Musicians

[Hootus1]

myself, I have played the drums for 40 years. My late mother played coronet in the TCU marching band, and my father played the clarinet. Guess they needed me to keep the beat. I mainly play old stuff. Big Band and 50's rock and roll. Still play with the cd stereo player some. But not much.

 

[jabjab231]

Marie as a music major with instruments i had to learn more than one instrument..my best effort was with the cello...and of course the bass and piccolo flute has the same fingerings as the regular flute..as does the saxophone..

Well if you're going to count instruments that way, I can play the...

Piano
Electric piano
Synthesizer
Harpsichord
Clavichord
Clavinet
Pipe organ
Reed organ
Tonewheel organ
Celeste
And that most loathsome of musical instruments, the calliope.

Epic redundancy win :stickout

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

Wow,I have never even heard of some of those.It must have been hard to Major in music

 

[Frost King]

Wow i didn't know there was this many musicians here

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

sure looks that way,we should take a poll and see

 

[Slaver123]

I'm just a snob for musical education. I've tried working with a guitarist who couldn't read music and didn't even know the notes on her own guitar. Soon as I started speaking in chords I'd lost her. As a result, I have an unfairly low opinion of most guitarists :glare

How the heck do you play a single note with feeling... Maybe if you were bawling your eyes out as you pluck the string.

I majored in Music Ed a lifetime ago. The other year I got this humble little book (at either Borders or B&N's) called "The Zen Guitar Method" and it's really eye-opening. It's not instructions how to actually play the instrument, it's all about the mind-set of a musician, an approach to music.

The first 'exercise' is to play just one single note, but with all your 'soul'. (Try doing that on a Piano when you can already play Bach fugues!)

I'm less of a musical snob nowadays. You don't need to read notation to play "folk" music (which is what I think Rock n Roll really is, a type of folk music developed in the era of electronic amplification and recording)

Look at Rap; one guy's spinning records while another guy's just talking- no one's playing an instrument or even singing!
(bet the musically "illiterate" rock guitarists don't look so bad next to that?)
But it's another genre of music like Rock that touches millions of people.
(I don't "get" Rap myself, but I know people who are absolutely passionate about it)

 

[Slaver123]

Ah, John Hassell. And Brian Eno too!

My instrument is the computer. I'll make field recordings, or sample other sounds and then ram those sounds through a few digital sound processing applications until I've mutated the sound just the way I want it. Then I'll mix the resulting mutated sounds in a multitracker.

That's a good example of making music by not exactly "playing" your instrument. I'd like to hear some of your stuff.

I'm a "trained classical pianist" but I'm fascinated by the parts of the musical world where you DON'T play every single note yourself.

I'll sometimes loop a few measures on a synthesizer, then jam for an hour just by twiddling knobs and parameters, never even touching the keys. Or I'll jam on the Kaossilator (when my Carpal Tunnel's acting up) where you kinda play with one finger- it's like a "lazy" or "low-impact" way of jamming. For me it's like meditating.

Jon Hassell's band re-mix each other live on stage, so sometimes they don't even know who's playing what at any given time!

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

Look at Rap; one guy's spinning records while another guy's just talking- no one's playing an instrument or even singing!
(bet the musically "illiterate" rock guitarists don't look so bad next to that?)
But it's another genre of music like Rock that touches millions of people.
(I don't "get" Rap myself, but I know people who are absolutely passionate about it)

I know this will probably offend some but I can't help it.RAP IS NOT MUSIC! Granted I like some of the ''songs''.Talking in rhythm and making up words is NOT music.My music teacher wouldn't even let me try to sing that.I remember going to a class and the first thing the teacher said is''you can bring any piece of music except metal and rap.'' I don't know it just annoys me when people think that is music.That's the one thing that annoys me these days,these rappers walk around like they're these big bad ass music stars.Like we should worship them or something and they act all snobby and like thugs and we're supposed to give them all these musical awards but all they rap about is sex and drugs and how horrible their life is.I'm sorry I just can't view that as even art.

