What attracted you to start music?

[G.W.K]

Whether it be the piano, guitar, violin, vocal or another instrument...what attracted you to start playing and continue music? Was it a hobby, profession, parental or peer pressure, etc?

I was attracted because I wanted to play the piano like professionals and play beautiful music, but as a hobby. I've never became a good pianist, probably because I don't have a teacher.

Just curious on what everyone else's story is. I don't know if there are similar threads here, there probably is...so don't moan at me if there is! LOL

G.W.K

[db05]

I got depressed in university, so my friend suggested I take guitar lessons and go to a psychiatrist. Studying music was the best decision I ever made.  Seeing a psychiatrist was the worst. 

[javacisnotrecognized]

I heard someone playing Ragtime in some kind of whorehouse(?) on television, and wanted to do the same.

[m19834]

What attracted me to music ?  Wow, I really have no idea.  I just was, at a very young age.  We were housing a piano for somebody and that was the first instrument I started playing on, until we inherited (just) enough money to purchase one.  I used to listen to Disney records and heard people singing and would sing and dance along, and that is how it went for me with voice and piano.  Interestingly, we had a guitar in the house, and I picked it up once in a while but I was just never drawn to it in the same was as I was the piano (and voice).  I had no concept of "professionals" and these things.  But, when I was about 7 I just loved the piano so much that I vowed to myself to learn everything that I possibly could about it.  That's that, I guess.

[gyzzzmo]

I dont really know why, i wanted to play since i was 3 years old but since my parents thought that was too young i started taking lessons at 4.
My mother used to tell me stories behind the piano and when there was a giant in that story for example, she bashed a couple of low notes on the piano. Maybe that got me interested, and now i'm making my money by bashing notes on the piano

Gyzzzmo

[concerto_love]

It's because I want to meet with that pianist, who inspired me to learn piano...  I don't know who is it... But I will meet again with him if I play piano.. 

[G.W.K]

It's because I want to meet with that pianist, who inspired me to learn piano...  I don't know who is it... But I will meet again with him if I play piano.. 

Unusual response. You'll meet with someone you don't know, that inspired you?

Great replies everyone! Most of us seem to be inspired, but there are some who aren't. Continue, LOL

G.W.K

[richard black]

I asked my mum for a piano for my 7th birthday. She made me learn it!

[csharp_minor]

I started geting into making music on the the computer ( at 15 ), as I was really into dance music. I used to make my own dance music with professional music software. That then progressed into Dj -ing so I got some decks and a mixer.

A little later I got intrested in listening to classical music, then I decided I wanted  to learn the piano at 17, but I couldn't afford lessons . Some years passed and 10 months ago I got back into the piano, and here I am.

I guess the dance music thing was a bit of a hobby, so is the piano. Its a life long challenge that won't end, there is so many pieces I want to learn!

[G.W.K]

I asked my mum for a piano for my 7th birthday. She made me learn it!

I can't blame her...if I had a child who asked for a piano, I'd make them learn how to play it instead of waiting for the novelty to wear off and then it just sits there...gathering dust!

G.W.K

[kelly_kelly]

I think I was first inspired when I heard some of my classmates play the piano in music class (I was about 7). I don't think they played anything amazing, but it was the first time I really listened to the piano, and I was hooked. Then I dug up a random toy keyboard we had lying around the house, and became obsessed with picking out tunes. After that, I went to visit my cousins who had a piano. Neither of them played seriously, but they could see I was interested, so they taught me a few little things (Chopsticks, etc.). And then my closest friend started taking lessons... Finally, my parents bought a 70-something key synthesizer when I was 8. That was close to the most excited I've ever been in my life. They also bought with it software called "Teach Me Piano" that I could use while the synthesizer was connected to the computer. But I didn't have much patience with going in order, so while I seemed to learn fast, I was actually losing a lot of foundation. Plus, I learned to play standing up and on a synthesizer  . I started taking formal lessons about a year later, and bought a piano 2-3 years after that.

Wow, that went off-topic. Sorry for the rambling  

[pianowolfi]

I think that I was living with music since I was born, my daddy  played the piano, my mom the violin. And actually I think that I always lived music in myself anyway, it was only a question of time that it would come out and take over my life. The inspiration to study it professionally I had first when I played the Gershwin preludes at the age of 16. A moment that I perfectly remember.

