Instruments

[curses]

OK, so I'm sitting here taking a water break from practicing bass and I got to wondering who else here plays an instrument? How did you start? Do you wish you knew how to play one/play another? In a band? Ever recorded anything?

I play bass, I have played flute in the past, and a bit of guitar as well. I started in the 1st grade in chorus, then in 3rd grade through 7th grade with flute. From 8th -12th I was in chorus again. I picked up a guitar for the first time in high school, bought my first one in college. Promptly sold it for a bass. I've been playing bass off and on for about...8 years? Mostly off as every time I'd buy an instrument in the past I'd end up pawning it a few months later to make ends meet. This is the longest I've ever held on to an instrument.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v227/invisikitty/IMG_3752.jpg
That's my baby (pardon the mess)

I run the bass right now through a PreSonus Firebox preamp and through my PC using Cubase LE. And headphones. I really need a nice pair of monitors over here. The Bass Pod in the foreground of the above pic is run through my husband's M Audio Project Mixer, Logic 7, and some lovely M Audio monitors.

[Ymir's blood]

Leg!

"Guitars not boobs"? :P

I don't play anything. :sadno:

[curses]

LOL, I missed both of those. Stupid strap was in the way of my sticker.

Maybe it needs a :glare: sticker as well...

[Ymir's blood]

Everything needs a :glare: sticker, even the cats.

[fragment]

I saw "guitars not boobs" too, and was hoping they don't have to be mutually exclusive :P

Good timing on the thread, I just bought a guitar and was going to brag some about it. Will post a pic a bit later, and some of my ethnic instrument eclection as well.

[Dingfod]

I still plink on a piano now and then. I have also been known to get my old trombone out and sound like a sick cow. I never learned any other instrument well enough to do more than play a simple melody. At our house: piano, 2 acoustic guitars, 2 flutes, a clarinet, my old trombone, and a really old "Stradivarius" fiddle that my great grandfather carried to Kansas on muleback. Oh, and the small acoustic guitar (currently broken) that inland wave's dad bought for our grandson, the one with the Spongebob Squarepants stickers on it. My dad, who sang solos in church as recently as two years ago, always said the only musical instrument he could play was a radio. I'm not all that far from being that talented.

[Dragar]

I play acoustic guitar. As a kid I played flute, and hated every lesson. I stopped as soon as my parents would let me, and instead learned to play my mum's acoustic guitar in a very short space of time (not suggested unless you can deal with bleeding fingertips). I got my own guitar when I left home, and while I'm probably out of practice, I enjoy having a play and a sing from time to time on it.

[mickthinks]

Me, I play piano, but only by ear. And I still have my old violin, and a half-assed notion of taking it up again sometime real soon…

To sing is my thing.

Mick

[Watser?]

I don't play anything either.

Bass guitar would be my choice too though. Most of the music I like is bass-dominated.

[D. Scarlatti]

The Jazz Bass is the bass. Good call.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q249/dscarlatti/bass12.jpg

[Ensign Steve]

I play alto sax and viola.

You know, since you asked.

I started viola in junior high, and alto sax in high school. Because I needed electives. I continued playing alto sax in marching band in college. :nerdy:

[Clutch Munny]

I play guitar, and a bit of fiddle. I have a couple of acoustic guitars, an older Yamaki in need of fretboard refurbishing, and a Yamaha acoustic with active electronics and a cut-away body. They both play wonderfully. I tried about 20 of the Yamahas, many of the very same model, before finding one that I really liked. I also have an electric guitar -- a Peavey Strat knock-off. It does just fine, though I wouldn't call it an inspiring instrument to play.

The fiddle is my dad's old one.

We also have a piany in the house, and I keep meaning to do more than dust the damn thing.

I'd love to have a drum kit, though I've only ever noodled around on them.

[Kyuss Apollo]

This is my baby--a 1976 Music Man Sting Ray.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/1392325077_a76abd2f6a_o.jpg

I've played a bunch of different basses over the years, including a really nice dual-output Rickenbacker, but this bass has the fastest neck I've played on. I will never ever ever sell this bass, and to anyone who plays, you have to try out one these old Sting Rays to believe it. The pick-ups are powered by a 9V battery, which gives it an extra-ballsy sound, but don't plug it in with a run-down battery--you can wreck your speakers, as I have learned the hard way. It has been on a long-term hiatus since I started grad school; I have a couple of friends lined up to start playing with once I have the time to again. I have a little practice 10w practice amp here, and a 1986 Roland BN-100 that's currently in storage and I have convinced my wife to allow back in the house...Maybe I'll take a ride and go bring it on home this afternoon.



http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1165/1393319622_fecab16699_o.jpg


Here is my tenor ax. It's a newer Conn, a 1978--I used to have a old vintage model (never wrote down the serial # though so I don't know exactly how vintage) when I was in high school that was just awesome, but I sold it to buy a guitar amplifier. I got this one off of eBay like 3 years ago, and have recently started messing around with it. I used to be able to sight read with the sax, and it's starting to come back but I should practice more often than I do.

