Now that have unsuccesfully argued who is a musician..

Cafe Society
21

I play classical guitar (bachelor’s of music in classical guitar performance and music theory/composition) but mostly like playing my own things now. I have been told they sound like “renaissance/jazz” but it is really a fusion of three styles: Renaissance melodies, jazz harmonies, and flamenco rhythms, and bittersweet lyrics :).

I took some piano in college and at the time could play decently enough. (Scriabin Etudes, easier Chopin and the like.) Now I haven’t played for years. I was never completely comfortable on the piano and it took a whole lot of work to get anything down pat but it was enjoyable. If I had more time I would have probably been ok at it.

I sing as well, Baritone here. I have sung in a variety of bands/choirs/and solo. I enjoy it but now only do it with my own music.

I can also play a variety of the orchestral strings but abhor the violin (it is too small). I played the viola and cello decently enough (ie, in tune and with some decent fretwork) but played the upright bass much better. I enjoy playing the bass but it never felt as lyrical as the guitar so I quit. (I played bass in various grindcore/punk bands when I was younger.)

I am learning to play the congas. I am technically certified to teach any band (woodwinds/brass/percussion) and stringed (orchestral) instruments but wouldn’t really feel comfortable doing anything much other than guitar/lute/piano/voice.

I also play the recorder, shawm, hurdy gurdy and several other renaissance instruments. I did about half of my junior and senior recital on my lute. It was a lot of fun.

Those are the instruments I play well. I have a working knowledge of most of the other ones and can play some melodies as appropriate but wouldn’t really consider myself able to play them as I am not completely comfortable with them.

HUGS!
Sqrl

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I used to have an electric violin. I took my 100 year old violin I played in high school orchestra, and put a barcus berry transducer on it. I started buying guitar stomp boxes and running it through them, then I started running through the filter banks on my moog synth. Talk about pissing off the nieghbors. I tryed getting into a couple of bands my friends had, but they wernt much interested in the violin, just the synth. Eventually I sold the violin to buy more keyboard gear. I have regretted it often. I still have a mandolin, and since they are strung the same as a violin, I can play that somewhat. I was big fan of Jean luc ponty, I got to see him live in dallas at the majestic in about 1983.

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Thanks. Yeah, I noticed the skip last night, after I posted this. I think I will rip the cd again and put all the tracks up there, maybe make them a little smaller. We did a 12 bar blues jam with digeredo for one track. Pretty much sucked, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

23

Bachelors and Masters degree in Music (Education, but still did performance and lessons) - voice major (mezzo-soprano). Have done some singing in church and secular choirs.

Still play some piano, organ, and guitar. Getting back into recorder. Had to learn basics for all the orchestral instruments (except oboe and bassoon) for teaching techniques classes. Did mallet percussion back in high school (pretty good on the vibraphone, but no Lionel Hampton, alas). I doodle around on a friend’s celtic harp, but would love to learn pedal harp.

Really really miss playing french horn (high school and some college). May pick one up again if I can find a decent music store around here.

Actually, I always wanted to play cello.

bdgr - I met Jean-Luc Ponty. Great guy, phenominal concert. Rates right up there with meeting Dizzy Gillespie and Pat Methany after their concerts. Had a wonderful half-hour chat with George Winston after his concert and he played some new stuff for me. Great guys.

24

Here we go again. Not only is this an ignorant and close-minded statement, it is entirely untrue. Back it up. Provide a definition (and where you got it) of music that can’t include hip-hop.

Now what you can speak to is whether or not you like that particular kind of music. You obviously don’t like rap. Why?

I hate contemproary christian music. It’s still music. Here’s why I hate it:

-Speaks to a large portion of the culture that is brainwashed by a 2000 year old mythology (GD anyone?).

-It is usually very very cheesy.

-It is usually used as an excuse to pass the hat around and take more money for “The cause” off of hard-working people.

That said, I used to live in Kentucky, and I had the chance to hear a ton of gospel music. The only stuff I really liked, musically, was the old bluegrass gospel. It’s message is stupid, but the voices and instruments blend together in an often haunting way that I find fascinating. It’s not party music, but it has a special place in my heart.

Goddamn haters. Leave hip-hop alone. If you don’t like it, fine. But for christ sake don’t diss thousands of artists and millions of fans by claiming it’s not music.

