What instrument do you play? For your own pleasure? To
entertain a few freinds? As part of a band?
Let us know what you play. Maybe why.
19 responses total.
banjo. more or less in an oldtimey style (i.e. not bluegrass cuz i can't get the hang of thos picks & rolls...yet) teaching myself a little bottleneck as well
I played fair-to-good classical piano for years, now fading towards fair-to-poor for lack of practice. The one band I ever had a go at starting, I played keyboards. At one point, we had a song we could make it most of the way through. These days, I make half-assed attempts at playing mandolin and harmonica, and at playing folk tunes on the piano. I got sick of playing non-portable instruments when I started travelling more and going to folk dances.
I play a few different things, mostly in the garage-band style. Drums, guitar, keyboards, harmonica, etc. But I'm pretty good at bass; these days I'm playing in the Nick Strange Trio a couple times a month. I'm also working up my guitar so I can front a party band by next winter. I also spent a couple years studying shakuhachi, which is a Japanese flute. Quite a different direction, playing a wind instrument and also playing traditional "monk music".
I played sousaphone in high school. Obligatory piano lessons when I was a kid. I can still play the melody line with my right hand. I'll probably get a piano some time in the next year, so maybe I'll try again to learn to play it.
I played coronet in high school. I also played the recorder for a while. Nothing in the last 10 years though.
OK, I'll "play". :-) I play clarinet in the Plymouth Community Band. Clarinet was my first instrument, other than various kinds of "chord" organs and such. In high school I switched over to French horn, which is what my first band teacher wanted me to play to begin with. I taught myself to play piano along the way, and I like to play ragtime. At a certain point I picked up cornet. Last year I got a bit of comfort playing my son's trombone. My "specialty" instrument has been the penny whistle, which I started playing 20 some years ago when I took up an interest in Irish traditional music. I have dabbled with flute and fife, but haven't ever nailed the emboushure. I have been composing and arranging music for orchestra and band since high school, so I [must] know the range and characteristics of all the instruments. My training and playing experience have therefore been predominantly classical.
I play classical guitar these days. I used to have good keyboard skills, but that has fallen by the wayside somewhat, i.e., I played piano and electric organ accompaniment for various church meetings and sundry and now it's not called for much. I also had a little bit of studio/MIDI training, and I'd love to work in electronica again. For many years, I was a student of the brass instruments, and I don't do that anymore. I played tuba for a good while, but after I finished college, I don't want to do another band gig for a long, long time. Oddly enough, though, I enjoyed learning trombone, and I don't really consider myself a clowny guy. (Trust me, trombonists are clowny..) Yes, I'm classically trained. It bleeds through to even my guitar playing, though most guitarists I've met have come to the instrument by a lot of improvisation; I knew classmates who were slow in playing by classical notation or were reluctant to play that way. I prefer classical guitar largely because its sound speaks to me the most. It's incredibly versatile and flexible; and though I may anger some classical pianists, you do not need to work so hard to really coax fine, beautiful sound. (You are removed from the strings themselves on the piano.. you have to get them from depressing the keys, and so you are often limited to the keys, unless you employ unorthodox methods.) On the other hand, while piano is easy to get started with, guitar can be really difficult to master all the way through. Not everything should be transcribed to guitar-- I understand Segovia was heavily criticized when he began transcribing J.S. Bach's works-- but I seem to enjoy much more of the body of work. There are some things transcribed to piano that I think are just horrid, because too many folks forget it is a *percussive* instrument, and excels when it is treated as such. The guitar is quiet, relaxing, very deep in its layers of sonic reverbaration (sp?) for me, and I am willing to practice much more diligently for it than I have any other instrument. I was very sad to end my formal studies at college with my second and last concert with the ensemble. My classmates accepted me despite my green stumblings, and it didn't feel like the typical concert I was used to giving with other groups. Here I was with friends, sharing of my *true self* to the audience. Regrettably, we had some unappreciative audiences (even music students can be rude, but we had to make concerts a bit long to fit everyone in-- we were the addendenum of the department), but it was worth every moment.
My primary instrument is the French horn, which I started playing my first year of high school because I was tired of the trumpet. It gradually and stealthily became a bigger and bigger part of my life and now I'm finishing up my first year of horn performance studies at the University of Michigan (got my first jury tomorrow!), which is interesting to think about because just a few years ago I had absolutely no intention of attending music school. I love ensemble playing and the people I get to meet as a horn player, so I'm really happy that I picked it up. I also play piano, which up until last year was my primary instrument. I don't remember when I started playing, apparently when I was 3 years old or so when I'd sit down at the piano after my older sister was done practicing and copy by ear what she was working on. Cool as that may sound, I'm certainly nothing spectacular as a pianist and decided that going to music school on piano was not really an option. I love the instrument, though, and continue to take lessons as frequently as I can fit them into my schedule, and I still play regularly. I've dabbled in many other instruments, as well: viola and oboe most seriously. I couldn't keep all of them up and still be in school, so I narrowed it down to just horn and piano. I'm glad I've had the firsthand exposure to those other instruments, though, because it's really helped me with writing music. I'd still like to pick up some other instruments someday, too, maybe harp, cello (I love string quartets!), or organ, but I don't have time right now.
