Musician-Shaped Objects

I've decided it makes no sense to hold a single position on cheap musical instruments. The reason is, there's not one kind of musician.



I sort of have a hard time going into the headspace of a band student now.

(I wish I'd done band as a child. The practice, the skilled instruction, but more than that, playing with other people, playing what you are handed, playing when required. The chance to get real-world performance chops and the exposure to so much of the standard literature. Learning on your own, it is too easy to be a two-trick pony; to learn just enough to get by on whatever it is you are currently interested in.)

In any case, band is demanding. You need an instrument that can stand up to constant use. You need one that meets standards; you can't chart around the weaknesses of a bad instrument. And you need one that is made of good materials with standard fittings so when the inevitable breakage occurs it can be repaired.

The learning process of a student is different. You are learning everything at once; musical ear, notation, pitch relationships, rhythmic sensibility, and -- assuming you are young enough -- the basics of fine motor control.

The student needs a decent instrument. They don't have the experience or the leeway to be struggling with their own instrument. So no cheap instruments. Not even used instruments -- unless you can afford to take it to a professional and get it repaired tuned and properly setup. So rental from a company that does rentals, or put down the money for a decent student instrument from a name brand. Anything else is a disservice to the student -- and to their instructor and their bandmates.

For this market, the hundred-dollar Big Box instruments are a disservice, no, worse, a trap, and can not be sufficiently condemned.



And then there's the other musicians. I'm going to leave aside the professional gigging musician, because that isn't a group who has a need to shop for low-priced instruments.

Instead I mean everyone from the fifty-bucks-a-service pit musician or the pick-up band or the home recordist. People who aren't making a living at it, and don't see themselves on the career path to a chair in a regional symphony orchestra.

For these people this is a golden age; used instruments, cheap instruments, experimental instruments. They move in an environment that is open to experimentation and flexible about what can and can't be achieved. It won't blow the second octave? Rewrite the part. Out of tune? Fix it in the mix. A key fell off? Glue or the appropriate fixit skill. The whole instrument fell apart? Well, then it was a noble experiment and it isn't like they have to have one for class in the morning.




The latest to catch my eye is the Yamaha Venova. Billed as a "Casual Wind Instrument" it is planted as a weird cross between a student saxophone and the kind of ABS recorder found in every classroom. It is pitched as a soprano sax and more-or-less sounds like one but has very few keys; most of the holes are played with the bare finger, just like on recorder. It is even designed so with one quick adjustment it is fingered recorder-style.

It is of a folded-pipe design and to give it an even more space-age appearance there is a weird funnel-like extension. Although it is a cylindrical bore instrument, the extension changes the harmonic series and makes it overblow at the octave like a sax. Interestingly enough, if you stopper the extension, it sounds like a clarinet...just a clarinet that won't play in pitch (as the keys no longer line up with the harmonic series).




Truthfully, I don't know if "experimental" (or should you call them "novelty") instruments are cheaper because of intrinsic qualities (the electric ukulele, for instance, has only four string and is smaller than a guitar, meaning less material) or because they haven't been accepted widely enough. I suspect the latter, because Ubasses are coming out now that cost several times what the first crop did.

What I do know is these are new enough to bypass the "academy" thinking that swarms around established instruments. What I said above about the student versus the adult amateur stands, but I've found a great many people don't understand or can't accept the later group. They get almost angry about anyone who won't get a proper instrument and sit down in proper classes -- with the unsaid expectation of playing semi-professionally ten, twenty years down the road.

Some people can throw every waking hour and every spare dollar into their hobby. Most of us don't. There is music to be had outside of the standard path. And for those on that path, even the instrument-shaped object takes on a very different shape.

I still think you are better off with a used instrument or an experimental instrument, but if you have sufficient skills and the fortitude to stomach blowing a few hundred bucks on something that doesn't work at all, they have their place. That said, most of mine are modded now, making them more experimental than cheap.



Oh, yeah. And the adult beginner?  I mean, a true beginner to performance? Your path should look more like the band student's path. Except as an adult you need (and can afford, both mentally and financially, an accelerated profile). Rent a decent student instrument. Hire a one-on-one instructor. You don't have the luxury of endless rote practice time and you don't have the background to hack it alone. And you, too, should stay away from those damned ISOs.