Per the OP: I play the turntables and steel drums. Thinking about taking up the standup bass. The only thing I really want to play live is the turntables, but I figure the more I learn about music and “traditional” instruments, the more I will be able to think musically, and translate that to my work on the decks.

DaLovin’Dj

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You don’t want to open that musical debate on what is and what isn’t music here. It is too subjective.

When I play the guitar for fun, I can play in pretty much any style. I tend to like bluegrass and folk(I have been playing bluegrass and folk music for about 10 years now), classical (been playing classical music for about 10 years as well), flamenco (flamenco for about 8 years), and jazz (about 8 years also). I used to play a variety of heavy metal, punk, grindcore, and death metal (about 13-14 years ago). I played some blues for a while but only enough to get the basic 1 4 5 pattern down with some walking basslines… but it wasn’t for me because it felt very contrived. I did enjoy soloing over those but that is about it. It is more interesting to play it all at once. :slight_smile:

HUGS!
Sqrl

26

WEW,
Musicians play music.

You list a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance as “what you play” (for want of a better phrase).

Rapping is performing using your voice.

Can you still class it as “not” being music when it fits your own criteria for being music?
as for the OP:

I play Clarinet, Guitar and Bass.

my bands mp3’s are available on http://iamspartacus.iuma.com

27

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I was so hopeing we wouldn’t.

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This aint GD, so none is needed. Please, I beg of you, lets not get into a debate here.

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I’m not brainwashed, and I like some of it. I’m a Christian.

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absolutely true, but it is getting better. Actually I wouldn’t go as far as usually, but maybe often.

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My church usually takes in enough to keep the doors open, and help a few people in the neighborhood who need it. But this debate doesnt belong here.

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I personally don’t believe in insulting anyones beliefs. I know you were responding to WEW, but with statements like that you insult me too. What did I ever do to you man?

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My sentiments exactly. See above.

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I agree with this statement entirely.

Cool.

28

dalovindj can’t get no respect! I’m with ya dj!

OK… I play flat pick (mostly rhythm) guitar. Completely self=taught. Yes I’m a masochist.

I’d like to learn fingerstyle, but it looks tough… real tough.

Whenever I see someone playing fingerstyle technique, it makes me feel like a cat clawing at the strings, the way I play. But, oh well.

I love the guitar because there are so many styles to learn and perfect that it really is a “lifetime” instrument. I love it so.

29

Thanks for the support Acco40.

I think this statement holds true for most, if not all, instruments. To really be great at an instrument is to know that there is no destination. It’s not like you get to a certain level and that’s that. Glad I did it. It is a lifetime journey, music. The more you learn, the more you learn there is to learn. To be truly great, it should be a part of your life daily, and should continue that way till you die. I can think of nothing I find more enjoyable than music.

Maybe sex. Tough one. On an island forever, you can have sex or music, but not both. Hmmmmm. I guess it depends on what she looks like.

DaLovin’Dj

30

bdgr I couldn’t agree more. There was a time in my life only 4 - 5 years ago when I pondered this idea intensely, back when I spent countless hours trying to figure out who the heck I was. (I still don’t know exactly, I just don’t care anymore). I couldn’t resist the feeling that there was a profound interaction between my ADD and my spirit of improvisation, as well as my life in general.
Maybe I’ll bring this up in the future for further discussion when I have the time and energy.

31

Moe, I guess I’m hijacking my own thread, but something Tony Campolo once said about the subject of self discovery really had an impact on me. He said that he constantly had students come to him saying how they had to drop out of school so that they could strip away the roles society had forced upon them, and impact thier life experiances had had on them so that they could find out who they are. He said he always told them that they would find out in the end that they were an onion.
That if you strip away the layers of skins on and onion, there is nothing left, the onion is the sum of all those layers, and the self is merely the sum of all those life experiances. That the self is not an entity to examine and discover, but and entitiy waiting to be created.

Sorry, I don’t know why i felt the need to post that, must be the pain killers. I’ll be glad when I’m through will all this back pain crap. This vicodin is really wiping me out today.

32

I have played flute since about 5th grade (I’m in 11th now), but do not play it much anymore. I also play bassoon, which I started (mostly on my own, with a little help from my band director) in 8th grade and just started lessons in January. I also play a little bit of piano.

