If you could play any other instrument, what would it be and why?

Now: cello. I am really thankfull fore the posibility to take it as "second instrument" here in the Tonebase! Without that possibility I still would throw that wish to not-ever-happening future.... Have played it now this autumn, and even got a live teacher to help me with the real difficult an "odd & new" bowing technique... 

But before I tell more of the matter "why", I have to say in general: 

- I believe, and have always told my students, too, that for becoming better musician/understand music more broadly,  you should have two types of an instrument: one melody-instrument and one harmony-instrument. Singing + piano, klarinette+ kantele, violine+ accordeon etc. Even wiser if you have a percussion instrument as the third. You learn to play MUSIC, when you look it on different sight of views. (Luckily you can play both melody and harmony and rhythm with the guitar at the same time, but is somehow easier to understand what the demands of different aspects are, if you can focus MAINLY on either on melody or harmony - and learn to mix them: hear and work on those all 2 (or 3) elements then when you play you main instrument. The technical aspects stop being the only or main thing in your plying.  It is ok to play fast, but making music is not a competition of sprinters!  

- Every instruments have different kind of sound/tone - I´d say: soul or identity. As a music therapist I have thought  that I need to be able to produce many different sounds, for many different patients... and also for feeding my own many sides of my personality? (But: what ewer you play, you should honestly try to play on the best quality (soundwise) then... 

- The main repertuaire for different instruments are different. When playing different instruments it is more natural to play in different styles, when the sound quality is already formed for those. (And easier to try to imitate those demands then on your main instrument, too: let´s fall the borders down!) 

- Ant there comes the problem: It is impossible to really practice many instruments well: there come the limits of time and energy.  Also: how good instruments you can afford to buy and own? One real good one that you play everything with (with every instrument you can "tell everything" - not with the authentic voice, but the authentic content, anyway?) - or how much frustration you can carry on your shoulders, when been forced to play with the not-so-good instruments, and not proceed as well as you could if you concentrated on only one?  You have only 2 hands and one brain - you can not practice 10 instruments at the same time. 

But, I myself am more like "multi-musician", or "track and field-athlete", not REALLY good specialist on anything.  Too lazy to really make my playing a diamante? Or maybe I need many sounds/voices. Today is mainly the day for string-instruments, tomorrow mainly on blowing instruments, and so on... And: as a musiciaian I am most the type of a chamber musician: It does not matter me so much, which kind of a group I can play with - I am willing to take different roles, as far as the music COMMUNICATES - the musicians communicate, and the instruments communicate, too.  

Why which instrument to me?:

My main ones (Which I play or have been playing professionally of half-professionally or "seriously"/ in a goal-oriented way:

- All my youth and adult life I have been playing the recorders and the classical guitar almost side by side. The other/s have been the main, and the other/s the second instrument, but the order had changed time to time. Blowing instruments & string instrument - combination?  Both of them are understandable, because both hands work together in making one sound or chord. 

*Guitar (classical) : I like the main sound and the vibration of it in my fame/on my lap. The one that I can rely on in every situations, in playing solo and in playing in making chamber music.  Enough large ambitus, and I can also accompany my recorder students (and other instrumentalists/singers) with it.  Quite ok instrument for many styles, too. 

*Recorders:  A family and consort instrument: that means: there are many sizes- the tiny ones and really great ones. And different types for different music (renaissance or baroque or modern - and all those styles I like)  THE blowing instrument that is nearest to human voice (so I think!) - you can hear the overtones, make glissandos, play with different attacs and tongues, and micro-intervals -  it is so intimate and still it can make even the the big church resonate without any electrical help (church organ imitates the recorder consort...).  But: "No-one is as lonely as a recorder player alone" - I NEED someone to play with if I want to keep my process going on with them.

* Ukuleles and guitaleles:  These come in to my life as a continuum of a guitar - and nowadays I spend most of my practicing time with them.  I have a fear, that I get arthritis to my hands, and the "normal big guitar" sooner or later comes too hard for me: I am not so big person, so these "sit well" on my lap - and there in their sound IS something new and comforting/healing to me. And: they are more "in" than the two mentioned upper - so I have got students easier for those than for class. guitar and recorder, too. They also sound good if played with guitars or recorders. So: I have taken them to my "basic family of instrumental friends" nowadays. 

Common to all of these 3 groups: Sound is not big - but has many nuances. Articulation is important - and has variations: keeps my ears open and my interest on. 

My "second ones" (where I have had constant lessons with a teacher):

* Singing:  It is the mother of all music making - the instruments only imitate singing, better or worse.  And - it is also a social matter: singing in a choir or a smaller group is a pleasure. Breathing together! Even if my own voice is not so soloist or artistic, I like to tell stories - and on songs there are the lyrics, too. SO: singing is a continuum of theater or poem-reading for me. And: the physical aspect - what happens in me, the flow or barriers in my own body, by the vibration - how it resonates or "dances" in my own body,  and how it makes the room to resonate - that I like to listen to (I especially like the technique called harmony singing/healing singing).  

