarist, but only rarely outside of my solo stuff.

Bass is very similar to guitar. Different style, and I do think it's important to change your approach and technique (I don't use picks on bass), but a lot still translates. With keyboard I was never classically trained or anything- I mostly just learned guitar, bass, and vocals parts on keyboard. I put a lot of time into programming software synths. Often I would just match what those instruments were playing with a different texture, or just play chords underneath. As a keyboardist I would also be in charge of like, punctuation and sound effects. The kind of little extra things you don't notice on an album and often gets cut out of live shows.

I think I've been a decent singer. I initially took lessons with the intention of just being a background vocalist and maybe doing some acoustic open mic nights. I joined the choir in college and got selected as the best Bass to represent the school at an event one year. I kind of accidentally ended up as the lead singer of a few bands just by being the best singer in the band. Never just the lead singer though - always play drums or bass or guitar too. Singing is a lot of work- I needed to stay in shape, watch what I ate and drank (especially on the nights of practice or performance). It's easy to identify mistakes as you're playing an instrument, but for singing I would have to record myself and listen back to it a ton. I learned from my choir director all the little details to listen for- pitch drift, sloppy pronunciation, breathing issues, etc. And Satan forbid I catch a cold before a show. Right now I'm out of practice, so while I could totally rock out a karaoke night at a bar I would need a couple of months notice before playing a real show.