Young Writers Society

Shout-out to all the musicians in YWS! What instruments do you play? Which are your favorites? And what are your music goals? Also, we'd all love to hear your sound clips

I played piano and guitar, and have classical vocal training. But at the moment I'm in a place without access to pianos, and my flat walls are thin. So I stick to classical guitar because it's quiet, and I sing quietly whenever I feel like it. I'm not really working towards anything, just de-stressing. But I'd love to build up a base of songs I can sing comfortably from memory.

I play piano and viola! I've been playing piano for a ridiculously long time and am really happy with the level I'm finally reaching. Here's a couple of my recordings of songs I've been working on over the past few months:
Song of the Ocean, written by John Schmidt
Princess Mononoke Arrangement, original music by Studio Ghibli.
(Just ignore the mistakes and the bad quality. )

I've played viola for almost as long as I've played piano, but I haven't been able to have a private teacher for three years now, so I just play in my school's orchestra, and even that's over now that I'm graduating. I don't know where I'll go from here with viola. I've been steadily getting worse over the past few years without a teacher, and am honestly a bit disappointed/frustrated about that. I really don't want to abandon playing, but I have no idea what the future of my playing will look like.

I also, as of last week, play guitar! I'm ridiculously excited about this at the moment. I love the sound of acoustic guitar and I'm hoping it'll really help me with chords and songwriting. I'm mostly learning online at the moment, but I might decide to find a teacher later (or at least someone who knows more about playing than I do). So far, I can't feel anything on the fingertips of my left hand, and I know about 5 chords and am having a lot of fun.

As for my music goals... I really have no idea. I play music for me. I'm not really expecting or hoping to do anything with music for a job. I just want to play my instruments and write music well enough to satisfy me, and I know I'm nowhere near that level yet. Something I'm really trying to do right now is get better at understanding musical structure with the aim of actually being able to compose stuff, and I'm having a lot of fun figuring out the basics of music production. It's definitely something I do to de-stress, and just because there's so much beauty in music.

I happen to play the Flute on a regular basis and I'm learning how to play the keyboard. I definitely like the flute, but I might decide to try the clarinet or percussion, percussion seems super fun, even if it is background. My music goals are to get better. Earlier this year we had a Solo/Ensemble in March and after I had performed in front of the judge, I got a blue ribbon that said superior and the paper said 7 out of 6. Which I didn't understand. But I later found out that 6 was the highest score you could possibly get, so I was mad at myself and said I was gonna do better. So that's my new goal for playing the flute. My goal for the keyboard is to try and learn at least three songs before summer ends.

Woooowee, @Mea those audio clips are divine! You play with so much feeling. I'm really happy that you're so excited to start guitar! Trying a new instrument can be daunting. I promise your fingertips will get better with time, but watch your left wrist if you're playing a lot. It's really vulnerable to injury if you overwork it, but your viola experience should help a lot with that. <3

@Lake my sister was a flautist and we used to jam together occasionally. It seemed like a tough instrument to master, though. I remember her flute being fairly temperamental, especially with weather changes. Congratulations on doing so well! It's always exciting to get good feedback from a judge, kinda like having an expert reviewer read something you've written on YWS. Keep it up!

Piano, sort of. I had lessons with my family and our church choir director for like a minute back in high school, but that's it, so it's mostly that when I find a piece of music that sounds pretty and doesn't look toooooo complicated I just kind of stumble around and figure it out.

With finger placement and stuff, I mean. I definitely find the sheet music first. I can read sheet music, thank God.

And then vocals, which I'm far, far better at and always have been. I'll be part of a choir for the first time in years this school year and I'm super pumped about it.

I play some piano, guitar, and percussion. I'm also on the drumline in my high school marching band. I also sing very often. I'm in the advanced choir at my school and I will be majoring in Music Education with a focus on Vocal Training and minoring in business so that I can become a music teacher and then maybe have a business for vocal training lessons

I play classical piano, though without a formal teacher. (Piano seems to be pretty commonly played )

Except I haven't played for months because I don't have as much time as I used to and I prioritize my reading and writing time. The last time I played I remember I was practicing one of Schumann's forest songs (he's my favorite Romantic composer), and also some bits of an easier Mozart sonata.

I enjoy it very much and I'm hoping I can dive back into it this summer

I played the trumpet, trombone, and I play piano. I am learning to play the drums from my uncle.

i can tap on a piano and make some kinda nice sounds on it but i'm not really trained in anything. i do produce music though, so everything i know is electronic.

as for my goals i'd love to record and produce music professionally, and i'm actually gonna hopefully share some snippets of projects here soon heh

I play the piano & violin. I took lessons for piano for maybe 7 years and violin lessons for 9 years. I can play a couple songs on the piano pretty well, but honestly besides that not much except improvising. I play the violin fairly well. And I think both are beautiful instruments.

@barefootrunner - Oh thank you!!! And thanks for the tips about guitar as well, I'll definitely watch out for that.

@alliyah - I can't improvise at all, so if you can improvise on piano I'm super impressed. And yeah, both piano and violin are amazing. (Viola for life, though!)

(sorry for double post but tags don't edit in)

Oh and @veeren - I'm really interested in music production but am having difficulties with all the jargon and figuring out how things actually work, any book/article/video recommendations? The extent of my experience is trying to figure stuff out with Garageband.

@Mea well the most important part is picking what software you wanna use. i use Fruity Loops Studio personally, but anything you have access too works. the second step is learning a bit of music theory, like how to layer music tracks and use proper sound selection etc. Mixing and mastering is by far the hardest part and if you look up videos on how it's done, the theories are the same no matter what software you use, so as long as you have the concepts down then it's all up to put them to work.

if you want specific videos and stuff you can always dm me! i have a bunch from when i first started that really helped

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piano - church hymns and Irish folk songs
clarinet - polkas and holiday music
guitar - folk songs and some country songs

Clarinet is the only thing I took legit lessons in and that was in school for one semester in sixth grade. So polkas and holiday music.

Piano was self taught.
On and off playing for ten years?

Guitar was extremely self taught.
Like five years ago.
And then I started back up a few months ago.

My family doesn't really have the money for lessons so the Internet is my bff, for everythin lol.

/singing is my best thing though/