I enjoyed harmonica and tried ukulele, but played the banjo more. Borrowing instruments from friends or testing out at the music store can be a way to see what feels natural.

I played a brass instrument for 9 years and was good enough that I could’ve probably made a career of it, but it’d have been a struggle for sure.

I’ve dabbled in guitar for close to 30 years now and highly suggest that it’s a better instrument, especially for solo play than anything that is going to make single tones. Chords of any type allow for much richer music when you’re alone.

I did have a parent that made me take a year of piano lessons as my first instrument, but I quit that for the brass. I do wish I had kept after piano/keyboard as it’s much more versatile.

Holy shit. Stop it right now.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THE “you need to learn music theory first” crowd.

GO OUT. FIND A MUSIC INSTRUMENT SHOP (if there still is one where you live)

TOUCH THE INSTRUMENTS. MAKE THEM MAKE SOUNDS.

BUY ONE YOU LIKE AND FIND A TEACHER YOU ALSO LIKE!

WATCH LEARNING TO PLAY <instrument> ON YOUTUBE.

PLAY WITH YOUR INSTRUMENT! AND I DON"T MEAN PLAY MUSIC! JUST PLAY WITH IT! GO TO YOUR TEACHERS LESSONS< AND PRACTICE.

THATS IT.

Please. Do not overthink music. just do it and have fun.

Any musical instrument I know needs a relatively active body position and you cannot learn playing music by reading a book. Let’s start by why you want to learn to play music, is it only for bragging rights? do you want to play with others at some point? Do you actually enjoy listening to/playing the music with a certain instrument? Perhaps start by listening to some performances on different instruments and see what you like. I think the main driver in learning an instrument is that you actually enjoy the sounds you can produce with it. Then second, find some beginner sheet music, preferably with associated tips and tricks. The impsl database is amazing for free resources, but an actual guidebook from the library or music store might be better for beginners. And finally, you learn to play by just doing it a little every day. Find out how you can produce the most beautiful sounds, record yourself to spot errors and use a metronome to make sure you have rhythms and tempo right. There are many youtube videos to watch as well. In the end, getting lessons is way easier than self-teaching, but if that is not available to you this might work. Piano and guitar are usually seen as easier to selfteach than violin-type or flute-type instruments as the technique for beginners is more straightforward, but you run the risk of teaching yourself bad technique that is hard to unlearn at a later stage in all instruments.

Based on what you said about viewing music as a kind of language that can be written down and understood, I actually want to suggest something maybe a little less conventional: Making music in a DAW (digital audio workstation - basically software to make music) on a computer. Depending on the keyboard you have, you may be able to plug it in and use it to control instruments in the DAW.

The reason I think you might actually enjoy getting started there is because it’s a great way to dip your toes in different areas of music without much experience.

Your very first song attempt will likely have you learning about creating melodies, scales, chords, bass, effects, song structure, etc. You won’t necessarily learn a LOT during that first song, but you’ll learn a tiny little bit about many different musical things. And you’ll get to experiment and make something fun in the process. Your first songs will probably sound a little goofy, but they’ll be your very own creation - rather than just someone else’s song you’ve learned to play.

As you make songs, you can search up tutorials on each of the things you want to learn, like “drum patterns for [genre]” or “how to make a catchy melody for [genre]”, or “how to use reverb properly” or “how to structure a song”, just search up things as you run into the need for them. Or even follow complete tutorials for making a song from start to finish, and then experiment and add your own spin on things.

With each song you’ll get progressively better, and learn more about music, and all of these lessons can translate into learning musical instruments too. You’ll get understandings of things like scales, and chords, and basic music theory. Then if you learn any instrument you can even record it and incorporate it into one of your tracks!

Just thought I’d suggest this because like you I very much view music as like a language to learn, and I struggled to learn various instruments with little initial success - but then found myself drawn to making music on my computer and have fallen in love with it!

