Playing Multiple Musical Instruments: How musicians can transform their principal instrument performance skills and musicality

Abstract

Music students learning a musical instrument tend to rely on their teacher for instructions. The challenge for the students is to become autonomous performers and develop critical thinking to enhance their musical skills. Informal learning is an essential component for developing their self-efficacy and for regulating their learning skills. The aim of this study is to explore the experience of musicians in learning multiple musical instruments and to discover the knowledge transfer that takes place between one instrument to another. It first asks students to identify their reasons behind choosing a second instrument. Then, it asks students to identify any new skills that they have applied from their second instrument to their principal instrument. Thirty participants from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (fifteen pianists and fifteen non-pianists) were invited to complete a questionnaire about their principal and non-principal instrumental learning. Students reported are either formerly or currently playing two to three instruments. All were having tertiary instrumental lessons for their principal instrument. Some learned the non-principal instrument through formal lessons while others taught themselves. The reported skills were identified into seven different skills: aural and listening, theory, phrasing and breathing, sight reading, ensemble and collaborative skills, stylistic and interpretation and presentation skills, hand/body movement in affecting sound. Students reported that they felt more versatile and better equipped to demonstrate their musical sensitivity. They could implement better technique and have improved perception of music. They gained more performance experience from playing multiple instruments and learned more variety of stylistic genre and repertoire. Playing more than one instrument prepares students to be life-long learners who can direct and monitor their own musical development through their principal instrument.