[ahinton]

That's an easy one (for me) to answer; Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52, broadcast on BBC, probably (although I cannot be absolutely certain of this) by John Ogdon; from this experience, neither Chopin nor Ogdon (if that's who the performer was) made me want to learn to play the piano, but they sure as sure can be made me want immediately to go and find out as much as possible about this stuff called music and figure out how to make some of my own, if possible. I've never looked back since (well, some might allege that I've always looked back since, but one cannot please everyone all of the time, I suppose...)

Best,

Alistair

[smiggy]

Hmm...Well the piano I'm not sure why I first started. My older sister (who is a year and a half older than me) was ill on the day of her piano lessons back when I was 6. So I asked mum if I could take her place. I did and haven't stopped since. Don't regret it lol

[thalbergmad]

Russ Conway - Roulette.

He started me off.

Thal

[shortyshort]

One of my best mates at school was Grade 8 on piano, and Grade 5 or 6 at a few other instruments at the age of about 12. He used to play the piano in school assemblies, as he was better than the music teacher.

It's all his fault. 

[Petter]

to score chicks weeehahaaaaaaaa  ...

I mean because it seemed like so much run to play  F# minor chords.

[franzliszt2]

We used to have music lessons in school, once a week in a class of 30 kids. I hated these classes and paid no attention, becasue it was all just beating the rhythms to pop songs etc... It was quite awful. My mum got my dad a keyboard for Christmas as a joke, and I started playing with it. I learned all the songs on it by just picking it up by ear, and memorized them all, these were all typical keyboard classic tracks, like Rondo alla turka, Fur elise march from the nutcracker etc.... I went to my first music lesson after the 3 week holiday, and played all these songs on the piano. The teacher was shocked, becasue she didn't know I played the piano. When I told her I didn't play the piano, and just learnt all these things by ear from the keyboard as if thats what most people do, she freaked out and phoned my parents and told them that I had to get piano lessons. My parents sent me to piano lessons and I apparently developed very quickly. I was given lots of extra lessons to help me read music and theory etc... My parents thought it was jusy a phase I was going through, and bought me a electric piano. After one year it was obvious that I was going to stick at it, so I got a real piano!

I can't remember what attracted me, I just remember that I loved it (and still do) and wanted to do it for the rest of my life. I am very grateful to have been lucky enough to have great teachers to guide me, even if I did think they were shockingly strict at first!

[aewanko]

Video games.

[healdie]

when i was studying my GCSE music the teacher always started each lesson by playing a piece and each lesson i would be somthng completly different i.e Debussy then Bach (but never Beethoven) but I recall it was a Haydn sonata that really made me want to play
I didn't really like the Debussy

so i guess you could say my teacher did

[mlhf_michelle]

Watching animes based on classical music- La Corda doro primo passo and Nodame Cantabile.

And I just got a piano this year without any knowledge of playing it. I have to do something with it rather that let it just be an ornament in my living room.

[loonbohol]

Me was La Corda D'oro Primo Passo...

It drove me crazy

[morningstar]

My parents originally forced me to do it to help with my nervous problem and for an extra-curricular activity. Eventually I decided I liked it and started to warm to it. It still helps control the problem a lot as well.

[borealis]

I had nothing better to do.

Seriously.  I was nine years old, and my behaviour could politely have been called 'precocious.'  I managed to get myself grounded from going outside, watching television, playing on the computer, playing with my Lego, having friends over...and anything else my parents could think of.

So I was seriously bored.  And I found, in my mother's sewing room in the basement, a couple of guitars and a purple book on how to play.  So I picked it up, followed the instructions on tuning it, and started teaching myself.  Two weeks later, I was done the purple book, and my parents put me in guitar lessons the next day.

Guitar was fun, but it wasn't until we got an organ for Christmas my twelfth year that things got interesting.  I fooled around with that, getting 'lessons' which basically consisted of the teacher handing me new music every week.  I didn't learn how to do left hand work other than chords for a very long time, which still haunts me today.