Thanks to curses and this thread, I hauled it out and annoyed the dog with it for a while this morning before I took this picture. ;P


http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1111/1393216646_54a26f0d0e_o.jpg


Here is my wife's piano--it's a Howard by Baldwin, circa 1960-1965. She inherited it from her grandmother's estate about 3 months ago, and it replaced an old spinet I got for her for her birthday a year and a half ago. The acoustic is, I think, a Bennington Bean Blossom. I can't be sure, because I was given this guitar in lieu of a month's rent many years ago from a friend who worked at a music store. Someone else there had taken it in on a trade, but they couldn't sell it, because someone had torn the ID sticker out of the the body (what is left of it is visible inside the sound hole). Quite likely the guitar was stolen at some point, and the thief tore out the sticker then it was traded around until it wound up at the music shop my friend worked at. The logo has a two B's back to back, the left is reversed & the right is "right." Inside the sound hole what is left of the sticker says "Benn..." My best educated guess is that it is a Bennington Bean Blossom, but it's impossible to say for sure. In any event, the neck now has a slight crack in it, probably from my kids messing around with it, but it still plays well enough. If anyone here knows more about the BB logo on the headstock and what it actually is, let me know.

I also have an old Ovation Applause in storage--I need to bring it in and have it refretted, if that's even possible. The third and fourth frets are so worn the strings buzz really bad when forming open chords down at the bottom...

:acoustic:

[The Lone Ranger]

I play the flute. I started in high school, where I played in the marching and concert bands. I played in college as well, and was once hired to play as the "background music" at an art exhibit. I've played in a few community orchestras and was once in the pit orchestra for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to play very often in a while. Maybe it's time I hauled it out and played a few tunes ...


Cheers,

Michael

[curses]

Wow! I had no idea there were so many musicians on the board!

No Fragment, not mutually exclusive :P The sticker says Guitars Not Bombs. They didn't have one for bass sadly.

Dingfod, be glad you can get the trombone to make any noise at all. I couldn't do more than make fart noises with one.

Dragar, same here with the flute. My first choice was sax, but because I was meant to have braces in a few years, my parents made me pick up flute. I don't hate it so much now, I can still play a bit and I can still sight read.

Scarlatti, that's a beautiful lookin bass. I like the finish on it. It also reminds me that I need a new pickguard. I hate the white one.

ES, marching band is cool :D

Clutch, same here with the drums! If we had a bit more room, we'd probably have a kit. I'm..okay on drums, nothing special. I can keep the beat for a bit.

Kyuss, I'm coming over to your house to play that bass. Don't mind me :P

TLR, pit orchestra is quite an achievement! Not everyone gets to do that :)

[fragment]

Here's the pics.

The new guitar is semi-acoustic, plays and sounds the way I like, and was a nice price. It's over a year since I last had a guitar, and it's soooooo nice to be mucking round with 6 strings again.

The bass belongs to an ex-girlfriend and sat in my mother's basement for a few years before I rescued it. I'll return it if she ever shows an interest in music again.

The unfamiliar looking thing is called a saz, I picked it up in Istanbul. It seems to be a fairly popular instrument in Turkey, in the same way people use acoustic guitars in western countries. Tunes seemed to consist mostly of alternating instrument and vocal melodies over a drone played on one of the strings. It's got seven strings in three groups - one triple and two double. Note the weird fret spacing, I quote from the lovingly translated playing guide:
In the Turkish music the interval between full notes are accepted to be 9 komas. Within this 9 komas interval, there are 4 sharps of the high sound and 4 flats of the low sound. The interval between seminotes in the Turkish music is 4 komas and there are no irregular sounds.
If anyone can make sense of that, please explain it to me! In the meantime, it's still fun to play with.

The other photo is some small things I picked up in various countries, basically tourist tat, but I still like them. Clockwise from top right there's a couple of Tibetan singing bowls, a little Tibetan chime, a Moroccan reed with cow-horn, and an Indian reed and gourd thing.

[D. Scarlatti]

How's this (http://www.wdmusic.com/fender_jazz_bass_reg_pickguards_26607_prd1.htm) pickguard.

[fragment]

So are we going to start an :ff: band? It'll have something like five bass-players, but that could be fun...

[Dingfod]

BOUWN-BOUWN-shicka-shicka

[D. Scarlatti]

In the Turkish music the interval between full notes are accepted to be 9 komas. Within this 9 komas interval, there are 4 sharps of the high sound and 4 flats of the low sound. The interval between seminotes in the Turkish music is 4 komas and there are no irregular sounds.

Never heard of komas before, but this seems to be some sort of equal temperament system. Because if there are nine komas within the interval of a whole tone, then if there was no tempering, the semitone would be sounded in between the fourth and fifth komas (but then you'd need 18 komas maybe).