* Piano: Well, it is a "must". I HAD to play it when studying music. I even have been teaching it (for beginners).  BUT:  Keyboards really NOT are my beloved ones. My brain does not like the idea of the the hands having different roles - and I do not even like the sound of "played by a hammer". Worst thing is, that I can not at all influence the pitch. Piano NEVER is tuned right - it is only a compromise, and because of that it "makes me feel dizzy" (on the days when I hear better, my old music and harmony singing ears just can not stand it!).  But, good instrument it is, really logical for teaching theory stuff and so on, so: belongs to every  "common cultured" musician to know. 

My "third ones":

* Tuba: There is a need for low vibrations in me - and when my main blowing instrument (recorder) is so oversensitive, with the tuba I have had a possibility to blow hard!  And to join in a (university) band - the social aspect was important, too.  I also like the sound of brasses in general, I even was married with a trombone player... fall in love mainly because of the low vibrations? (I am not playing tuba any more, but, like to listen to low brasses)

* Bassguitar/ ukulelebass:  Those low vibrations - here, too. Technically, not so big leap after the  (classical) guitar and tuba: I can read the bass clef, and the technique is not so far from guitar.  It also serves my need of understanding the bass lines and jazz (that is a style I did not understand at all when I was young - but now on my mature age have I found me wanting to understand and be able to play that too). My bass is a hybrid - fretless mictrobass, so it is not so huge as the normal guitar bass is, and still, when having ukulelebass-type "rubber strings" has an intersting sound a bit like double bass has.  Even it is more difficult, the frettless I wanted to start to play, because technically it finally is possible to play it in tune (Challenge to my ear!)

*Percussion: "Hand drums" (Shaman drums, Djembe, Cajon and Congas) , a little bit also the others, like spoons for example or mallet instruments (xylophone).  The drum set is too noisy for me, and also there is the same problem: too many parts of me playing too many different layers. I rather try to imitate the same things only with my hands.  How the membrane "speaks", all the different nuances of the sound. Those are my interests! How do they communicate with each others, how I feel them in my own body when I play the drums?  In playing percussion there is also the interesting aspect: how they form a continuum of a whole body movement or dance. And: My groove has not ever been so brilliant, when I am so much a melody player.  There is a possibility to make that part of my musicality better.

Would like to play or only have had some experience:

* Something like keyboards, but luckily not:  Mallet instruments - especially xylophone. Like the sound ow wooden instruments in all their forms!   Also harpsichord had I in my teaching room for some years, so I become to love the sound of it. Even there is the my so much feared keyboard, it is not a keyboard instrument for me: it is a picking instrument like guitar and ukulele are! The attack is made by little nails ;)  And an absolute bonus: It was possible for me to tune it myself, and make some interesting experiences by intervals and vibrations.  Would so much like to have one by my own at home!

* Hand bells: Interesting about half year had I with those, too (I joined as a substitute player in an orchestra for one musicians pregnancy time for a couple of concerts) - opened me a new world of "playing together": when you are responsible for 2-6 bells and still the melody has to flow from player to other and the chords have their attacks exactly at the same time, it was quite demanding, but so fun!

* I have now for wind instruments the sound of recorder (wooden flute) and brass (tuba) but no reed ones: so I bought me a chromatic harmonica, and have started to play it by the help of tutorials.  Just for fun ;)  

* As a continuum of the frettless bass would I like to try a skiffle bass with one string - after one trial I noticed it is even twice as hard to find the right pitches with it! But, we have formed a skiffle group, and I might be the main one to be "pushed" to that role.  Bass lines I somehow understand, and the same challenges are with the saw. The bass sounds much better in my ear, and playing it even " looks cool" in my mind.  So: maybe? 

AND the newest one, and which I seem to feel quite seriously taken to me:

* The cello:  The sound! I have all my life admired it, but had no possibility to start to play it in my early ages.  And on my adulthood I had always "too much" else to do, too many instruments to play and teach and so on.  And no money either - or so I thought. But: If I say to my ukulele students, that "age is no problem - If you are motivated, just start to play it", I should be ready to say that to myself, too. So, when it become possibility to have the cello "department", and I could get 3/4 cello from a music school boy who didn´t want to play it any more, and changed to guitar, and even now I got a live teacher, why not to start playing in my mature (but still early?) age of 62 myself??? Cello has many aspects that have been important for me in many other instruments: It is made of wood, it is mainly a melody instrument, it has a good vibrations in my famn/lap, I can feel it the resonate in my own body,  it is mainly on low register, both hands serve for producing the same note or chord, it is possible to be played in tune (no frets!), it can be played in consort with recorders and as an accompaniment with guitars or ukuleles (basso continuo) - and maybe even I find my way into a bigger amateur sinfonietta (to broaden my musical taste and find new, different kind of role and musicians to play with)..... after I have patiently learned more. And: I have not yet have had an instrument from the group of violin family, it is a hard but refreshing new challenge to play with the bow.  New aspect, totally something new technique to learn.  With recorders can I not make large dynamic changes inside one note,  and with guitar/ukulele it even is mainly the attact that matters.  With the bow I could get more to the melody in that sight?  But: let´s see how it goes...