In all honesty, learning a new musical instrument can be a very rewarding experience. Take it from me, I've been playing my trumpet for about 10 years now and I recently picked up guitar 4 months ago. It's fantastic just picking up the instrument itself and fooling around for a couple of minutes, which then turns to hours. So I pretty much compiled a small list of reasons why I picked up an instrument to play.

5) Stress relief

I've had my share of stressful times. It's nice to pick up an instrument and just play. It's not like you're limited either, you can play any kind of music reflective of the mood you're in. This is espically good if you're not very good at voicing out your feelings and putting it in words. In this sense music doesn't need words. Besides at the very root of it, we use sounds to express our frustration. Such sounds could be a subtle sigh to a loud groan. At least if you have an instrument in hand, it will sound a little more pleasing.

4) Music Theory

Instruments and music theory go hand in hand. As you learn how to play an instrument, you learn more and more about music theory the better you get. Of course it's not easy at first, but once you apply it to your music, there are just so many benefits that could be found. For one, not everyone can read music, it doesn't even matter if their tabs, chords, or sheet music. So basically it's like knowing another language.

Once you establish a well based knowledge of music theory and a good amount of skill with your instrument, you can start to write songs. Or, if you're not really the writing type, you can also apply your knowledge of music theory to learn a new instrument. With that knowledge it will be a much quicker learning process than your first instrument. Why learn just one instrument when you can learn two?

3) Community

Learning how to play an instrument opens you up to a community of other people who like to play instruments. You start to meet people who play other instruments as well as the same. With this common interest you meet more people and maybe even start a band. Depending on how good you are, you could also get a number of people who appriciate the level of your talent and maybe even inspire others to learn how to play an instrument. Not only that, but most people are always turned on by the fact that a person plays an instrument (depending on what instrument).

Face it, everyone in the world listens to music. This only means that there is a worldwide community of musicians out there. So here's something for you, I play guitar and I knowing how to play makes me appriciate the most craziest insane riffs out there. So that means, whenever I listen to a song in German for example, Instead of wondering what the hell they're saying. I can sit there and stand in awe of how complicated or challenging the guitar riffs are.

When it comes down to something like that, music itself is something that the world understands. The types of different people you meet is pretty much limitless.

2) Flexing the creative muscle

Learning an instrument opens the doors to many things. The possiblities are endless. You can write your own songs or add your own flavor to some that are already out. Then once you flex your "creative muscle" everything then becomes yours and your music becomes something that relates to you.

The feeling you get after learning or writing a song gives you a sense of accomplishment. You start to feel good about yourself as you play the song over and over again. It gets even better when people start to compliment you on your hard work and become fans of your music.

It's actually pretty hard to describe the type of feeling you get, but it's so worth it.

1) Straight up fun and addicting

The number one reason why ANY musician plays their instrument is because it's fun and their most likely addicted to it.

Whenever you become this passionate about the instrument you play, you can just pick it up and all of a sudden time just flys by without you even realizing it. It doesn't even matter what you're doing, you could be writing a song or just playing random notes. With knowing that, it's also a very very good way to kill time by practicing.

I know, the idea of practicing sounds boring. But in reality, theres always something new and exciting to learn about your instrument. And if you find that there's nothing else that insterests you, then there's always another instrument.

In conclusion, the possibilities are endless. Everyone has their own reasons for playing. The best way to really know if playing an instrument is really for you, is to go out there and see for yourself. There is just so much to be discovered and so much potential behind everyone. So I just urge everyone to just go out there and see for yourself, because that's what it's about, yourself.