Learning a second instrument

Gaz

Ive have been learning piano now for almost a year , i have put an awful lot of work in and its paying off , i am working towards the grade 6 exam, my question is , is it possible to learn a second instrument ie: guitar , or will that just melt my brain ?

Im not looking to be a great guitarist just enough to playa few tunes at a party or whatever , most of my practice time is taken up by the piano so should i not even bother as i cant commit to it fully ?

any advice ?

feylya

The cool thing would be if you start playing the guitar, you'll already know a sh1t load of theory which is reall really helpful on the old plank!

Just my €0.02

Smiler

Yeah dead right man.
Guitar is the way to go.

You'll have no problems with chord structures

Epitaph

Doing Grade 6 Piano after one year!? :eek: Well done, you must be practising like a madman. Good luck with it.

Re. learning the guitar

I started on the guitar sorta like you, except I did about 10 years of piano (completed Grade 8, but with Leaving Cert didn't bother going further) then picked up the guitar. Been playing acoustic two years now, self-taught, learned an awful lot from a Radiohead tab-book.

As I knew chords and scales inside out, once I knew which string-fret combination did what, I was flying. The worst part was ruining the lovely lovely tips of my left fingers

Bon chance!

Jaicster

Just learn a few chords and you'll be able to play some tunes right away.

Then u might wanna learn some barre/ powerchords to play some more modern stuff.

Then some scales etc etc etc.

Guitar might be a good work out for you fingers (if you learn finger picking) if you get board of piano.

feylya

Works the other way round too. Playing the piano for a while gives you some strength in your fingers that guitar won't but will help you playing!

Morello

Originally posted by Darth Homer
Ive have been learning piano now for almost a year , i have put an awful lot of work in and its paying off , i am working towards the grade 6 exam, my question is , is it possible to learn a second instrument ie: guitar , or will that just melt my brain ?

Im not looking to be a great guitarist just enough to playa few tunes at a party or whatever , most of my practice time is taken up by the piano so should i not even bother as i cant commit to it fully ?

any advice ?

You don't need to commit fully to learn a few tunes so get yourself a cheap guitar and a chord book and you're done.

The DANGER though is that you might get into it...... I had been playing keys for a few years when I bought a bass guitar for the craic............ after one year I sold my keyboard and I've been playing bass ever since

Good..? Bad...? I'm happy of my choice coz bass is "more me" but I play keyboards very little now... well, it's up to you

Have fun!

Alex

SOL

Learning a second instrument and learning the guitar don't fall near the same categories

feylya

Any chance you could explain your logic behind that statement?

Giblet

Having Piano as a first Instrument will definatly help with guitar, especially if you know how scales are formed, and you will have no trouble finding all the notes on the guitar out.