I finally started taking piano seriously when I was twenty-seven.  I took my Grade 1 RCM exam that year, having taught myself (I was poor) on a Casio keyboard.  After I got an adequate mark on my Grade 3, I saved up and bought a digital Roland piano which I still have, and went back to lessons.

[G.W.K]

My parents originally forced me to do it to help with my nervous problem and for an extra-curricular activity.

"nervous problem"? As in like...Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour or something similar?

G.W.K

[morningstar]

"nervous problem"? As in like...Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour or something similar?

G.W.K

No as in a problem with my nervous system that causes my hands to twitch uncontrollably. NO it is not juvenile PA!

[G.W.K]

No as in a problem with my nervous system that causes my hands to twitch uncontrollably. NO it is not juvenile PA!

Juvenile Personal Assistants? 

Never mind, we are digressing from the original discussion.

G.W.K

[morningstar]

Juvenile Personal Assistants? 

Never mind, we are digressing from the original discussion.

G.W.K

I was thinking Parkinson's...but whatever. It helps anyway.
Back to topic!

[ahbach]

I guess what attracted me to start music is that I have always been around it. My mother took piano lessons for 8 years as a child and hated it she can't play to this day, and my father took music theory in high school and he can pluck a few tunes out on the piano and guitar. but I have always had a drive and passion to play the Piano I love it sooo much. I know I will never be a proffesional, but that's ok I do enjoy going to concerts and hearing the proffesionals though, and not having a teacher makes it hard to go forward in piano but I just keep going!!!

[go12_3]

I was browsing through the posts of this topic and I too was attracted to music when I was a toddler.  I sang and played on a little toy piano. When I was in elementary school, I loved playing piano.  I had lessons at school----a group lesson.  I played a solo9memorized) at a couple of school recitals while I was in the 4th and 5th grade.  My parents bought an old upright piano.  It was like Christmas to get a real piano!  I played for hours and was mostly self-taught.  I still sang though.  Then when we moved overseas  I was 12 years, old.  The piano was left behind.  Yet I still was singing along with records(not the CDs like we have today).  The piano wasn't around for me to play on for several years. However, in high school, whenever I saw one, I'd play Fur Elise, the only piece I had memorized.  I got a guitar and taught myself to play the chords and then classical.  So after I graduated from high school, I studied piano as a Piano Performance major, along with several other music classes, for a couple of years. Intense, 6-7 hours a day of practicing.  I loved it.  However, I had some backpain due to the pressures of learning and memorizing pieces. Although, I am not a professional but got quite proficient to play some great pieces from a variety of composers----Bach, Debussy, Chopin and many others.  Therefore, I began teaching ever since.  I wanted to be a concert pianist, I was quite good at it, but my nerves got the best of me.  So I play for enjoyment and it's good therapy for me.  I am learning a variety of pieces now.  Plus, I learned to play the violin 8 years ago and love that instrument too.  Music has always been a part of my life.  And teaching my students piano fulfills me as I know, when I was their age(I teach 6 through 15 years old now)and didn't have a teacher, I think how lucky my students are to have that opporunity to learn to play piano.  And many do love to play the piano and that is a gratifying experience for me.  = )

[justliam]

I started in High School.  During our music classes, age 11, everyone would be expected to learn basic keyboard (and I mean basic) and play in front of the class.  I started picking it up a little faster than everyone else and my music teacher told me I should have piano lessons.  Sadly, I resisted for two years, before I 'gave in' and started having lessons.  Now I kick myself daily for being such a moron and losing two youthful years haha.

[loonbohol]

My favorite composer Kajiura Yuki

[term]

Für Elise. It was the first song i heard and played that was classical.

[mr music]

Girls.

[mr music]

I got depressed in university, so my friend suggested I take guitar lessons and go to a psychiatrist. Studying music was the best decision I ever made.  Seeing a psychiatrist was the worst. 

I used to have to go to psychiatrist as a kid. For years and years I went, but stopped when I was about 15. I never knew why I had to go and I never knew why it stopped. I guess he just got sick of me, God it was funny. I guess I was very quiet in those days. But anyway, now many years later, I thought about seeing one again (trying to figure out the meaning of life etc). But thankfully, it only ended up just as a thought. So instead what I did was, I went to the library to try to find a very difficult piece of music (for me anyway) for piano. For the record, I found Rapsodia Espanola Op.70 by Albeniz. And guess what, I copied it, took it home to have a look at it, saved myself a hundred bucks and was cured. You don’t realize how minor your problems are, they are really nothing, as compared as to all the music you need to learn before you… you….. you know.