I am currently the junior field commander at my school, and am learning music theory (which I can tell is going to make my head hurt very shortly).

I like all sorts of music to play and listen, I’ve even dabbed a little bit into jazz on my bassoon (strange, yes, but possible, and loads of fun).

33

Played euphonium (baritone) for six years in junior high and high school, though never particularly well. As long as there was a moderately talented musician in the section, I was second chair (there was almost always someone around worse than I was, however). After my sophomore year, when our senior first chair graduated, I really expected to take over first chair by default. As it happened, the guy who’d been AllState first band first chair as a sophomore the year before moved to town, ensuring that I’d stay in my natural place. I realized early on that I wasn’t going to be a brilliant musician and made myself useful in other ways (equipment manager, etc.). Since I’d always rented school instruments and never bought my own, I gave it up after graduation; I never really regretted that, since opportunities for solo euphonium players don’t come around that much.

It did give me a sort of low-brass, supporting player outlook on my musical abilities, so that when I took up guitar my senior year, I never progressed much beyond the three-chord, rhythm-only, power-chord sort of thing; lots of Velvet Underground/Modern Lovers/Clash/Ramones/Troggs/Rezillos stuff. In any collection of three guitar players, I’d inevitably be the worst of the group and end up playing bass.

After college, I played less and less, and eventually reached a point where I didn’t take my guitar out of the case for nearly eight years, until last fall. When my son started preschool, he got very much into imitating his music teacher, playing his toy keyboard and singing, pretending to play toy guitars, etc. I decided that it’d be fun to start playing again so that when he’s a little older it’ll be something we can do together, at least until he reaches the age where that’d be hopelessly uncool. I found myself enjoying it more than I remembered – enough that I decided to go ahead and buy myself a bass and an amp that’d serve for either a guitar or bass amp. I don’t have the time these days to really sit down and woodshed and improve my playing, but I do enjoy thumping around after the kids and wife are in bed. I mainly play along with CDs or MP3s of old pub rock, power pop, R&B and punkish stuff – if it’s based on a twelve-bar blues progression where I can get by with a simple walking bass line or something simple like that, I can manage.

My onstage career consisted of two performances, in one of which I played guitar and sang (provided I may be allowed some liberty with the term) on “Roadrunner” and “Someone I Care About”, and bass on “Clash City Rockers”, “Sweet Jane”, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, and “Submission” as well as our one original composition, “Iguana in the Sauna”, then finished the set on drums for our version of Doktors for Bob’s “Half-Assed Drunk”.

34

Lets see. I have played drums for about 15 years on and off. All through high school I played in a punk band and was also in wind ensemble, and jazz band. I sometimes did the drums for school plays too. I hate to admit it but I was also in…gulp…marching band.

In 92 I moved from NJ to Tampa Florida and had to leave my drumset behind for awhile. During college I took up guitar and taught myself to play. I played nonstop for about two years and also bought a bass.

Finally in 94 I was able to ship my drums down and start playing again. I have played in bands that play anything from Talking Heads to Punk. Drums are definetly my main intsrument but guitar and bass have become my “escape” from dealing with band issues. I do a fair share of home recording with me, myself and I. Ironically I never play drums on my home stuff. Since everyone else is sharing Here is one of my works in progess. It’s just a little instrumental…nothing big.

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Couldnt get the link to work, I’d like to hear it. I try to do a bit of home recording myself. My biggest problem I think with recording is programming the drumm parts, and lyrics. Those come slow to me. The instrumentals I can do all day.

36

Interesting stuff. I like the underwear song especially.

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hmmmm let me try one more time.

Here is an instrumental

Here is one with vocals. This one is lacking a lead in the bridge. Im working on.

I just tested the links and they seem to work…if not, sorry :wink:

38

heres what I get

Some free host block links to files from other sources, so that people wont just use thier services as file servers. I suspect that is what is going on.

39

I just tried it. The first one doesnt work anymore but the second does.

40

Great metaphor :slight_smile: I’m gonna use that one in the future if you don’t mind.

We seem to be on the same page here as well. I spent half of July and most of August out of commission with back problems. (do a search in GQ for my “serious back pain advice needed thread”)

Moe

  • who will gladly further hijack a thread once it’s been hijacked by the OP.