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so you’d like to play music

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So, I’ve decided to take up the oboe. As you do.

I already play the viola pretty well (or at least I would do if I practised) and I’ve always thought that if I learnt another instrument, it would be the oboe - we don’t mention the awful piano lessons I spent about 3 years taking when I was much, much younger.

One of the reasons that I didn’t take up the oboe as well as the viola is that it’s quite expensive to learn musical instruments. I was very fortunate in that I had the opportunity to learn an instrument at very low cost through my areas music service. I received 30 individual half hour lessons a year, plus played in a variety of orchestras, sang in choirs, took theory and musicianship lessons - kids can still do the same thing today, where I grew up, the cost is about £132 ($264) per term, group lessons are a lot cheaper. I’ve written elsewhere about how important music is to me, and it’s one of the most enjoyable things that I did at school.

So, now that I’m an adult, I can afford to pay for my own lessons. I’ve had my first oboe lesson, it was a lot of fun, and I’m paying £10 for half an hour, which is the low end of the going rate round here.

buying an instrument

If you or someone you know is interested in learning a musical instrument, you might want to know some typical costs. Don’t forget that these are UK prices, I’m not sure what the rates are likely to be elsewhere, but the relative expense of one instrument compared to another is likely to be the same.

Instruments - student / beginner models

  • violin £80-£100
  • viola £80-£100
  • cello £200-£250
  • double bass £500-£650
  • flute £150-£300
  • clarinet £150-£300
  • oboe £800-£1000
  • bassoon £1000-£1500
  • saxophone £300-£600 (this depends on size)
  • guitar £80-£100
  • trumpet £150-£250
  • french horn £400-£800
  • trombone £200-£300
  • piano £1000-£2000
  • drum kit £200-£300
  • recorder £10-£20

taking lessons

To really, progress, on most instruments, lessons are helpful especially at the beginning. You would be able to get away without if you want to strum the guitar, have a go at the recorder, or provide the drums for your local band. If you want to play in a brass band, or play traditional music (folk and the like) it’s possible to go along and pick things up. But, teaching yourself in this way is hard to do unless you are already quite musical. But, if you aren’t musical you would still get good results on any instrument from having lessons, especially if you worked on the instrument for a couple of years.

A beginner will only be wanting half hour long lessons. In fact you can get to a pretty good standard only having half hour lessons (certainly well enough to impress most people you know). These seem to range from £10-£15 a time. My oboe teacher offers discounts if you pay for more up front, and if you get them through school, or team up with a friend, you wouldn’t need to pay this much.

buying music

If you can learn by ear, then you can do without this. Likewise, if you’re playing in a brass band then the music will probably be supplied. Otherwise, the costs start at £5-£10 for a beginners book, and then ranges from £5-£20+ depending on how much music is in the book, and how rare it is.

If you get into it and you have the cash, it’s easy to spend a lot of money on music. The trick is to actually learn the stuff that you have, before you buy out the whole music shop. That said, it’s nice to have a few things that people will want to hear at different times, like Christmas Carols. Maybe one day you can gather the family round the piano for a singing session (we really did this when I was little :) ).

ongoing costs and repair

Woodwind instruments need to be repaired or overhauled every couple of years or so. This costs about £50-£100. On top of that, clarinettists, saxophonists, oboists, and bassoonists require reeds (cane that vibrates to make the sound), which cost from £5-£20, or you can learn to make your own. Then cork grease (so you can get the bloomin’ thing together) is about £2.

String players need rosin (sticky stuff that makes the bow sound on the string) which costs about £3, and you will eventually break a string and they cost from £5+ to replace. String technology hasn’t changed much in the last couple of hundred years so they are relatively low maintenance. You might one day need a bow rehair, but

Acoustic pianos need to be tuned, preferably a couple of times a year. Digital ones don’t really require that much maintenance.

Overhauling a brass instrument costs from £200 upwards. Fortunately, these aren’t in the repair shop quite as much as woodwind. Otherwise, there’s valve oil, at about £3-£4.

practice

The biggest and most important thing that you need if you want to play a musical instrument, is to practice. Little and often, repetitively, and with purpose (i.e. don’t just play the bits you can already do). To make progress, it’s reckoned that you need to practice about 20-30 minutes at least 4 times a week (a bit like exercise recommendations, really). To become a virtuoso it has been suggest that you need to put in about 10,000 hours of practice. Fortunately, practice is free.

best value for money

Once you get into playing an instrument, there’s a tendency to want a better instrument. My viola cost about £1500 more than 10 years ago, and a really good violin starts at about £10k. The cost of pretty good flutes, clarinets, trumpets, oboes, etc is between 2 and 3 times the beginner instrument cost (and, of course upwards). For value for money, I’d say that the recorder is probably the cheapest instrument - even excellent wooden recorders only cost a couple of hundred pounds. Otherwise, once you’ve bought the thing, the piano is pretty reasonable, and the guitar, is an excellent self-contained instrument where most people are happy with a relatively inexpensive one.

If your dream is playing a concerto in front of an audience of hundreds, then choose the instrument that you love the most - that’s the only thing that will get you through the hours of practice required.

Edited to add: I remembered these frugal musical instrument tips that mrs. micah wrote about a while ago.

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Discussion

14 comments for “so you’d like to play music”

  1. All the best with the oboe! Do you have any particular plans, would you like to be in an orchestra or anything?

    I still have the alto sax I played as a teenager, and also a nice wooden recorder, but what I’d really like to do is learn how to sing. I’m not good at carrying a tune or anything, but I love choral music and I would like to be in the church choir. I have been vaguely considering taking voice lessons, maybe just so I would be passable enough that I wouldn’t embarrass myself in the choir. I wouldn’t know how to go about finding a teacher who would be good at teaching an adult who can’t sing and who would be familiar with sacred music and be able to prepare me to sing in a choir. And also who wouldn’t charge too much, of course. Any advice on that?

    Posted by Canadian | April 29, 2008, 2:20 pm
  2. Oh, I did think of looking for some kind of community band/orchestra that might need a saxophonist, but I’d really rather be in a choir.

    Posted by Canadian | April 29, 2008, 2:22 pm
  3. @ Canadian:
    I suspect that you probably can sing better than you think. I’ve discovered that being an adult beginner is really difficult because you are incredibly self conscious. My oboe lessons take place in a music college where everyone else is planning on becoming a professional musician, and it’s pretty daunting. But everyone has to start somewhere.

    I think that you’d probably be alright in a friendly church choir and you could get away without having any lessons, but they certainly don’t hurt. I’m guessing that what you’re looking for is a classically trained singing teacher. If you’re in Canada, you probably want someone who deals with RCM voice exams - not because you want to take exams, but because they will be good teachers in the sort of singing that you want to do. These people or similar would be ok, I reckon and their prices are about the same as you’d pay in the UK, so are probably standard.

    Once you’ve got a list of teachers (out of the phonebook if necessary) talk to them, and explain what you’re looking for. People who are any good should be able to tell you other people that they’d recommend. Make sure you get someone who’s used to adult beginners, this is much less of a problem with singers as almost everyone who takes voice lessons is an adult when they start. Ask for a trial lesson if you feel comfortable with them on a conversation.

    My oboe plans aren’t very formed yet. It would be nice to be in an orchestra, especially as viola parts are often incredibly boring, whereas oboe parts are usually interesting. On the other hand, in music, interesting is synonymous with difficult. Currently, I’m struggling to get a note out, but practice makes perfect.

    Posted by plonkee | April 29, 2008, 3:24 pm
  4. Musical instruments are my financial downfall ;-)

    I am a pretty serious flute player, and have recorded as a guest musician on five or six CDs. I just last week spent £2600 on a handmade wooden flute that I ordered from the maker 11 years ago…it was worth the wait, and well worth the price. Taxes were another £500 on top of that. I have nearly£10,000 invested in my instruments (three flutes, a guitar, and a set of uilleann pipes), it’s kind of embarrassing, although I know people who are instrument collectors (including a friend of mine who owns more than 70 sets of bagpipes) who spend much, much more.

    Posted by brad | April 29, 2008, 5:14 pm
  5. It does become somewhat of an expensive habit if you let it. At least string instruments are a bit of an investment, my viola is probably worth about what I paid for it - I know that means that it’s lost value if you take into account inflation, but it’s not that it would be worth more new, simply that the price of musical instruments has come down over the last 10 or so years.

    Don’t anyone thinking of taking one up be put off by the amount some people spend. It’s not necessary, it’s just a choice that you can make.

    Posted by plonkee | April 29, 2008, 6:06 pm
  6. I recently took up the guitar. I was hesitant to do it at first, but then it occurred to me that I would spend more of my life playing the guitar than not playing the guitar.

    Posted by Colorado Home Loan | April 30, 2008, 1:46 am
  7. Best of luck with the oboe! I’ve just bought myself a digital piano a few weeks ago, which was fairly reasonably priced att £700 - but to get this kind of deal I also had to wait nearly 5 months until I was absolutely certain i wanted to take up playing again (I’ve had lessons when I was in school but stopped playing regualarly while at Uni) and until I had found a good piano for the right price.

    The real thrill was playing a £75,000 concert piano in the shop though - what a dream. That combined with the smell of fresh wood and polish made me want to take it home, right then and there. Unfortunately it’s about the size of my entire living room (and for once that’s not because of the tiny box sizes of London apartments)… oh yeah, and then there was that price tag! :-P

    Posted by Kirsten | April 30, 2008, 5:17 am
  8. @Colorado:
    I agree about the *more of your life* thing. And even if you didn’t reckon you’d have more of your life left, it only takes 3 years work or so to become an intermediate player - the standard that a lot of music starts to become playable. (It’s probably 5 or 6 to be really considered competent.)

    @Kirsten
    Yes, I’m not sure that many people could fit a concert grand piano into their living room. But your digital piano sounds like a steal. I think that when I’m rich and have 3 reception rooms in a house, one might be the music room and I’ll get a piano.

    Posted by plonkee | April 30, 2008, 5:30 am
  9. Ha! I play viola too (badly)

    Given I don’t play very often, then I wouldn’t take up another instrument. Sometimes play the piano though.

    Posted by Llama for brains | April 30, 2008, 3:55 pm
  10. Oooh good luck with the oboe! How funny you play the viola too!! I play the viola, violin and flute. I’ve wanted to take piano lessons for quite some time, but right now the cost here is about £25 per half hour and it isn’t in the budget. Perhaps in the next couple of years!
    I should look for a music co-op or group!
    Great tip!

    Posted by Frugal Trenches | May 2, 2008, 6:44 pm
  11. Great advice, plonkee. Thank you!

    Posted by Canadian | May 2, 2008, 6:49 pm

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