 

[Frost King]

I know this will probably offend some but I can't help it.RAP IS NOT MUSIC! Granted I like some of the ''songs''.Talking in rhythm and making up words is NOT music.My music teacher wouldn't even let me try to sing that.I remember going to a class and the first thing the teacher said is''you can bring any piece of music except metal and rap.'' I don't know it just annoys me when people think that is music.That's the one thing that annoys me these days,these rappers walk around like they're these big bad ass music stars.Like we should worship them or something and they act all snobby and like thugs and we're supposed to give them all these musical awards but all they rap about is sex and drugs and how horrible their life is.I'm sorry I just can't view that as even art.

Yeah i agree rap is not music these low lifes talking about killing other people thats not music that is shit i agree completly with you marie rap is not music i actually wrote a song about how much me and my band hate rap some might might be offended by it but its called when the rappers lost there life and well the lyrics may offend some people but metal to me will always kick raps ass

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

God,I hate how they behave too.So,arrogant and thug like.They should have taken Kanye's ass out of the stadium and banned him from attending again.God,it just gets under my skin.I'm sorry people I could go on and on about it.I'll just go blog about it or whatever.

 

[Frost King]

Your not the only one i hate rap thats why i wrote that song though some people thought it was bad but i hate them so much rap is crap

 

[jabjab231]

I majored in Music Ed a lifetime ago. The other year I got this humble little book (at either Borders or B&N's) called "The Zen Guitar Method" and it's really eye-opening. It's not instructions how to actually play the instrument, it's all about the mind-set of a musician, an approach to music.

The first 'exercise' is to play just one single note, but with all your 'soul'. (Try doing that on a Piano when you can already play Bach fugues!)

I'm less of a musical snob nowadays. You don't need to read notation to play "folk" music (which is what I think Rock n Roll really is, a type of folk music developed in the era of electronic amplification and recording)

Look at Rap; one guy's spinning records while another guy's just talking- no one's playing an instrument or even singing!
(bet the musically "illiterate" rock guitarists don't look so bad next to that?)
But it's another genre of music like Rock that touches millions of people.
(I don't "get" Rap myself, but I know people who are absolutely passionate about it)

I can play Bach's fugues so maybe that's my problem... I heard a story of an avante garde pianist who once held a concert at which he played a single note. The idea was that it was supposedly the perfect note at that pitch. I have a really hard time accepting that idea though since with a piano you have very little control over the expression of a single note, and this is coming from someone who considers himself highly capable of expressing himself through the instrument. The problem is there are so many mechanisms between the player and the string. A violinist can produce a far greater breadth of timbre and colour on a single note, but then if that's the idea why is a musician who aims for that goal playing the piano?

I've played the piano a long, long time and there are a few things I believe I can state as fact from my experience. About 5% of expression comes from the heart and the rest comes from technical skill. The reason I say that is because I've tried playing pieces that are just above my skill level, and while I can hit the notes perfectly I can't make it sing the way I want it. My fingers can't articulate what the heart and the music are saying. So playing one note expressively means nothing to me. Try listening to Franz Liszt's "Liebestraume No. 3". The piece starts off simply enough with a very simple melody. The second part is a recapitulation of that same melody but he goes absolutely crazy with the arrangement, throwing chords and arpeggios all over the place. Try as anyone might, the first part will never have the same depth of expression as the second part, despite it having the same melody. To me it's the quintessential example of how complexity of arrangement and technical skill produce true musical expression.

Hate to jump on the "kill rap" band-wagon but I don't consider it music either. Every ounce of emphasis is on the lyrics, so it's really closer to poetry. Yes there is "music" in the background, usually a poorly written baseline, a dull and repetitive, static beat and maybe a motif here and there, but the spirit of the genre lies in the words. So I have no problem with rap as long as people don't call it music :lol

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

Your not the only one i hate rap thats why i wrote that song though some people thought it was bad but i hate them so much rap is crap

haha I love that saying