Captain Jack wrote: >There are some things transcribed to piano that I think are just >horrid, because too many folks forget it is a *percussive* instrument, >and excels when it is treated as such. It does indeed; but unless you're prepared to write off Frederic Chopin and Erik Satie, to name two, as totally deluded, it also does pretty well in the quiet and contemplative department. >The guitar is quiet, relaxing, And can also be pretty exciting and even percussive (snapping of the strings, slapping the soundboard, etc.) Since we're naming instruments, mine is the phonograph. Highly versatile, easy to learn, and plays more music with less effort than any other. I took to it because my desire to listen to music far outweighed any interest, or ability, to play it.
You misunderstand me-- the mallet instruments (vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, bells) are percussive instruments, too. These are distinctly put in the percussive department and many tunes written for them are quiet and contemplative. As for the guitar, I am distinctly biased to the classical guitar, and I'll admit I forgot about the flamenco and electric versions. As you know, flamenco styles are very rhythmic, providing an accompaniment for the dancer. The rhythm is obsessively emphasized; it is said one must master it before attempting solo riffs. Much of the percussive styles have roots in the flamenco tradition. The electric guitar is different, of course; distortion is considered a part of the modern sound and can be modified. It's a whole 'nother ball of wax..
Compare the piano music of Chopin with that of Prokofiev. Prokofiev famously showed up and said that the piano was a percussive instrument, so he was by gum going to treat it as one. And he certainly did. Now, after that, listen to a Chopin Nocturne. Is that not entirely as non-percussive as piano music can get? Prokofiev was right, but he wasn't _exclusively_ right. Then there's the harpsichord, which plays a lot of the same music (especially 18th century) but is not percussive.
I'll have to dig up some Chopin and some Prokofiev sometime. Of course, the piano is somewhat of a hybrid instrument, and therefore, it doesn't have to sound like its other percussive cousins. There are no surviving instruments like the piano that are percussive, too. There was the clavichord, which hammered metal bars, but it is not used today except in period music. Well, no, and that's because the harpischord *plucks* the strings. It's a very different sound. The harpischord also uses justified intonation rather than tempered, I believe; at least to the extent that it must be tuned specifically to the key you are playing in. You've got to know how to tune a harpischord before you play one extensively-- or such is my understanding. I wish I could remember what instrument bridged the gap soundwise between the archlute and the harpischord. I saw it on a site somewhere, and I can't remember where I found it. The celesta has also died with the times (it's a glassblown instrument that spins on a horizontal wheel, and you play it with moistened fingers), but I wonder-- what instrument classification does it fall under?
The harpsichord has been played in tempered intonation since (and before) Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier". (A clavier is any keyboard instrument.) I don't know what "hammered metal bars" are, but the clavichord is a stringed instrument, except the strings are struck from the side by metal bars (tangents) raised by the keys.
Re #11: Only if by "percussive" you mean "loud and bangy." As Lumen's pointed out, there's some nice quiet contemplative percussion music out there. It still sounds like percussion; nobody would mistake it for a brass quintet or a pipe organ. And good piano music -- even Chopin -- is the same way. Uhm, what am I trying to say here? In music for strings or winds, you can get by with a nice sustained melody and good tone color and intonation. On a piano, that's not enough -- the tuning's fixed, there's not much sustain, and the tone color's pretty constant. Piano music, as a rule, relies more on rhythm and figuration than wind or string music -- and you can't tell me that's not true of Chopin and Prokofiev both.
Thanks for waking up the item.
I recently bought this Music Maker 6 software for the PC.
Enough samples and stuff to make myself a rap singer. IF I only
knew what all to do with it.
resp:14 My error. And yes, I should have remembered-- Bach's "Well- Tempered Clavier" was a demonstrational composition that promoted tempered intonation. resp:15 As Dan pointed out, yes, the piano has some limitations due to its mechanics. Stringed instruments sacrifice some precision in intonation, which musicians often compensate for in vibrato and quick corrections. The famed violinist Iztak Perlman noted that he indeed made many mistakes in playing, but he was just very good at correcting them quickly (i.e., shift to correct). Fretted instruments (mandolins, lutes, guitars) sound a little different, but there is still tactile contact with the string, which allows some flexibility (glissando, vibrato, harmonics techniques). Granted, the piano has three pedals to further manipulate the strings: the damper pedal, the sostenuto pedal, and the sustain pedal. This second pedal sustains any notes held when the pedal is hit, but not the ones played afterward. It's good for sustaining bass lines comprised of chords or single notes when you want to keep the melody clean. However, this is still limited in comparison, unless you get around the hammers by plucking and strumming the strings hands-on. Some examples of compositions where this is required is Interlude VII (on _Fresh Aire III_) by Louis "Chip" Davis Jr., and Banshee by Eugene Bazaa. The sound is eerie and ethereal. The strings cannot be further manipulated, however. You can coax out some shading and nuance through the action of the keys, but again, this is extremely limited. Keyboard instruments that have more options generally rely on stops (which I believe is solely the organ these days) or digital technology.
The harpsichord has stops, including at least the register and buff stops.
Couldn't remember-- thanks. I didn't recall seeing them on the last harpischord I saw.
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