I played Cello for 3 years, starting in my 30ies. It's true that it's doable if you've figured out learning in general, maybe know a few things about music, or even better, have played a stringed instrument for that left hand coordination.
But you know how good you'd like to play, and that is a massive undertaking: Playing on a fretless neck, bowing, keeping high body tension throughout, the sightreading requirement (tenor clef anyone?), the character of the instrument and the relevant cello pieces expecting virtuous play, are all compounding factors that make it really hard, with no clear goal:
Get some friends out of their musical retirement? Be the novelty instrument in a alternative band? Find an orchestra or quartett that's beginner friendly and ...cool?
Meanwhile, the return on a minimal investment in guitar playing and a bit of singing is almost comical. Also plenty of bands need a bass player and you'll easily find a group of cool people to play with even if you're just starting out and in your 50ies. Want more? Try the piano; moderate effort will enable you to play all pop/rock songs.
Not everything has to be about ROI, especially when it comes to art, in my opinion. For example, I might want to write a fiction book even though I know I won't sell any, just because it's something that inspires me and want to have done in my life.
You could also mitigate the ROI by learning both the guitar to get your quick ROI boost, while learning the cello when you want to get serious (not that you can't get serious on the guitar, but you might like the cello better and want to get serious on it instead).
> Meanwhile, the return on a minimal investment in guitar playing and a bit of singing is almost comical.
To elaborate on this, all you really need to play a substantial amount of popular and folk music is to (a) memorize 4-8 chords and the transitions between then, (b) memorize strumming patterns that go with the songs you want to play, and (c) practice until your fingers stop hurting from holding the frets (substantially easier with nylon strings than steel strings).
For some examples, you can play "Free Fallin'", "Bad Moon Rising", and a bunch of other songs with a capo and just A, D, and G chords.
I'm learning the flute, and I know how painful it can be to struggle just to play one note in tune and a good tone, compared to playing a note on the guitar or the piano.
But it looks like you're comparing pop guitar/piano with classical cello. If you can always take a cello and play jazz, or even pop music. Then the comparison would be more fair.
Also, tenor clef is no harder than other clefs. It's just a different offset. If you learn intervalic reading you can read any clef.
Really depends on how you read. If you read "this note means this finger", yeah. But if you're reading intervals and translating to "play the root, then the third, while sustaining the fifth", then different clefs are just like reading in different key signatures.
John Holt's book "How Children Learn" uses the cello as an example. After discussing what he's found by observing children play with a cello (some will tire immediately; some will indulge in "total activity" of random exploration, followed by attempts at synthesis and control), he writes:
> There is a special sense in which it may be fair to say that the child scientist is a less efficient thinker than the adult scientist. He is not as good at cutting out unnecessary and useless information, at simplifying the problem, at figuring out how to ask questions whose answers will give him the most information. Thus, a trained adult thinker, seeing a cello for the first time, would probably do in a few seconds what it takes a child much longer to do—bow each of the strings, to see what sounds they give, and then see what effect holding down a string with the left hand has on the sound made by that string
> That is, if—and it is a very big if—he could bring himself to touch the cello at all. Where the young child, at least until his thinking has been spoiled by adults, has a great advantage is in situations—and many, even most real life situations are like this—where there is so much seemingly senseless data that it is impossible to tell what questions to ask. He is much better at taking in this kind of data; he is better able to tolerate its confusion; and he is much better at picking out the patterns, hearing the faint signal amid all the noise. Above all, he is much less likely than adults to make hard and fast conclusions on the basis of too little data, or having made such conclusions, to refuse to consider any new data that does not support them. And these are the vital skills of thought which, in our hurry to get him thinking the way we do, we may very well stunt or destroy in the process of "educating him".
> But the greatest difference between children and adults is that most of the children to whom I offer a turn on the cello accept it, while most adults, particularly if they have never played any other instrument, refuse it.
He wrote about his own experience with learning the cello in the book "Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story."