Komas, I suppose, are the rough equivalent of using cycles per second to measure the "distance" between various intervals.

Equal temperament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament).

What equal temperament obtains is perfect transposability, that is, key changes, at the expense of imperfect intervals. Just temperament obtains perfect intervals in one key, at the expense of poor transposability.

[Goliath]

In Jr. High, I played the trumpet, and around that time, I made an effort to play the piano. I was quite a bit better at the former than the latter, but not extremely good at either. I'm also a mediocre singer (before my voice changed, I could actually sing soprano in the choir. :shatter:).

[fragment]

Never heard of komas before, but this seems to be some sort of equal temperament system. Because if there are nine komas within the interval of a whole tone, then if there was no tempering, the semitone would be sounded in between the fourth and fifth komas (but then you'd need 18 komas maybe).

Komas, I suppose, are the rough equivalent of using cycles per second to measure the "distance" between various intervals.

Equal temperament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament).

What equal temperament obtains is perfect transposability, that is, key changes, at the expense of imperfect intervals. Just temperament obtains perfect intervals in one key, at the expense of poor transposability.

As far as I can tell from the confusing text and the accompanying diagrams, it's not an equal-temperament system, in that the semitone is not fixed. Going by one diagram, for example, G# is G plus 4 komas, and A flat is A minus 4 komas, i.e. G plus 5 komas. You also have doubole sharps and double flats not quite making up to a whole tone.

I'm guessing the system is an attempt to closely approximate just intonation, but does so at the expense of limiting the number of keys that can be played in. I'm damned if I can figure out how to use this guess to figure out how to play some kind of Turkish scale (as opposed to an apporximation of a diatonic one).

If you're really interested I could post some of the diagrams.

[Watser?]

The saz is THE Turkish instrument, there is still a lot of music that is only saz or only saz and singing. Here's a master:

Ali Ekber Çiçek - Haydar haydar

And another one:
Talip Özkan - Bedestene Vardım

[fragment]

Thanks, Watser? those are great.

[Nullifidian]

I play piano proficiently, and I play the trumpet fairly well, plus I'm a classically trained singer, and best of all of the above at doing that.

I toyed with the thought of pursuing an opera career while doing theoretical biology on my off hours, but graduating with a double master's in those two disciplines put paid to that delusion, so now I'm focusing on biology and pursuing music as a hobby.

[But]

The saz is THE Turkish instrument, there is still a lot of music that is only saz or only saz and singing. Here's a master:


The music is awesome! And the girls in the audience are HOT!

:yup:

[godfry n. glad]

I learned to play the flute in elementary school and continued through my high school years. In high school, I played flute during concert season, and piccolo during pep band and marching season. Since I went to an all boys public polytechnic high school :nerdy:, I was the one and only flute player amidst a sea of trumpets and drummers and the occasional clarinet and sax player. I got to march in three Rose Festival parades in one of the most stifling uniforms ever invented. I loved pep band, where our band was rillyrilly good at belting out Henry Mancini's 'The Stripper'.

I as good as gave up the flute after high school. Following college, I attempted to learn the recorder and the pennywhistle. I gave up on the last because I found out my intended tutor was a lesbian. It did, however, manage to introduce me to the woman who was to later become my wife, as she was the lesbian pennywhistle player's friend.

After that, I faced the facts that I was, one, rhythmically challenged, and, two, too fucking lazy to practice enough to improve.

It was only years later, at the urging of my wife, that I attempted to learn to play the ukulele. The two above factors quickly came into play and I was relegated to the remedial ukulele class, from which I eventually dropped out.

Still, I own three ukes, six pennywhistles and a recorder.

I can't sing worth beans, either.

[D. Scarlatti]

As far as I can tell from the confusing text and the accompanying diagrams, it's not an equal-temperament system, in that the semitone is not fixed. Going by one diagram, for example, G# is G plus 4 komas, and A flat is A minus 4 komas, i.e. G plus 5 komas. You also have double sharps and double flats not quite making up to a whole tone.

Aha, right you are. Never was much with arithmetic, me. Diagrams would be cool.

[fragment]

I made a new thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=418443) for the Turkish musical theory.

[mickthinks]

Henry Mancini's 'The Stripper'
Is this the one you mean (http://www.jacquedee63.com/stripper.html), God? It's by David Rose.

Mick

[Ensign Steve]

I got to march in three Rose Festival parades in one of the most stifling uniforms ever invented.

Are you referring to the Pasadena rose parade? Because I'm aware what an elite band that is after four years of never getting in. But even if you're not, that's still pretty rad.

[Kyuss Apollo]

I got to march in three Rose Festival parades in one of the most stifling uniforms ever invented.


Oh man! I had forgotten about that.


The coats to the uniforms we had to wear in high school marching band were made of wool. :sheeprope: And all that stupid marching...just another reason why I never joined the military.


But JPS marches were always a lot fun to play. Of course, now I have Semper Fidelis stuck in my head :songhead: