I play the piano, which makes me a lucky amateur in one way and an unlucky one in another. Lucky, because there’s more solo piano music than anyone could get through in a lifetime. Unlucky, because it’s easy to spend years alone in a practice room and forget that most of the music we love was written to be played with other people.

Boston has more places to play together than most people realize. They’re just scattered across music schools, community groups, and websites that don’t link to each other. Here’s where I’d start.

First, pick a piece a little below your level. An easy piece can still be well written and fun to play. A piece that’s too hard means spending the entire evening counting rests, trying to avoid wrong notes, and saying sorry.

The easiest way back is an orchestra, because the group already exists and someone else is in charge of the tempo. The Belmont Community Orchestra at Powers Music School is strings only and open to adults of any level, as long as you can manage first-position notes and simple scales. It rehearses on Monday evenings, and spring registration opens this winter. Brookline Music School’s community chamber orchestra doesn’t audition, and it meets on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m., which is handy if you work odd hours. Last I checked, they needed bassoon, trumpet, bass, and percussion. The Rivers Symphony Orchestra in Weston rehearses on Monday nights, takes adults and students, and is free. So is the Harvard Musical Association Reading Orchestra on Beacon Hill: it takes players from novice to professional, meets about once a month to read through selected works from the great Western orchestral repertoire.

Stronger players can try Boston Civic Symphony or the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Both held auditions in September, but Boston Civic Symphony is looking for brass and woodwind subs now, and subbing is a good way in. It’s worth emailing New Philharmonia to ask what’s open, too.

Chamber music is harder to set up yourself. You need two or three people at roughly your level who are free on the same evening, and that’s where the community music schools come in. You do a placement audition, they put a group together, and you get a coach. Powers Music School in Belmont takes beginners through advanced players, with 14 weekly coachings a semester ($600 this fall for a trio or larger group). Brookline Music School has a chamber program too and will take a group that’s already formed. The Rivers School Conservatory in Weston puts intermediate and advanced adults into groups of two to five, with 15 hours of coaching a semester. Ask Rivers about joining in the spring.

If that sounds like too much commitment, try a reading party. Powers runs adult reading parties a few times a year. They sort people into rooms by level, hand out the parts, and there are snacks. Last January’s filled up early. The Concord Conservatory has held a similar play-in, small groups first and then everyone together at the end of the morning.

Eventually you’ll want a group of your own. ACMP, the Associated Chamber Music Players, has been putting amateurs in touch since 1947, and it’s still free. Its directory lists players by instrument and level. On Rhapsodate, the site I run, you can post a request for whoever you’re missing, say, a violist for Mozart or a cellist for a Brahms trio, and people reply to you privately.

A note for fellow pianists: we’re in demand. Every violinist with a sonata and every cellist with a trio needs one of us, so if you can sight-read quickly, you’ll be popular.

Asking a near-stranger to play is a little awkward, but you can keep it small. Suggest one evening and one piece, or even one movement. Pick something a bit under everyone’s level, and book a room somewhere neutral so nobody has to clean their apartment. If it goes well, the next date tends to sort itself out.

About rooms: not every quartet has a living room to spare, and I’d rather not play on an out-of-tune upright if I can help it. Somerville Music Spaces has small studios with baby grands for $28 an hour and a performance room with a Steinway B. The Cambridge Music Consortium, on Broadway between Central and Inman Squares, has eight rooms starting at $31 an hour. The New School of Music in Cambridge rents practice studios ($35 an hour) and a 65-seat concert room with two grands when classes aren’t using them. Book at least two weeks ahead. Rhapsodate keeps a longer list of rooms.

As for what to play first, pick something forgiving but fun. Haydn’s early quartets, like Op. 1 No. 1, “La chasse,” are short and kind to sight-readers. Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K. 136, sounds good even at a careful tempo. For violin, cello, and piano, Haydn’s “Gypsy Rondo” Trio is great fun, and the piano carries most of it, which suits me fine. I’d save Dvořák’s “American” Quartet for your third or fourth meeting; it’s harder than it sounds. Rhapsodate sorts more chamber music by difficulty.

If your instrument has been sitting in a closet for a few years, this fall is as good a time as any to take it out.

Lilan Huang runs Rhapsodate, a free site that helps players find people to play with and lists classical concerts in greater Boston, New York, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles.