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Why Don't More People Into Music Reproduction At Home Play Around With Musical Instruments

 In the pursuit of music reproduction in the home it is my firm belief that you must listen to live music every now & again so that you know & understand how real music,with real instruments,in real physical spaces sounds...
 With that as a foundation I used in judging equipment's "voice" I also believe that playing around with a musical instrument is an excellent way to gain first hand experience with musical sound...EVERY person that reads this can learn a few musical notes,on ANY musical instrument on the planet..For instance I play around with electric guitar.NO I can NOT play,but I can play the notes EFG,on first string & BCD on the second string...Now  I know those few notes & easily recognize them in any song..I am just this coming week going to start playing around with an electric keyboard....So I wonder,why don't more audiophiles simply play around with real instruments as part of their pursuit of honest reproduction in the home?Surely the education in reality is worth the $100.00 it takes to get an entry level guitar,keyboard,horn etc...
freediver
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,285 posts
 

At the end of his life, George Harrison drove around with a trunk full of ukuleles. Tom Petty told a story about George showing up at his place in the San Fernando Valley (on the other side of the Hollywood Hills), the two of them playing ukes for hours. George left Tom with a uke.

A cool related instrument is the mandolin, an instrument with eight strings (4 X 2), not unlike a 12-string guitar (6 X 2). Commonly used in Country and Bluegrass music. Sam Bush is a master on mandolin, Jerry Garcia's buddy David Grisman pretty good (for a hippie ;-) .

frogman
7,562 posts
 
https://youtu.be/puSkP3uym5k

https://youtu.be/IYhcN8p4yhg
sdrsdrsdr
196 posts
 
I’ve never found musicianship correlates to the audio hobby. I think people with extensive musical backgrounds hear music differently than ones that don’t. Even some musical background makes a difference. Musicians hear and understand chord changes and have a better appreciation and understanding  for say Brubecks complicated time  changes. They understand what tensions give blues it’s sound for example. I’m a guitar player, played piano a little,  and a variety of other instruments in my youth. I feel it has given me a very open ability to hear and understand music.  But most musicians I know couldn’t care less about our interest of great sound reproduction. I wouldn’t say  that it puts a person above any non musician audiophile in this hobby. These are two different things imo. 
sdrsdrsdr
196 posts
 
One thing that has influenced my audio listening Is I’m very aware how a piano sounds in my house as I hear my daughter play it regularly. I really learn the sound of that instrument in the house. This is more important for our hobby than actually playing the instrument. Also I’m very in tune to hearing a guitar through an amp as I put my amp in between my speakers if I want to jam with a record. Invite over your musician friends to play their instruments in your audio room is even better than going out to live performances.
wolf_garcia
6,796 posts
 
Mandolins are much more difficult to play than pretty much any ukulele (except maybe a Tiple, which is essentially a 10 steel stringed uke) ...I wouldn't recommend mandolins to anybody (and I have one). Also a note on Don Ho, I saw him play with his amazing band, The Aliis, in the mid 60s and he was great...also was in a jazz club when he walked in in the early 80s and he sang a few songs and blew everybody away...he was really good, and a nice guy. I sold him a Fender Twin in an Anvil road case in about 1980 or so, and his technical dude gave me a tour of his stage in the Hilton Hawaiian Village geodesic dome (Bucky Fuller's first large commercial version of one). Don came out to talk story and give me a check for the amp...cool guy, great musician.
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