Wow, that was very interesting, I will buy the book. I'm currently teaching my daughter to code and I notice is quite different from when I learned alone, it is very hard to not filter some boring stuff but I might be spoiling her.
I began learning to play the piano 3 years ago, when in my early 40s. I'd never studied a musical instrument before, apart from messing about with guitar a little in my teens. Having been a software dev all my professional life, continuous learning (new technologies) is a part of what I do, but learning to play the piano is somewhat different to the tech- and science-related learning that I've been familiar with.
A difficulty I've faced as an adult learner of piano is finding the right teacher. I'm interested in the learning process generally, but especially in effective and efficient learning in the context of piano (practice smarter, not harder). I expect I seek to question and discuss things with my piano teacher more than a young learner might.
I suspect I'm also more anxious in performance (e.g. grading exams) than a young pianist might be. Unlike the generally solitary process of writing code, playing piano for others has an unfamiliar immediacy and demand on the more extrovert aspects of my personality.
It's useful and encouraging to read the experiences of other adult learners in these comments and I continue to look out for tips to help me along with the 'practice smarter' aspect of my musical development.
I started learning piano a year ago. I'm 36 year old. Unfortunatelly piano is my third instrument which I play. First instrument i started with was accoustinc guitar almost 25 years ago. Last three years I'm trying to learn how to play bass guitar. When I switched to bass guitar I took the learn process very seriosly and study what ever I have found (music theory, notation - sight reading). This book really helps me a lot with piano: http://www.pianopractice.org/ since there are not study pieces and notation but it describe how to learn and how to practice smartly.
I'm self taught and I believe that you can learn on any instrument at any age you start. You have to learn smarter not harder. There are so many interesting videos and online teacher on youtube nowdays it makes learning easier.
I am the same age and started also 3 years ago playing the piano. I had the luck to get a very good teacher. To practice preformance in front of an audience I joined a local Piano Meetup group. Very usefull.
Played the cello for 7 years as a kid. Gave it up and learned piano with 23 or so.
Your skill is going to depend on how much time you want to invest practising. In my experience, as a hobby musician, my most "efficient" practising schedule was:
Hi, thanks for your schedule; was wondering if you can give more details for what exercises you do during your daily regular practice (30-45min) vs. the long practice (3 hrs), e.g., improvisation/repertoire/mechanics?
Hi, the exercises I do for the regular practise change according to the pieces I play and they also change if I feel that I get tired of them or they don't work. Many of them can be found here [0].
There are also days where I just "listen", not caring much for technique, but rather playfully explore a piece or an idea.
The most important thing in my opinion is to not fall into the trap of just playing something over and over again, hoping for incremental progress, but instead find out what you can't do and work on improving precisely that. Playing the bars of a piece in reverse is a good way to get around this.
During the long practise I take that principle even deeper and use the time to work on the hardest parts (= the ones which aren't fun to play, because I'm not yet able to play them properly).
1997 but still relevant today, nice! (well, except maybe the very last part about tapes and not being able to adjust tempo).
While this is pretty much a goldmine of information, one thing I would advise of being careful about is about this « My practice hours are divided about equally between works from the standard cello literature and highly focused mechanical exercises ».
While I'm sure it's the the best solution if your only goal is to get better, it is not a format I would suggest for everyone. I for one would have been so bored if I had to to this that I probably would have quit. What I'm doing is about 1/3 practicing scores with sheets, 1/3 mechanical exercises and scales and 1/3 improvisation and just fun (which is very important to me for keeping the motivation to go on, and I guess it could apply to other people). Just for the record, I started playing violin at 24, a bit over one year ago (first instrument), so obviously I can only say that as a total newbie, just keep in mind though (:
This is an excellent article and I can relate. I'm in my early 30's and I took up piano a year and a half ago. Learning music has been a great outlet and gives me something to study that has nothing to do with programming. I've taken lessons the entire time and I've found the best help my instructor has given me was telling me what I was doing wrong that I'd never be able to see. It's fun to learn something new and I feel music is a mystery that was similar to when I started down the engineering path. Even though its an escape I still ended up making an iOS app to practice sight reading since I didn't like what was out there. It's a shameless plug but its available and is free with no ads or iaps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/music-note-sight-reading-tra...
