Will learning to play another instrument help me to become a better guitarist?

Question

I am a programmer and I do this for living. As a programmer, I've noticed how much difference it makes to learn another language - the quality of your work improves greatly, just because you know how things are done in different environments. Looking at the same things from another point of view cam be a bit help.

So - does the same apply to music? Will learning the basics of piano, trumpet or violin help me at all? Are there any benefits of being able to play several instruments if my goal is to be better at guitar?

Answer 1

Learning another instrument will not necessarily make you a better guitarist; since the time spent learning another instrument is time that your spending not building your technical ability on the guitar.

It will however probably make you a better overall musician; since playing/learning a different instrument encourages you to think about your preferred instrument differently; and will probably give you a better idea of how they fit together musically.

There are many guitarists who have got ideas for their own playing by analysing the music of players of other instruments. Actually learning another instrument is a natural extension of that.

Answer 2

Learning the piano is the best way to learn about music in general. Its orderly, logical keyboard layout reinforces music theory concepts that can be otherwise difficult to learn and appreciate. Plus, the ability to play bass, melody, and chords simultaneously make it a great way to learn how all the different parts of music work together to make a whole sound. In fact, it's such a good way to learn about music that most music schools require their students to pass a keyboard proficiency test, regardless of the instrument they're primarily studying. It's not an accident that almost all of the major composers of Western classical music were at least decent keyboardists, and some (Beethoven*, for example) were among the very best pianists in the world.

If you were also a bassist, I'd recommend too that you learn to play the drums at least passably well. The bass/drums interplay is the foundation of most pop music, and when both instrumentalists understand each other better, it can go a long way to making your lives easier.

As for trumpet, saxophone, and other non C-based instruments, you don't have to learn how to play them, but it would probably be helpful to at least understand that they call the notes by different names than you do: for example, when you ask a trumpet player to play a C, the sound that comes out will actually be a B♭. Understanding that will clear up a lot of confusion.

*Possibly apocryphal but believable story about Beethoven's piano prowess: He played the piano for the world premiere of his Piano Concerto #1 in C Major (this part is undisputed fact). When he arrived at the concert, the orchestra had tuned to the oboe, as is SOP, so they were in standard concert pitch. But the piano, it turns out, was a half-step flat. Rather than re-tune the orchestra---because, after all, he wrote the piece in C and not B for a reason---he proceeded simply to sit down and play the entire piece in C♯ (!!).

Answer 3

I think learning other instruments can give you great new perspectives on music and how it's made.

Take the piano for example: a radically different approach to music creation. Very linear. There's only one place to play a C3 on the piano. There can be multiple places to play the same note on the guitar. That may make certain musical expressions and techniques easier on the guitar, which in turn may make expressing your music easier if you understand how to play the piano. I'm actually of the school of thought that thinks theory should be taught at a piano first. It's linear and you can see exactly what notes you're playing quite clearly.

And knowing other instruments can also help you understand their roles in an ensemble. If you can keep a beat on the drums, you'll understand better why the drummer can't make 5 things sound simultaneously (because he's only got 4 limbs to hit things with). You'll understand an instrument's range, it's limitations and you can score better for it if you're writing for an ensemble.

In addition to a deeper understanding of music, I just personally think there's a ton of joy in exploring new instruments. You get to revisit that struggle to get proficient. You get to have those "ah ha!" moments all over again, where you suddenly realize some deep new insight in to your instrument. The journey, in my opinion, is so much a part of the fun.

Answer 4

Learning other instruments will open you up as a musician. Composers in particular need to learn how to write for multiple instruments, for the simple reason that songs will sound different when written for different instruments -- even when written for different musicians! When I started writing songs specifically for my band's flute player, and tailoring songs to our singers' vocal ranges, these pieces were always easier to learn when rehearsing, and were simpler to play live.

This in turn caused me to be more comfortable as a musician. I write a lot of songs on the piano and, even though I'll later transfer them to guitar -- it's much harder to bring an 88-key keyboard on a gig than a guitar -- these songs sound different than the ones I wrote on guitar.

Putting writing to the side, knowing multiple instruments can make a musician more confident in their playing. I sometimes learn a song on piano, later transferring it to guitar to play it live; this will change how I play the piece, perhaps learning a piano part on guitar that I wouldn't have thought to try.

Answer 5

My 2 cents : if you are a guitarist, and want to dramatically improve your playing, take drum lessons.

It might seem surprising, but after one month you won't play guitar the same way. At all.

The idea is to litterally add another dimension to your playing style.

Piano or another "harmonic" instrument won't make so much different. Additionally, I don't know if you are playing the classical guitar, but piano is definitely a symetrical instrument somehow, which is not necessarily a direction in which you want to go forward when playing such a disymetrical instruemnt as the guitar.

What will drumming lessons bring to you ?

You will become sensitive to rythm. Very sensitive. Much more sensitive than with all the "studies" you may go through and which are purely intended at improving your guitar playing.

You will realize the essential role of dynamics. You can play a whole piece of music with only one snare drum. By varying rythm, notes intensity, and the exact place where you hit them, you create a variety that feeds the piece you are playing. Always the same note.

Good luck !

(P.S. : try to learn on a real drumset, not an electronic one. They have a much lower dynamics amplitude)

EDIT:

Just saw you were a programmer. An analogy would be that you will make a bigger conceptual leap, as a C++ programmer, by diving into LISP, than by learning Java, which is quite similar and won't teach you how to think differently.

Answer 6

I learned piano and violin before moving on to guitar.

Some of the guitarists I learn with struggle with improvising harmonies. It feels logical that if one note in the melody harmonises with, say, its fifth, then moving that chord shape up or down the fretboard for the next note will also create a pleasing chord -- yet that doesn't always work.

It's possible to explain why this is without recourse to a piano keyboard -- but it's a lot easier to explain if you can use a keyboard. Likewise there are things that are easier to explain with a guitar than a piano.

I would like to add though, the piano layout is especially biased towards western music; locked as it is to a chromatic scale, and laid out around a major scale.

Answer 7

Definitely. Cross training to see how the "other guy does it" will make you a better musician. Someone that other musicians will want to play with, because you develop an empathy for the work that others do. The attack on a trumpet is different than an attack with a sax. Knowing this can affect the way a drummer sets up figures in a piece of music. As a drummer, I try to think of tempo in relation to how hard a part is to play on sax or guitar at that tempo, or if the singer will be able to phrase effectively. It just takes a second, but my bandmates appreciate that, and over time, I wound up with a reputation for having "big ears" That's a killer compliment to a musician.....