The copies were 20c a page, so that was a bit ‘how’s your father’.

[trish89]

It was my love for Chopin...when I was 6 I got cassette with Chopin Valses and I liked it so much....We had piano at home and also sheet music so I tried to play some Valses...my mum asked me whether  I wanted to play the piano I longed so much ....Also Im hyperactive - for me it's a good way how to give my plus energy away

[db05]

I used to have to go to psychiatrist as a kid. For years and years I went, but stopped when I was about 15. I never knew why I had to go and I never knew why it stopped. I guess he just got sick of me, God it was funny. I guess I was very quiet in those days. But anyway, now many years later, I thought about seeing one again (trying to figure out the meaning of life etc). But thankfully, it only ended up just as a thought.

I was in second grade when I was first "diagnosed" to be lopsided. I was as good at English and Math as a fifth grader, but my motor skills were below standard. It's silly, it was in everyone's face I was not normal, but all that they did for me was transfer me to a Catholic school and life went rolling by without any special help for a decade.

So instead what I did was, I went to the library to try to find a very difficult piece of music (for me anyway) for piano. For the record, I found Rapsodia Espanola Op.70 by Albeniz. And guess what, I copied it, took it home to have a look at it, saved myself a hundred bucks and was cured. You don’t realize how minor your problems are, they are really nothing, as compared as to all the music you need to learn before you… you….. you know.

The copies were 20c a page, so that was a bit ‘how’s your father’.

I realize that whenever I see my uncle's Beethoven Sonata book (Schnabel edition, volume 2). He probably died trying out the Hammeklavier  , there were bar numbers all over, but no comments like in Op. 110 and 111. But he was a sort of a genius, not a lopsided individual like me. The fact that I have bad coordination should be enough to make me stay away from music study.

We're not obliged to study music, you know... lots of people do that...

[mr music]

I was in second grade when I was first "diagnosed" to be lopsided. I was as good at English and Math as a fifth grader, but my motor skills were below standard. It's silly, it was in everyone's face I was not normal, but all that they did for me was transfer me to a Catholic school and life went rolling by without any special help for a decade.

I realize that whenever I see my uncle's Beethoven Sonata book (Schnabel edition, volume 2). He probably died trying out the Hammeklavier  , there were bar numbers all over, but no comments like in Op. 110 and 111. But he was a sort of a genius, not a lopsided individual like me. The fact that I have bad coordination should be enough to make me stay away from music study.

We're not obliged to study music, you know... lots of people do that...

You’ve hit some nerves there Db, I remember my old school teachers talking about something of motor skills, being lopsided and even dyslexia (did I spell that right – I heard it for so many years but never knew how to spell it). I noticed you put diagnosed in inverted comas. I wouldn’t worry about motor skills, I never did and get by. I describe anyone as complex individual rather than any of those other medical terms. I can see where you may be coming from, but for me it’s just the make up of my personality.

Your uncle sounds like he must have been a good player, did you know him ?

What do you mean you are not obliged to study music ?

[db05]

Your uncle sounds like he must have been a good player, did you know him ?

What do you mean you are not obliged to study music ?

But of course! My uncle is my godfather, but he lived in the US and died when I was 9. Honestly, I didn't feel much of a loss until recently. He owes me 10 years of gifts! 

I mean, we're not required to play music. Especially since we're not well-coordinated. Well I don't know about you. But my motor skills are a big disadvantage.

[jamie0168]

I'd been taking piano lessons for 6 years and was pretty good at it. However, my father took me to France one summer and we just happened to see a concert of Boris Berezovsky (unaware of who he actually was). Needless to say, my jaw dropped to the floor during this concert. I didn't even know that pianists like him existed! (Bearing in mind that I came from a very small town with almost no culture.) Afterwards, I was convinced that I must play music like that man someday.

[ahinton]

Russ Conway - Roulette.

He started me off.

Thal

On Russian music, perhaps?...