I'd liked classical music a lot
from the first time I heard it
at about age 10 and still like it
a lot -- it's one of the best joys
of my life.
As I was starting in math in grad
school at Indiana University (IU),
a friend of my parents played violin;
his wife played piano; and he
told me that for learning violin
age really isn't the
problem and, instead, the main issue
is just time to practice.
So, right, IU has long had a terrific
music department; in my second
year my dorm building was next to the
music school; an Issac Stern protege
and student of IU violin teacher
Josef Gingold put his
old Italian violin under my left chin and
gave me a first lesson; and I was
hooked.
I took a beginning course in
violin: Good learning situation -- after the
semester was over the teacher went on
to play the Brahms concerto in Toronto!
I continued, got a violin, later got a
better violin, got a copy of
Galamian's book, listened to a lot of
violin music, learned some about how
to hold the bow from pictures of
Heifetz (he did it the Russian
way and not the German way),
worked on both exercises and also
some of the famous pieces.
So, I actually made it through the
famous, violin standard,
the Preludio to the
Bach E Major Partita.
Also the Preludio to the
first Bach unaccompanied cello
piece -- just transpose the
thing up to the corresponding
strings on violin -- it's
got to be easier to play on
violin than cello.
There's no end to how marvelous
that piece is, e.g., with its
ascending chromatic (just in
semi-tones) climax. It's really
famous, and for good reason.
GrooveShark had a marvelous
performance.
The Bach Chaconne,
of course, was harder, and I got
through the central D major section
and parts of the rest.
It was also
fun to be able to play Christmas
music, parts, a few
bars at a time, of some of the
famous concertos, the motives
(amazing, especially considering
how simple they are)
from Wagner, etc.
It was fun, lots and lots of fun.
I was no good at it, but still it
was lots of fun.
Now I'm too busy with my startup,
but I am eager to get back to
violin. Else I will use
a computer, with whatever software,
likely there is some; else I will
write some, to perform music
(ah, the Nyquist sampling theorem!),
learn more about
music, compose some,
and have a computer perform that.
Maybe the best I'll ever be able to
do is to compose yet another
score of low grade movie music,
but, still, it should be a lot of fun.
Lesson: As an adult, it's quite
possible to learn violin, cello,
etc. The main issue is time to
practice. The hobby can be
a lot of fun even if the results
are not ready for public performance.
No chance of being another Heifetz
or Rostropovich, but, still, it can
be a lot of fun. E.g., a violin
is an amazing instrument, a beautiful
hunk of wood,
as sensitive, astounding, and
difficult to control as any human female!
If you like the music and want to
try, then go ahead.
First piece of advice: An early
challenge is learning how to hold
a violin. For this, f'get about
what Heifetz did and, instead,
do what nearly all violinists do
now -- use a support between
the violin and your shoulder.
For finding the right support,
each time in a violin shop,
buy at least one of each
support product they have
you don't and try it. Eventually
you will get quite comfortable
holding the violin appropriately,
e.g., where it belongs and
being held in place by your chin
and not by your left hand.
Second Advice: Learn how
the scales and keys
work, major and minor,
all 12 of each, the
connection with key signatures
on the staff of the music
(they look complicated but actually
are simple -- mostly you don't pay
any attention, note by note, to
all those sharps and flats and, instead,
just play in the associated key),
the circle of fifths, etc. Learn
the connection with 2^(1/12), e.g.,
2^(7/12) is close to 1.5 and, thus,
a perfect fifth. You need to know
this stuff. Learn why the triad
is so important -- the overtones
line up really nicely, thank you J.