Pick up a Ukulele, the chords are easy, plenty of modern songs can be translated over, and you’ll build the fundamentals for guitar.

You won’t need to read music, just chord diagrams and tabs. Loads of chord websites and YouTube videos to play along with.

Music lessons for uke tend to be as cheap as guitar and bass. You can get a good uke under $100 at a pawn shop or you can even get a brand new one (don’t recommend) for less than that.

They also come in different sizes. Concert size is a great start. Just don’t get a baritone, different tuning.

really you should pick an instrument that you are excited about and we can’t know that.

I loved playing piano as a kid, and when I became a teen I wanted to play bass, then in my 20s I wanted to learn clarinet so I’d have a well-rounded experience with different instruments.

The best way to learn is classes, the best way to practice is scales. Anyone who has the fortitude to play the 24 scales every day and maybe a few modes before an hour of practice will become better than most people, faster.

Being able to see I-V-vi-IV in F and being able to instinctively play it only comes from hours of drilling scales.

when Im in a music-heavy space, I have some music dice that I roll and make it into a chord progression and play that. I also try and memorize a new song a week til I can play it without looking at the music and without a backing track (but, crucially, with a click track or metronome)

You seem to be more interested and or inclined towards music theory. You are also on Lemmy, which means you are not technology averse. My last assumption is that you might be older (40+).

With all of those assumptions in tow, I would recommend something slightly different. I would recommend electronic music on a DAW like Abelton. Electronic music doesn’t necessarily mean “club music”. A lot of orchestral and acoustic sounding music today was mostly, if not fully, composed and performed electronically through a DAW.

So, why this approach? Put simply, you can learn it mostly from books and performing it does not require you to train your body, only your mind. Itbis also incredibly accessible. If you have a modern computer, and invest in small and new midi controller, you have all you need. I recommend an Arturia Keystep MK2. It runs for $169 and it comes bundled with all the software you will need to get started, including Abelton Live Lite, a slimmed down version of one of the world’s most popular DAWs. The Keystep is tiny and it has a ton of features you might benefit from later (sequencer, arpeggiator, chord lock, etc).

As you learn music theory, you can literally draw and adjust the musical notes with your mouse on the DAW. Music theory and a DAW is the most intellectual way to create and perform music.

If you prefer a more tactile and acoustic approach to music, then a Ukulele is a great choice. I recommend the “Enya Tenor Ukulele 26 Inch Carbon Fiber Travel Ukelele”. It looks cool, sounds good enough, and is weather resistant so you can take it with you anywhere. The damned thing is nearly indestructible by the elements (except extreme heat).

EDIT: The Arturia Keystep or any midi controller is not necessary on day one, or ever. Abelton Live Lite is free or nearly free and it is all that you need to get going. I still highly recommend the Keystep purchase though.

The hard part is putting in the time to practice every day. You can’t learn music without many many hours of practice. This is something only you can figure out, so while your question is good, I can’t answer it for you.

Don’t overlook lessons. They are generally fairly cheap. Lessons give you a set of songs to learn that you have a chance at (many songs are too complex to play at an acceptable level - there is a reason everyone starts with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: Mozart wrote it to be an easy first song), choosing good songs is often hard at your level. Lessons also give you half an hour of practice a week (at the lesson) and generally the embarrassment of having to tell your teacher you didn’t practice gets you another half hour! Lessons also force you to admit you did really bad in some section and go back and redo it instead of moving on. There is nothing about lessons you can’t teach yourself - but most people will not do the above things and it greatly limits their progress.

Before choosing an instrument, remember one of the fun things is to play with others. Thus finding a group you can play with is a useful thing. This can be hard - some groups are jerks to anyone who isn’t a master (if you practice 8 hours a day you can join them in as little as 3 years, but most of us will never be good enough) - but others are very nice to beginners. If you find such a group ask them what they need, sometimes they will know that some sound is missing and so you have reason to learn that, and since the sound is missing they will be even more welcoming of you because even when bad you can have enough good moments that add to the group sound.