Best,

Alistair

[hot_box_recordz]

I was about 8 in a preparatory boarding school when some whizz-kid about a year older than me enrolled in our school. He was so good at both practical and theory. I mean the guy was writing concert-type pieces when he was about 11.

I knew I loved it so i took it up for two years at the age of 11. Pity my teacher didn't fuel my passion for it so I quit when I got to high school. I knew I still loved it but my experience was not a very good one.

I started practicing seriously about a year ago - I'm now 29 - and have never enjoyed anything about as much as I'm enjoying this journey.

I plan on investing in a Yamaha U1 or something similar (must be Yamaha) very soon.

[giannalinda]

hearing music...Duh!  lol

[giannalinda]

hearing music...Duh!  lol

doesnt everyone hear music? i mean unless theyre deaf or live in a trash can?...i mean...well even that...you still hear music...i think...anyway lollolololololololololololoolololololollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollol lollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollollol

[pinhanil]

I got depressed in university, so my friend suggested I take guitar lessons and go to a psychiatrist. Studying music was the best decision I ever made.  Seeing a psychiatrist was the worst. 

you're right at first I want to play the piano only as a hobby and my teacher adviced because of my long fingers but when I start to play the piano I  also forget my problems

[jollisg]

At first it was because of my friend. She had just started to play guitar and I was jealous (in those years I was kind of a wannabe, I just wanted to do whatever she did). Then I started to play guitar, but soon I realized it wasn't my thing.

My real interest of playing music began when I started a music profile in school (4th grade here in Sweden). It was then my piano playing started. I also started to sing then (choir). The real music-making (the music that came from emotions) came after a year maybe and have been developed since.
(If my English isn't perfect, it's because I'm swedish and have only studied English for 6 years (2h/week).

[nanabush]

I had taken 'art' lessons (just drawing random pictures with pastels at this old lady's house, with about 10 other people at the same time) and realized I SUCKED at drawing (I was 5 lol).

My mom put me in piano lessons, and I had a high school aged teacher for 5 years... we progressed slooooowly because she would simply ask me to play my stuff, and I would. That was it.  I didn't know better!!  I wish I had a more experienced teacher because I remember that when I was 7 (when i started) I really enjoyed it!

We had 'encarta 97' encyclopedia on my old computer, and I would always look up 'music' and there was a music quiz where you had to associate instruments with countries.  I literally memorized every one!  There were about 20 or so.  I wish my parents saw that I was genuinely interested when I was young, and pushed me further, or got me taking a second instrument.  Again, I kind of went along with it and coasted.

This is pretty stupid, but I remember I would get jittery/butterflies when I heard something in a minor key haha!  We had a casette player (old school!) and were on a family trip.  I was listening to Sharon Lois and Bram (forget the spelling) and I kept replaying a certain part, and I think it was because of a weird chord or something.  I was a music geek at 7 lol!

I'm kind of upset, because I think I would have loved being immersed at a young age.  I took the standard half hour lessons for ever!  None of my friends/family played music, so I really had nothing to base anything off of.  I am studying piano at university now, and a bunch of the other students were doing festivals, chamber music, composition lessons, etc, when they were so young!  I missed out on so many opportunities 


HUGE rant, but I think it was cool because no one else I knew as a kid had any clue what I was talking about when I'd explain a scale, or middle C or whatever.  It was like I was speaking a random language to everyone lol!

[madvillain]

for guitar i think nirvana was a big influence, i also really liked the whole diy punk thing.  With piano it was Chopin and shortly after Scriabin that made realise if i didn't start now I'd be kicking myself at 40

[countrymath]

"Ok, I'm 16 now, I need to get a job. What do I like most? Hm...let me see...music and video-games. Hey, dad, I want to play the guitar"

"No way you gonna play that crazy thing"

"Ah...what about the piano?"

"Ok."

" "

[hannah9]

Anyone Remember ToysRUs? They used to have a selection of keyboards there which you could test and stuff (play with the buttons, ect.)
Whenever we went there I'd always spend my time using the little 'note light up' setting and play the titanic theme tune
I think I was 5 when I finally bothered to ask my mum for piano lessons - I started at the age of 6 because it was kinda for my birthday