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OTish: What other instruments do you play?


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Mouthpiece really does make a huge difference, not only in sound but also playability of the instrument to you as the player. Always, ALWAYS, try out a mouthpiece before you buy.

Here"s an example. A mouthpiece can improve a $200 horn, but really only so far.

 

I"ve been on Monette trumpet & flugel mouthpieces for maybe 8-9 years and their LTJ trumpet the past 6. I"m a little biased. ð It"s all about the musician not the tools.

 

[video:youtube]

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Since flugelhorn was mentioned, this is my favorite example. Roy"s tone was pure butter.

 

 

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Beautiful rendition of one of my favorite tunes. I stumbled across this song in a fakebook over 40 years ago and just fell in love with the melody and learned to play it on the piano, which sounds nice, but the flugelhorn just kills it. Thanks for posting this.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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I"ve been on Monette trumpet & flugel mouthpieces for maybe 8-9 years and their LTJ trumpet the past 6. I"m a little biased. ð It"s all about the musician not the tools.

 

Congrats! Beautiful horns, but way above my paygrade. I played way better horns than my current old beater, but I always went back, even the vintage Bachs and Hub van Laars. Beautiful horns, all of them and they sounded fantastic, but there was always something... I always get looked at by other players in trumpet sections, until I play. "Who has the biggest" is such a dumb thing...

Trumpet player by trade, but fell in love with keys too.
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Btw the word "bass" already appeared 72 times in this thread.

 

Just in case somebody is inspired, but poor and bassless, all you need is $76.00 for a quite decent job with both pickup styles:

[video:youtube]

 

Here it is on Ebay, I ordered one yesterday.

Or maybe you are tired of bass all the time......I want a Strat around so I did the research

A cheap HSS Strat which gets high marks from many....

Or maybe you want something for when the power is out....

[video:youtube]

Took me several days to locate that Orangewood, it's $135. In europe the cheap dope is:

[video:youtube]

It's a little more money but top is solid.

 

My birthday is next week....that's my excuse. Possibly excepting the Orangewood I expect to spend considerable time on setup and probably will need strings on some. So if you know a dealer you like add 60 bucks to these prices and they may have something which will be setup to start.

 

Update: My $119 "ashthorpe" thinline from Amazon, about which I was having second thoughts, showed up this afternoon. Strings were loose, tuned it, action high, adjusted truss rod, neck came down and it now exceeds my expectations considerably. Strings sound fine, and it includes extra set. No fret filing needed. Has a faint glue smell, we'll see how long that lasts. General build....no glaring flaws, which is about all I am qualified to notice. It's the brown one, and I hate to admit it looks sort of gorgeous. Cross braced. The cover is heavy nylon, better than I expected. It's acoustic/electric with a pre-amp and EQ in the guitar, 9V batt. Have not yet plugged in, but unplugged, frankly I'm stoked. Came with strap, truss wrench, picks, and a short 1/4 cable too.

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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I play a number of instruments, but most of them have a keyboard surface involved. Professionally, I tell people I play piano, accordion, organ, and keyboards. Sometimes Native American Flute. However, I have a few others that I do work with.

 

In order of skill level:

 

Accordion: Technically my primary instrument, in that I"ve had the most training and gigs both with it. I started when I was eight. Though there was a sizable gap between teachers, I"ve had about nine years of lessons with two different teachers in that time. Music style? Russian folk music, Eastern European/Balkan folk music, some jazz (mostly New Orleans-type), hymns (the accordion can take organ music pretty well), and the usual European and American traditional music. A combination of reading, memorizing, and playing by ear. My first gig was on accordion, and most of mine continue to be accordion-based. To put it shortly, playing the accordion helped me afford professional keyboard gear! ;) Something I"ve experimented with is running guitar effects on accordion. Delays are wonderful in certain songs in a contemporary band context.

 

Piano: I started with the piano at two years old, thanks to my grandmother. Started lessons at age five, continued with that teacher until age eleven or so, when he had a mental breakdown and was forced to retire. He had a thing about holding students back so that they wouldn"t need to have him teach more advanced music. Six years with him weekly, and I was only in the early intermediate level. Really not a good guy when I look back on it. I had some brief classical lessons for six months or so when I was thirteen, with a great lady, but she became very ill from chemo treatments, and so she had to quit. I"ve instead incorporated all the music theory and a lot of the accordion training into the piano, which has helped me continue to progress with both instruments. I will be taking lessons once again in a few weeks at my college, which will be nice. :) Music style? Ragtime and older Jazz, contemporary Christian, some pop, a little modern jazz.

 

Keyboards: Pop and Contemporary Christian, electronic, orchestral music/soundtrack, and some hard rock/metal, mostly symphonic metal. Also filling in all kinds of non-keyboard instruments, like guitars, basses, strings, woodwinds, ethnic instruments, drums, etc.

