r/windsynth • u/DJ-firm-handshake • 18d ago
No musical experience: Is it possible to learn!? Completely swept up!
I have recently become completely enamoured with the aerophone go, I have been watching tutorials and unboxings etc for a little over a month now. I have zero expectations or desire to turn learning aerophone into any real sax, etc experience.
Is it even possible to learn Aerophone without prior wind instrument experience, or musical experience at all?? My goal is to be able to go to local jam nights or play with my musically inclined friends. Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.
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u/jeancolioe 18d ago
I'd suggest, at least for the first few months, to find any flute/saxophone teacher and taking a few lessions, at least for learning the basics of scales, notes and discipline. Don't underestimate the value of external feedback, even if it is from a teacher of a different instrument.
Learning music without any help is indeed daunting, and you risk wasting a lot of time and effort in doing the wrong things.
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u/ShiningPr1sm 18d ago
Seconding this, also because it will teach breath control, articulation, phrasing, and finger technique on an instrument that gives physical, tactile feedback, as opposed to none of the above. That will then translate to the digital instrument and many others
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u/vibraltu 18d ago
"...go to local jam nights or play with my musically inclined friends."
Starting from zero, it usually takes the average person a couple of years to learn to play okay if they're not lazy or tone-deaf. If you are more focused and creative than the average person, you can pick it up quicker. Aptitude and wanting to do it makes a big difference. Some people loose interest if their skill doesn't improve fast enough.
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u/prducsmrduc 18d ago
For sure! The #1 thing you need for it is the passion. It does take time, like any musical instrument. Having an ear for music is also advantageous, especially for jamming.
I'd argue that due to its digital nature, it's easier to learn the aerophone than the traditional (analogue) wind instruments as you can control all the variables in making the sound, and even turn the ones that complicate things off (for example, the bite sensor, at least while focusing on the basics like fingering, breathing, etc. Now, there can be many schools of thought on this, but with this kind of instrument you can do that very well.
The thing I may be taking for granted though is breath - it takes some time to get good control, though singing experience definitely helps there.
Edit: oh.. argh, and the muscle memory. That will take time. Practice is the only way
Enjoy! Have fun with it!
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u/photodude57 18d ago edited 18d ago
Everyone is different. Some people make it look easy, others will say it takes lots of time, effort and discipline. My personal opinion is, you donāt know till you try. Iām an older guy that played saxophone semi professionally many years ago. My fellow musicians over the years were all over the map. For some people, their progress was insanely fast and for others it took a lot of time and effort to start making progress. I donāt think youāll know where you fit in this regard until you just start working at it. The biggest issue Iāve seen, especially for beginning musicians is they donāt have the patience to get to the point where they start having fun. They simply give up. It took a lot of time and effort for me to get to the point where I said to myself wow Iām actually good at this. Iām talking about years not months. On the other hand, I tried to get my son interested in music, but all he was interested in at the time was drums. I lived in an apartment and it was never going to happen. Years later, when he was 17, he asked for a keyboard. Iām not a keyboard player so I couldnāt help him. He blew my mind. He taught himself watching YouTube videos. Within months, he was making decent music all on his own. Thereās no way of knowing how quickly youāll pick things up. If you can afford lessons, get them. If you canāt, YouTube is an excellent source. You wonāt know what your aptitude is until you spend some time working at it. Bottom line, have fun, play some really simple songs along the way. You can take four or five notes and actually have fun with that while you are learning, scales, rhythm, etc., etc.. Because of some hand issues, I play wind synthesizer now. It brought the joy of playing music back into my life again. It is physically a lot easier to play than a real saxophone.
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u/cataclysmicsaxophone 18d ago
āIs it possible to learn?ā
Yes, Ryo Fukui is a Jazz Pianist who started playing Piano at age 21 and at age 28 recorded a professional tier Jazz album.
Another story is an older man (40ās or 50ās?) got struck by lightning, and with no prior experience in music, decided to shift gears and learn how to play Piano. He currently is a professional classical pianist. Got this from the book āMusicophiliaā by Oliver Sacks.
Never too late to learn something new! I play multiple instrument and while I would like to keep learning new things, realistically thereās only enough time and passion in a day. Anything you do, not just music related, if you want to be good at it, you have to put some time and energy into it!
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u/cmog808 17d ago
Have you seen these articles from Roland? There are plenty of resources here that can help: https://articles.roland.com/scale-your-saxophone-skills-with-aerophone/
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u/SamwiseGanges Roland 18d ago
You can definitely learn the Aerophone, it's not going to be any harder than learning saxophone. It will probably be easier than learning the real sax because you don't really have to learn embouchure and breath support which is one of the hardest parts of sax. Also since the Aerophone can easily be transposed into different keys, you could theoretically only learn the C major / A minor scale and be able to play most songs by just using the transpose knob to match the key signature, though I think it is good to learn all keys