Fourier and L. Bernstein (on YouTube watch
his Harvard lectures).
Second Lesson: Learn how the
tuning is based on ratios of
small whole numbers and get to
where you can hear those,
e.g., via bowing two strings
at once and listening to
the beats of the first overtone
in common to the two notes
(derive the trigonometry of
beats if you didn't get it
in physics class).
Then learn to hear the notes
and intervals (especially major
third, fourth, fifth,
sixth, octave)
just one at a time.
For your intonation,
from those ratios can
actually can pick out and confirm
(that is, check yourself)
the whole major and minor
scales. In the end, for all
your intonation and tuning,
all you need is just a simple
tuning fork at A = 440 Hz.
Finally, work enough
with the scales so that you
can hear them -- quite
generally hear a note in your head
just before trying to play it
(makes it easier then actually to
play that note instead of
something else).
Singing is a great way to
learn the notes -- you will
learn to hear the notes one way
or another, in singing you can
apply to violin or in violin
you can apply to singing.
Go for it.
But, it's 300 year old technology.
Really, the future of music
composition and performance
is software on computers!
More advice: In many ways piano
is a better start into music
than violin or cello. There's
no law saying you can't do both.
For a little of how some famous
violin music can be arranged for
piano, there's
Of course, also listen to
violin version, say, by
Heifetz, Hahn, Ibragimova, others,
on, say, YouTube.
Yes, that's the Bach Chaconne.
Playing that can be one of the
greatest joys in all of life
(better than a lot, although not
all, of the sex I've had!).
With a violin, or, sure, the
piano version, can have own voice
of the human spirit just scream out to the
universe. So, you get an amazing
voice for "Listen up, universe:
On life here, I've got some
reactions for you".
If really like that music, then
you are one of the ones
who should get started,
with piano, cello, violin,
or two of those or all three!
Then, later computers!
As someone who's been learning the violin for the past year and a half, I completely agree that one can pick up the violin as an adult.
One of the first things I did was to get a teacher to guide me through it, and that has helped enormously. While I do like western classical music, I find compositions from modern Japanese composers such as Joe Hiashi much more fun to play.
I also played lead guitar in a band with John Scofield
this jumped out (Sco was the rhythm guitar??). Anyway, i also started learning cello as an adult, til my dad dropped it and cracked the peghead (it was his cello).
Not just smarter, but on real problems, and the really boring parts.
It was a really good read, and applies to more than just learning the Cello. I particularly loved the bit about how it's easier for children to pick up new things, because they don't know (or care) how bad they are. I know feeling self conscious about things definitely impairs my ability to learn things I really love from the outside.
Alright, but it's a crucial thing to approach 'real' or 'boring' with a smart, lazy, peaceful and patient mindset.
The kid psychology is great, I abused it as an adult to keep doing things even though I failed. But it's only part of the solution, otherwise you diverge and never progress really. Kids do progress (beside a natural libido and brain state eager to learn) because they aim at things at their level (with other kids of their level), and have good tests to ensure quality (real life like balancing on a bike, or teachers). To me this is the process that breed internal change.
With time you learn to balance not caring too much with moments of diligent precision so you feel good without wasting time.
But you know how good you'd like to play, and that is a massive undertaking: Playing on a fretless neck, bowing, keeping high body tension throughout, the sightreading requirement (tenor clef anyone?), the character of the instrument and the relevant cello pieces expecting virtuous play, are all compounding factors that make it really hard, with no clear goal:
Get some friends out of their musical retirement? Be the novelty instrument in a alternative band? Find an orchestra or quartett that's beginner friendly and ...cool?
Meanwhile, the return on a minimal investment in guitar playing and a bit of singing is almost comical. Also plenty of bands need a bass player and you'll easily find a group of cool people to play with even if you're just starting out and in your 50ies. Want more? Try the piano; moderate effort will enable you to play all pop/rock songs.