An acoustic guitar is always a good answer to this kind of question. Don’t fuss to much with theory, start by learning a few basic chords and strumming along to the radio or whatever music you listen too. Tip: rhythm is more important than the notes in music, so don’t get hung up about mistakes.

Kazoo for the meme videos

String, keyboard and wind, throw in a drum set and you’ll have it all 😁

First you’re going to want to read up on music theory. You’ll want to know about the various scales, time signatures, measures, note subdivision, etc

Once you have that done, you’ll want to start practicing scales. Start with the major scales, then work on whatever scales are common for the genre of music you want to play.

Then it’s time to get a practice book of short training exercises. You’ll want to look for a book of etudes which are only a few measures long.

The way you practice those is you play the first measure over and over until you can do it 20 times in a row without mistake. Then you move to the second one. Once you’ve done every measure individually, start again with 2x measure blocks. Then keep increasing the block size until you can play the whole thing 20x without a mistake.

This is true for most sheet music you’ll use, but it’s slightly different if the music has any codas (but you don’t want to start with those).

Learning a musical instrument is basically just a ton of repetition.

if your local music store lets you try before you buy, i’d try everything they let you. different instruments are more or less intuitive to different people, and it’s hard to know unless you try. in your case, digging languages, i would for sure also learn basic music theory so you know "what* you’re saying instead of just how. it’s not neccisary to know theory to play but it’s fun for it’s own sake and hey! you might be inspired to write something! back when i was in school, the free exercises on tonesavvy (used to be called emusictheory) were the recommended way to get started

for habit building, you just gotta carve out the time and do it. once the novelty wears off, there are gonna be days when you don’t want to practice, and a habit forms when you push through that. you don’t need to practice for a long time every day, ten minutes is plenty as long as you’re doing it consistently. a weird thing about playing music also is that it works kind of like muscle where you exercise to get stronger but you get actually get stronger when you’re resting. if you find yourself getting frustrated, you can just put it down, and you might be suprised to find whatever you were stuck on today is easy tomorrow. but that only happens if you play today and tomorrow. it’s also always better to practice slow and then speed things up once it’s under your fingers. that ensures you have good form and you’ll ironically get things up to speed faster than if you just tried to go fast from the start. the metronome is your friend

good luck and have fun!

Based on a comment in this thread, it seems like you want to learn some basic music theory, to get a feel for how music is put together. Based on that, I recommended electronic keyboards as the instrument. Keyboards are laid out in a fairly intuitive manner that can help you learn how scales and chords are built, and more advanced music theory depending on what you want to learn. Also, electronic keyboards can be quite cheap, and the sound making part (synthesizers) can live in a computer and be pretty affordable as well. But don’t get a keyboard without full sized keys…that will limit your fun and have you learning bad muscle memory. You want to use a keyboard the size you would keep using if you eventually put thousands of hours into playing that instrument.

For shopping, you want a ‘midi keyboard controller’ with a usb connection. It should be velocity sensitive (all the but cheapest ones have this…hit a key faster and note is louder), and I’d recommend 61 keys or a bit more (but that is not critical at first, to just start learning theory and building muscle memory. But I don’t recommend a mini-controller with only like 12 keys or so…that is not enough to learn what you want). Keep in mind that keyboard controllers often don’t make sounds by themselves and instead are supposed to connect to a computer or some such, where the synths are. You can of course buy a keyboard that makes sounds and will function as a controller, but that costs more money, although it also might be much more helpful for you, especially if you don’t have a computer.

And all electronic instruments usually require something else to make physical sound, which means you would be taking a step into having a tiny home music studio, buying speakers and an amp, or triggering a synth on your computer and using existing computer speakers. Once again, you can find something that does all of that, but it won’t be GREAT at doing all of that while also being cheap. But that’s a fine way to get started, and if get hooked, then you can start buying gear to turn it into a more serious hobby home studio setup.