Anyone here a musician?

[michaelm]

Just wondering if anyone else here is a musician? If I could choose what I do for a living, I would certainly be playing music, but I just can't make enough money from doing it, so it remains a hobby for me.

Anyone else play? Do you gig? Do you record any of your material? Write your own songs?

[sgt.null]

well I write my own songs.

and I have the following instruments that I don't play all that well...

electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass, standing organ, electronic keyboard, banjo, Kay Dreadnaught.

I can make quite a racket.

[Menolly]

Lot's of Watchers are, and have shared videos of their performances. Perhaps they will link to them again.

I was lucky enough to attend one gig of aTOMiC's and dAN's band a few years ago in Tampa.

[michaelm]

Many years ago I was determine to make a career as a musician, but I haven't gigged in years (other than playing impromptu 'gigs' in front of no more than a dozen people once in a while. Biggest problem is that I can't find people to jam with anymore. Seems like no one in my neighborhood plays at all, unless it's kids who play piano or violin...

I play quite a few instruments though, and of those that I currently own:

The ones I play well are acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass and mandolin.

Those that I play competently are piano, diatonic harmonica, alto saxophone, concert flute, bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), dizi (Chinese bamboo flute), tin whistle, 5 string banjo.

The ones that I don't play so well are violin, trumpet and chromatic harmonica.

I have recorded quite a few things, so what I might do is go through what I have and remix some of them (have been meaning to do it for years) and post them here.

At one time I had access to lots of recordings of things that I have done over the years, but most of them have become lost as people who have the recordings have disappeared from my life.

[Vraith]

I used to be, in a few bands, did a ton of gigs.
Not in quite a while, though.
I still futz around a bit and sing along with stuff when the wife ain't around.
Got a couple cheap guitars, cheap bass, [on which instruments I can play mostly just chords and roots] pretty old yamaha keyboard [which I can't play at all...use it for "mood", and compose/play by mouse clicking it into software one note at a time]

I sang at a karaoke couple times year or two ago...closer to 2, I think... [Godsmack, "Straight Out of Line" Stone Temple Pilots "Plush" Metallica "King Nothing." if anyone's interested]...before that, hadn't done anything public in...oh...15, 20 years?

[michaelm]

I sing OK too, but mostly just do that if I have an acoustic guitar or sat in front of the piano.

Apart from the occasional song, I was never really the vocalist at gigs, but would do backing vocals.

Also did karaoke years ago, but mostly when very drunk. I seem to recall the first time I ever did one we decided to pick songs at random and then sing them - I got Tainted Love, which fortunately is in a relatively good key for me.

[sgt.null]

Lord Zombiac has had a long and varied music career.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... the+shroom

he goes by the name Coz the Shroom...

[rdhopeca]

I am a bass player by trade, and can sing and play guitar, drums, and piano. I've been in several bands, most notably "Bee Charmers", which made 1996 Musician Magazine's top 10 best unsigned bands of the year. I also write and record my own songs.

You can find video snippets of me playing here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/rdhopeca/videos

and my sound cloud clips, that include the Bee Charmers CD:

https://soundcloud.com/robert-hope/sets/hangin-round

my demo from Ironhorse Exchange, a cover band from LA:

https://soundcloud.com/robert-hope/sets ... hange-demo

and stuff that I've composed:

https://soundcloud.com/robert-hope/sets/my-compositions

Done a lot of stuff off and on since I started playing in 1987.

[Zarathustra]

I play bass, used to play keyboard/piano, but I gave that up years ago. I had a band in high school and college. We played a lot of gigs in 4 or 5 cities for a few years, mostly originally music, with some covers (Rush, Led Zep, Beatles, etc.). Most of the material was written by the guitarist/singer, but I wrote about an album's worth myself. He was a writing machine, with dozens of songs. We got to the point where we didn't have to play covers at all, but did it for the fun (and the audience). My wife danced to my music before we ever met. I played in bars before I could legally drink. I would have done it for free, but it was awesome getting paid to do something I loved. Having people walk up and throw money (wadded up bills) into my brother's bass drum was like watching manna rain down from Heaven. It was surreal.

[Vraith]

I sing OK too,

Hee...whether I'm OK at it or not is probably a matter of taste and/or up for debate.
But I was definitely COMMITTED to it, and INSISTENT on doing it.

[michaelm]

I sing OK too,

Hee...whether I'm OK at it or not is probably a matter of taste and/or up for debate.
But I was definitely COMMITTED to it, and INSISTENT on doing it.

