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How many of us play an instrument?

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AToE said:
ANYWAYS - does yours have frets like a guitar, or are there some places where the spaces between frets are much bigger or smaller than on a guitar? Mountain Dulcimers are typically diatonic as I understand it.
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The spaces are bigger and smaller in places. This isn't my dulcimer but mine looked almost exactly the same (It got lost in one of my frequent moves):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/Guinlilly/SpMTop.jpg
 
I mess around with keyboards of various kinds (not referring to computer keyboards here), and my first was an accordion. I still play it from time to time.
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I believe that is required if you are of Polish descent, Wayne. Pretty sure it's a federal law.

:)

With that said, no, I don't play anything except my nose, which I can either blow or pick.

(Had to be said, sorry!) Hee hee hee
 
AToE said:
I love banjos, just don't love anything country! Just doesn't sit well with my eardrums for some reason.

I really want to use some banjos in a metal album, I'm just waiting for a band that has a part that just screams to me that it should be a 6 string banjo with full on metal distortion! (Or even in a spacey rock album could be awesome, with just some light distortion and reverb... I've really got to buy one of those!)
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Let's do something with banjos and an electric accordion or two. ;D
 
wayneb said:
Let's do something with banjos and an electric accordion or two. ;D
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Accordion (thought it was "ian...") I think is a very wonderful sounding instrument, EXTREMELY responsive to the player's touch... I think it might be actually the closest a key-d instrument (piano, organ, harpsichord, etc) can come to the sheer complexity of what you can force it to do as the instruments that actually involve laying your hands upon the resonating body (plucked and bowed string instruments, drums, even winds to a degree).

It's a really nice instrument, no idea why everyone makes so much fun of it. (I guess it can sound goofy as hell, but what instrument can't?)

---

I'd love to ramble on about a project I'm going to be working on over the next few years involving sympathetic resonance in strings (making a whole musical piece out of nothing else... trust me, this is crazy and AWESOME) but it would take up a lot of space and every time I go on about it I get the impression that people's eyes are glazing over... I'll just have to finish it and show it to people so it doesn't sound like a goofy science project!
 
I play harmonica mainly (quite similar to the accordion in many ways) and guitar and sing some. I play in a jug band and a more modern electrified country/rock band. The discussion up to this point reminds me of the keyed and bowed instrument called the Nyckelharpa, which has sympathetic resonance strings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyckelharpa

I know it because of the awesome group Vasen.
 
wildoates said:
I believe that is required if you are of Polish descent, Wayne. Pretty sure it's a federal law.

:)
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I'm pretty sure it's an international law and it extends to most Eastern-European countries... my German-Slovenian husband had to learn the accordion too, one year of torture he doesn't talk about much... his brother still plays accordion and has been keyboardist in an on-again off-again band for a long time.
 
Yeah - with the accordion, you either get it or you don't. Although I was originally "made to" study accordion (it was either study this thing that your uncle gave you for free, or you get no lessons at all - and I really wanted to do woodwinds back then), once I got past the first six months or so of rote study, it actually began to be fun. I ended up studying for a little over 5 years, and got to be pretty proficient with the box.

This thread inspired me to pull out that old squeezebox last night, for the first time in a decade or so. Unfortunately I found that the instrument is now in need of semi-serious repair. The bellows leaks more than a little, and several of the keys are now sticky. Gee, come to think of it, some of those very same descriptions are directly applicable to me! ;)
 
I love to still play guitar sometimes, but it's a little depressing. Back when I was in a pretty technical metal band I would practice for 2 hours at least every day, one hour before the band jammed (which was typically a couple hours itself, and yes, we jammed every day) and then an hour afterwards. This was necessary to keep up with the other guitarist's skills and to be able to play the stuff.

Now that I play probably 5-10 minutes a week (gods that is depressing...) a lot of what I used to be capable of is just gone. It's like there's a local-time-distortion around my bloody fingers or something, my brain is telling them what to do just find, but they seem to think they're moving through mud!
 
I'm not a musician , but recently some instruments have found thier way to my home despite my lack of eptitude.

African thumb piano and Tibet bowl...
 
AToE said:
I love to still play guitar sometimes, but it's a little depressing. Back when I was in a pretty technical metal band I would practice for 2 hours at least every day, one hour before the band jammed (which was typically a couple hours itself, and yes, we jammed every day) and then an hour afterwards. This was necessary to keep up with the other guitarist's skills and to be able to play the stuff.

Now that I play probably 5-10 minutes a week (gods that is depressing...) a lot of what I used to be capable of is just gone. It's like there's a local-time-distortion around my bloody fingers or something, my brain is telling them what to do just find, but they seem to think they're moving through mud!
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I used to be able to sight read bass, treble and two variant of the movable C cleff (Tenor & soprano) Can barely read music anymore :/

I've gone from respectable classical musician to "Wait, what position is that note?"

It's depressing to think about sometimes, then I remember I make way more as a computer engineer than I ever would have working in a symphony.
 
McFeeley said:
After reading the thread on favorite music types, I started wondering how many of us might play an instrument. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a good number of us -- people who brew, vint or make mead, I tend to think, are mostly creative people who get into all kinds of things.

I'm an old guy, well past the half century mark, but I've picked up the Irish tin whistle and bodhran over the last couple of years, and now play with a band, The Sligo Bay Balladiers (we're on Facebook!).

I'm attaching a small clip of our band.

Anyone else play an instrument of some kind?

--
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Nice pic! Thanks for sharing....
I also am closing in on the over the double nickle mark :mad:

Mom made me play the trumpet as a kid and I tried the french horn too.
Hurt my lips to play them, but glad I had the experience!
This is a nice touch to the site. Good to see what folks like to do.

TB
 
I've played guitar and bass in a few bands, but now, I mostly record other players/bands. I find recording/mixing more satisfying now than my mediocre playing. :p
I've run an international music forum for quite a few years with some decent players involved. I've met some good friends from around the world that way, including my wife.
 
I also have played trumpet, valve trombone, French Horn in the past. Just don't play them much anymore so I didn't mention it. But I'm with you!
 
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