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I briefly studied music (voice and guitar—the latter very briefly). I've been a part of a few choirs, I've been in a musical stage show (amateur), and I've recorded a few pop/rock songs as a singer (mostly to let my friend put his home recording studio through its paces). I think I am sufficiently talented to have, perhaps, made a modest living at being a musician/singer IF I'd had the time and money to properly train at a young age (at 40, that ship has sailed). Oh well, at least my children appreciate it when I sing them to sleep at night (my two year old son is particularly fond of, of all things, ELP's Lucky Man—my a cappella version of it, anyway)

Piano lessons back in the Neolithic. Clarinet in the grade school band, then guitar lessons and some years in bad rock bands. College physics coursework in acoustics. Still play guitar and bass on occasion.

I studied jazz composition at Berklee College of Music before switching over to English Lit.

I never studied music as a subject, but have had many enjoyable years of playing in various orchestras and wind ensembles. I'm a lapsed muso these days, but, given the opportunity, I'd do it again, just for the fun and the cameraderie.

Over a period of 50 years have played piano, violin, viola, guitar, and bass guitar. Studied music, music theory, vocal music, and piano while in college and still regularly play guitar, bass guitar, and sing today—mostly gospel and contemporary Christian music.

I make a point of playing and hearing non-amplified acoustic music whenever I can, though I don't subscribe to the view that the experience of listening to recorded music is necessarily inferior to listening to live music!

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Studying music, in my humble option, heightens one's ability to appreciate music. It is a lot like golf, or any endeavor, for that matter, and I believe it was Bob Hope who spoke these words, or something like them: If you play it, it's fun; if you work at it, it's golf.

I have studied jazz and play guitar. I will admit, though, that while I truly respect all the cool stuff jazz has to offer, I still love good ole blues and rock'n'roll!

This topic has come up before and in interviews with big name performers there seems to be little interest in owning a really high performing music reproduction system. It seems that that pursuit falls to listeners like me.

I sometimes try to play blues harp or guitar along with blues or folk records. Also try to play trumpet with Miles Davis and other jazz albums (albeit not very well). This makes me listen more intently to the music and allows more in depth appreciation of the nuances.

I took accordian lessons when I was 10-12 years old, but quit because I thought it was dorky. I resurrected my 1958 accordian from my parent's basement and I am going to take lessons again. After seeing Kyle Hollingsworth with The String Cheese Incident and The Radiators involve the accordian in their music I realize that it is a pretty cool instrument after all.

Piano. I have a Kurzweil tenor sax. I have a 1947 Martin guitar. I have an Epiphone Sheridan and a 1969 Fender Twin Reverb. My clarinet is a 1947 Peddler.

I can make what sounds like music on the keyboard and the guitar. I feed those into the computer via Cakewalk Music Creator (the cheapie) and use the various filters therein to cover over the mistakes.

I was a piano performance major in college, then switched to computer science in grad school. I thoroughly enjoy my inexpensive tube amp, but nothing I've ever heard beats my Steinway grand, on which I still play classical music.

Guitar (well), bass (competently), and keyboards (incompetently).

I have studied music, but not at a professional level. I find musical study and the playing of an instrument greatly increases the appreciation of music and the talent of the players.

Thanks for taking my topic suggestion! Music has always stirred my soul and stamped the moments of my life. I never studied music and currently do not play an instrument. I plan to take up guitar this year.

As a kid, I both studied and played music, but have not done so for 35 years. Just a listener now.

Sadly, I never studied or learned to play, mainly out of laziness brought on by hearing horror stories of neighbors' kids being forced to study piano. Anyway, that's probably why when I put my favorite music on here it was "to put it mildly, just awful pop music that would be torture if I had to listen to them for any period of time at all," according to one of your respondents in the last vote.

The vocal instrument. Cords and air. Maybe that should be a choice, too?

I haven't studied music as much as I'd like to or should. I certainly don't play as much or as well as I'd like. That old Strat deserves better than the likes of me!

The study of music was mixed for me. The notes and counting was boring but the physics was cool.

I started playing the trumpet back in grade five and continued playing it throughout high school. In my teens, I then started taking private drumming lessons. I then switched to drums and percussion exclusively when I started the music program at a local college, well known for its jazz program. I studied there for about three years and eventually quit the program before its completion. I still play drums semi-professionally, only now it's only a hobby. I also picked up a used trumpet not long ago along with some sheet music in Bb. I can't believe I still remember the fingering for all the notes, but man, does my blowing suck. Umm... pun not intended.

The instrument being my voice! Cathedral boy chorister, and subject to the RSC musics training! Don't sing as much now! Why do you ask?

No, but I have studied music instrument technology. Synthesizers don't make themselves you know.

I'm a should-a-have-been musician. I don't play because my mother (when I was in junior high) said, "You will not play those drums like those hot-in-tots and kanakies in Africa," and that was the end of that. It happened at that crucial time when I had the interest, the ambition, and willingness to do whatever it took to learn. And she just stopped it dead.

I took two years of piano lessons as a kid.

Only keyboards, self taught.

I came from a family of musicians and, as the black sheep, was intolerant of the tedium of music lessons. Instead I became the family's most well-rounded appreciator of music, conversant in as many facets as I can absorb, and I wouldn't trade my eclectic appreciations for prowess on any instrument; most of the musicians I know are to some extent self-limited by their facility; the classicists can't abide heavy metal, the choral specialists hear untrained singers as uneducated. I firmly believe that great music connects on a level much deeper than one defined by qualifications.