Other Instruments

[smitty_p]

So, I played flute this morning for the first time in 10 years. That was interesting. Not only did I need to warm up my fingers for the guitar parts I was playing, but I had to warm my lips up, too. My embouchure is a little flabby. Anyhoo, I kinda want to learn a little violin. Electric violins are surprisingly inexpensive. It would be really cool if I could find an electric violin with an SG body style.

What other instruments do ya'll play?

 

[dbb]

So, I played flute this morning for the first time in 10 years. That was interesting. Not only did I need to warm up my fingers for the guitar parts I was playing, but I had to warm my lips up, too. My embouchure is a little flabby. Anyhoo, I kinda want to learn a little violin. Electric violins are surprisingly inexpensive. It would be really cool if I could find an electric violin with an SG body style.

What other instruments do ya'll play?

Well, or at least reasonably well?

Guitar, bass, string bass, 4 string banjo, mandolin, lap steel/dobro, ukulele, flute, keyboard, drums, recorder, some ethnic stuff like bouzouki and oud.

I've had experience on violin, clarinet, sax, and trumpet, but never really got very good. I do know the fingerings and such.

 

[iblive]

Play at bass. Going to work a bit harder and actually learn to play it.

Jr. High and High School I played trombone in concert, marching and jazz band. About 20 years ago I did an alumni sort of thing with the HS band. Of course to get the lip in shape I started practicing a few weeks before. Practiced a bit too hard the first day and had a lip hickey that lasted 2 or 3 days.

 

[Biddlin]

I can play harmonica, ukulele, guitar,bass, 5 string banjo, Appalachian dulcimer, recorder and pennywhistle. I can fake some things on keyboards and vibraphone . I started out on clarinet, but a fall from a Honda 305 Super Hawk, face first onto concrete, damaged my embouchure, among other things !

 

[Greg Connor]

Variety is the most fun! I have always been interested in Flute, but never learned.

I do, however, have a collection of Irish whistles. I've been puttering with them for years. They're a great accent when recording music.

 

[smitty_p]

Variety is the most fun! I have always been interested in Flute, but never learned.

I do, however, have a collection of Irish whistles. I've been puttering with them for years. They're a great accent when recording music.

Flute's not really that hard to get started, but it takes a long time to get a really nice tone and have smooth, fluid fingering. I also have a cheap, wooden six hole fife.

Quite honestly, the real reason I started with flute was that I wanted to take up an instrument in high school. Since my mother had been first-chair flautist in high school, I figured I had a free tutor if I needed one. Sheer pragmatism, plain and simple.

About a year later, I started playing in Sunday morning church, but never had any sheet music. All they had were guitar chord charts. Around this same time I began getting interested in guitar. So, I borrowed a book on music theory and learned the theory behind chords. So, I used guitar chord charts and made up my own harmonies by just picking notes within the chord. It was kind of fun, but guitar eventually captured my heart so I moved to it.

 

[dbb]

Flute's not really that hard to get started, but it takes a long time to get a really nice tone and have smooth, fluid fingering.

I had been playing guitar and bass for a couple of years and got a cheap but working flute...I loved Jethro Tull, among other bands....and never looked back. I enjoy being a mediocre flautist!

For about 10 years I played sax and clarinet, too, but the jaw pressure and the reeds drove me nuts, so I sold all but one clarinet, which I do not play these days. Only flute.

 

[Tobacco Worm]

Smitty, you're a trip and a half! I love your honest enthusiam toward life!

Play kinda sorta ok on my end? Besides guitar...piano and organ (my mother was concert quality in her day. Gifted artist). Drums ( my father was a drummer in big bands and jazz bands). So I had the both of them to teach me when young. I was reading and writting the english language and musical notation at age 5, but I still stink to this day as a musician! In my case the apple didn't fall far from the tree, but rather, the tree fell on top of me!

Harmonica, sorta, I can play the theme to Star Wars and stuff like Beathoven's 9th on one, but can't play blues harp if my life depended on it! And played cornet in grade school band. Al Hurt I'm not!

What I really want to play is bagpipes! Yeah, I know...WHAT! Being Scot, Lakota, and Norwegian, there's too much identy crisis going on in me to get anything right, but I love the sound of bagpipes...I go all weird when I hear 'em....must be a latent "Braveheart" thing or something.