Yeah, my problem is that I have a backing singer's voice rather than a lead singers voice. I used to have a really high falsetto and head voice so I could sing high harmonies, but as I've got older the top end of my range has dropped off a lot.

I also have a very low range too, only it's more of a death metal growl now that I've got older rather than a clear bass/baritone note.

One of the things I really should do more is to just sit down and sing. I still have a pretty good range and pitch well, but I'm really out of practice.

[aliantha]

...I played in the band in high school and college...

Clarinet, alto sax (for high school jazz band), soprano recorder, acoustic guitar. I learned the last two on my own. And I'm horribly out of practice on all of them.

I've also played around with tin whistles and a keyless flute, but I suck at playing Irish music (if they'd just write out the damn ornamentation, I'd be fine! ).

I actually got paid for playing clarinet. When I was in high school and college, I was a member of our municipal band. We had a concert every week in the summertime -- we got the music at rehearsal on Tuesday night and performed it Thursday night. The director wouldn't let us take the music home to practice because, he said, he'd had too many instances of people forgetting to bring it back for the concert. So I was really good at sight-reading for a while there... But yeah, I was an honest-to-goodness professional musician. Had to join the union and everything.

[michaelm]

That reminds me - recorder - something else I play quite well!

[aliantha]

Once you've learned the fingerings for, say, clarinet, then sax, recorder, tin whistle, and even flute (to a degree) are a piece of cake to pick up.

Edited to add: I sing okay, too, but I couldn't ever seem to work choir into my schedule -- too wrapped up with doing instrumental music.

[michaelm]

Once you've learned the fingerings for, say, clarinet, then sax, recorder, tin whistle, and even flute (to a degree) are a piece of cake to pick up.

I'd agree to some extent, but with some instruments you need to learn alternate fingerings at certain octaves to improve intonation. That tends to get confusing during learning, but I think once you know an instrument well, you just do it naturally.

I suppose most of it is down to technique, like practicing half-fingering holes, etc.

[aliantha]

Once you've learned the fingerings for, say, clarinet, then sax, recorder, tin whistle, and even flute (to a degree) are a piece of cake to pick up.

I'd agree to some extent, but with some instruments you need to learn alternate fingerings at certain octaves to improve intonation. That tends to get confusing during learning, but I think once you know an instrument well, you just do it naturally.

I suppose most of it is down to technique, like practicing half-fingering holes, etc.

Clarinet fingerings are different for the lower register than the upper register. Middle C is just the left-hand holes covered -- but C one octave higher is all holes covered plus a couple of keys, which is similar to sax and recorder. So the fingers basically know the positions they need to be in, except for half-fingering holes, the extra finger you need to play F in tune on the recorder, and so on. The biggest difference among the different instruments is the embouchere, but even that has some similarities (other than flute, which is finicky ).

[michaelm]

Things like the dizi are difficult too, as you have to learn how to put the membrane on correctly too. I'm still not that good at it, so it takes a long time to prepare it to play if I haven't played for a while.

[Vader]

Bass player, singer, song writer - but not for a living.

[aTOMiC]

I play bass, used to play keyboard/piano, but I gave that up years ago. I had a band in high school and college. We played a lot of gigs in 4 or 5 cities for a few years, mostly originally music, with some covers (Rush, Led Zep, Beatles, etc.). Most of the material was written by the guitarist/singer, but I wrote about an album's worth myself. He was a writing machine, with dozens of songs. We got to the point where we didn't have to play covers at all, but did it for the fun (and the audience). My wife danced to my music before we ever met. I played in bars before I could legally drink. I would have done it for free, but it was awesome getting paid to do something I loved. Having people walk up and throw money (wadded up bills) into my brother's bass drum was like watching manna rain down from Heaven. It was surreal.

Your talent level shows in your recordings, Zar. You fall into the category of musicians that I've heard that seem to be letting their gifts slide. Its not uncommon for a person to have dabbled in music or bands in High School, developed a genuine skill and then chose to pursue other interests. I'm just glad you are still active in that you continue to write and record.

[Zarathustra]

Thanks, Tom! I enjoyed your songs. I assume you saw my notes.

I wouldn't have done anything else except play Rocksmith if I hadn't found a way to record. I've got about 5 other songs in various stages of progress. One is a lot heavier and reminds of Tool in parts. It's pretty badass. I can't wait to finish recording/editing it.