Smitty, go get you an electric violin and be the next Jean Luc Ponte! And be sure to use a lot of overdrive, tape echo delay, and reverb to sound way cool! Reallly, I think it wound rock! Go for it!!!

Wade

 

[iblive]

I can fake some things on keyboards

I can do Chop-Sticks.... does that count for keyboard?

 

[Biddlin]

The Farm to Market road not taken

In all honesty, if I'd had any role models, I think ukulele might have been my best instrument . I hadn't played it since I was a little kid at my Aunt Hazel and Uncle Jay's up in Sudan, TX .:) Last Spring I bought one from a guy who'd just come back from Hawaii for $25 and have played the tar out of that rascal since . Last Time, Mais que nada, Smoke on the Water, Für Elise, Manic Depression, Arthur Godfrey, I ain't ! Biddlin ;>)/

 

[thinkgreen]

the army 1st taught me to play the f flute(fife) and bugle, then they wanted me to play a b flat fife and piccolo fife.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdY9qbgrSxI"]Johnny Ball and Steve - YouTube[/ame]

this is my platoon on tv back in the late 80s, im in there somewhere

 

[Kevy Nova]

Instruments that I play well:

bass, ukulele, tenor banjo, drums, any percussion, dulcimer

Instruments that I play but need to practice more:

piano, harmonica, xylophone, didgeridoo

 

[oldrockfan]

I can play guitar, bass, piano and drums.Unfortunately, I am not that great at any of them but of them all, I enjoy playing guitar the most. Oh and I sing too... doesn't that count as an instrument?

 

[dbb]

You guys really do NOT want the complete list of the instruments I've had to deal with....I was the buyer for a "world music" business, and I can play something on almost ANY instrument in the f'n world...

and that means NOTHING in the big picture...

What matters is the feeling, and spirit, and heart behind any single note....any long term ETSG'ers know that I am not a "cookie-cutter" anything...but this cuts across all lines, it's all about the heart and love.

The instrument is a tool. The musician is the magician.

 

[Alex_SG]

Bodhran (Irish drum), drum kit, trombone (when I was in Jr. High), recorder, pennywhistle and low whistle.
My wife, on the other hand, has a B. Mus (Hons) in Classical Music (Performance) from the Western Australian Conservatory at the WA Academy of Performing Arts. Among the alumni there, who was and still is a friend of hers, was none other than the actor Hugh Jackman!
She specialises in Bb and A Clarinet, but can also play: Bass Clarinet, Eb Clarinet, Basset Horn, Saxophone and Piano. (I'm pretty sure there's a few others as well).
Unfortunately her taste in music and mine are so far apart, and she doesn't have any interest in playing the guitar at all.

 

[dbb]

She specialises in Bb and A Clarinet, but can also play: Bass Clarinet, Eb Clarinet, Basset Horn, Saxophone and Piano. (I'm pretty sure there's a few others as well).

The composer part of me wants to write music for your talented wife....strictly platonic.

Seriously...I took Zappa seriously and got a Comp degree and even though I am a rocker at heart, got into classical music - as a writer.

I bet she can read "fly **** on paper"

 

[Alex_SG]

Hi Dave,
When she was at University, she had an assignment to do on Sacred Music. Now part of it was to transcribe from the old notation style they used, to the current style. There were accents in the original scores called "pleekers" or something similar.
She saw these pleekers everywhere, and her professor asked her if she had a pleeker fetish... Turned out half of the pleekers were actually smudges and small ink droplets on the parchment!!!
Oh, and I'm sure she'd be honored if you composed stuff for her!!!

 

[PeteR]

Slide trombone for 40+ years
Baritone / Euphonium for some years

 

[happy_tom]

1) Drums : I'm originally a drummer.
Learned at 12, then stopped, and now play again for the past 10 years. Can't do fancy stuff, but I'm very reliable & consistent, and I like to think I have good dynamics and know how to get a good drum sound. :)

2) Guitar.... hmm.. yeah.

3) Bass: bought an EB-3, just becouse I could, and am currently learning to play. It's fun, but I find it's not that easy as everyone thinks. It's not that hard either, but requres that special feel... Closer to drums than to rhythm guitar, in my experiance...

4) keyboards - I can't really play, but I can figure out a simple tune :) I'm only interested in 60s electric organs though... $$$ I wonder what happens if I plug my sister's cheap Casio through a tube screamer & tube amp?