 

Organ: When my family first started attending my old church when I was maybe eight, it was full traditional, with organ and choir. Gradually it shifted into contemporary music, with a hymn sing once a month. Our music director and organist had a serious personality clash, and our organist ended up retiring. Before she did so, she used to let me stand by the organ and watch her play. One Sunday after the service, she offered to show me how to run the organ. It was a Baldwin D422 with tabs instead of the drawknobs. A late-'80s American-built digital that really sounded quite good! Baldwin"s last American organ, miles beyond Allen the time. She managed to get me permission to access the key to the organ any time I wanted. She was really a nice older lady. I would come in to church and try playing hymns while my mother was in Bible study on Thursday afternoons. I only had about six months of classical organ training around the age of 13, from my second piano teacher (before she got too sick), but I"d been trying to play for a while previously as mentioned, and have continued. Really the keyboards are pretty similar, and the pedals aren"t that bad. More difficult is actual organ-specific technique, but its a continual project. I play well enough that I ended up taking over as the organist at my old church, doing the monthly hymn sings, and played for a funeral in a large Catholic church. Last year I was finally able to get a decent practice organ, an Allen ADC-220. I have a couple of 'home' organs besides my Allen as well that I have fun with sometimes. Music style? Hymns, some newer songs and pop/rock tunes, some theater tunes and showtunes, older jazz. I"ve discovered that one can actually incorporate the organ into contemporary music without problem. It just takes some out-of-the-box thinking. Don"t be afraid of non-traditional registrations, and there"s no need to play all the time. Counter-melodies, playing pad parts, crescendos, all kinds of things can be done and it sounds great. I was able to actually play the organ on the contemporary team at my old church, as well as being the regular keyboardist/pianist. It just worked so well on some songs.

 

Vocals: I had about a year of voice lessons with a great teacher back before my father lost his job years ago...at the time I was a soprano! These days I"m a baritone and nothing"s changed for a few years. The last few years I"ve been a volunteer worship leader at my church, and that brought me back to singing again. I didn"t realize how much I"d missed it. I wouldn"t call myself the greatest singer by any means, but in a live environment it works well. I"d love to get better.

 

Native American Flute: A gentleman at my old church attended a class somewhere around 2002-2005 where he learned how to carve Native American flutes. He gave me his own as a gift several years ago, handmade by him and all. It"s a double flute, in the key of F#/Bm. I have a few books of music for it as well. Amazingly enough, even though you"re limited with the pentatonic scale, it can actually do two different scales due to a piece of leather that can be positioned to block a hole. Love that thing...so different than anything else I play. It"s on my tune in the Quarantunes Vol. 2 KC compilation. I"m by no means a professional, but I found that I could really tap into it with my ear very quickly, compared to other instruments.

 

Hand Percussion: In 2014 I had a serious wrist break. I was supposed to play for the first time with my church"s worship team the following week, on accordion for some Klezmer-style tunes actually. Being unable to do that, our music director offered me the opportunity to help out with rehearsals when our drummer couldn"t come. Using my good arm, I basically played shakers, and once some of the healing was further along, an djembe as well. That stayed with me...while I haven"t really bought anything besides a few shakers, I can play well enough to sub in for a drummer in small worship ensembles and for some recording of my own. The most fun time was fairly recently, at my current church last fall. We were short on people due to weather, and our songs really needed a beat to them. So, I played keys, a bass cajon with my left foot, and a djembe. Sometimes all three at once. I love the tonal variations one can get from a simple djembe head.

 

Electric Guitar: A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to try a new instrument. I had winnowed it down to drums or guitar, with both being the same price ($299 - Yamaha Pacifica 112V, or an Alesis Nitro). Two things pushed me toward guitar - one, lack of space for even an electric kit, and two, I had gotten to know my old church"s guitarist pretty well the previous year. He had turned me from someone who absolutely despised guitar (long story) to someone who actually liked it when tons of distortion wasn"t used 24/7. So I bought a decent electric (a Yamaha Pacifica 112V in Natural Satin, as I liked the wood, and that guitar is fairly well-suited to jazz, for a solid-body). I wanted to learn it primarily for recording. Like it or not, a keyboard can only approximate a guitar so well. I wanted the real deal. I haven"t had a real teacher, it"s really more of a hobby at this point. It would be one more thing to add to everything else and I simply don"t have the time. I also have my mother"s old acoustic from when she grew up. I"m still pretty much a beginner, struggling with barre chords lol! Music style? I want to get fairly good at old jazz/swing, smooth jazz, funk/modern disco/fusion, and play with my own originals, which run in a variety of genres.

 

Drums: I was pretty well-liked at my old church, being that I had been super involved for years with various volunteer programs and the music program. People trusted me. I got permission to mess around on our electric drum set, an old Yamaha DTXpress III. Wednesday nights before my parents would pick me up, or after church on Sunday, I"d bring headphones and try and play a little. When it was replaced with an acoustic kit, I tried that a bit, but even with earplugs the volume was just too much. Fast forward a few years, and I was at a different church, in a totally different area. Our drummer bought a new electric kit, a Roland TD-25KV. We were good friends, and he let me play with it after rehearsals and/or youth group on Wednesdays. It was definitely a lot of fun. After we moved on I didn"t really do anything further with drums. Last year, I was at a Schmitt Music store, and they had a Roland TD4 I believe, nothing fancy, pretty basic. I asked for some sticks, and spent about and hour playing. No headphones, they had a speaker for it that I was keeping at low volume intentionally lol! A lady and her daughter walked in, and decided to watch. As I may have hinted at, I"m not really a drummer! They decided to ask me some questions about the set. While I"m not a real drummer, I have done quite a bit of research on the E-drum field. So I was able to give them some answers. Then the mother asked me, 'Hey, can you play a little for us on it?' Uh oh. Well, I tried, nothing too fancy, just six or seven different patterns and showed them a few different kit programs. Finish playing...the lady looks at me, and says, 'You play well! Do you play out a lot?' There"s no way I"m at that level! Still having timing issues etc, and it"s not like I even have a practice instrument. :idk: It is something I"d like to explore in the future. For now I have to make do with playing drums on a keyboard and messing around with the iOS drum apps with their graphic interface.

 

List of instruments I want to learn: cello, baglama, chromatic system accordion, and I wouldn"t mind clarinet. Theatre organ technique would be nice too. All those in addition to progressing with my existing instruments of course!

 

 

TLDR: Accordion, Piano, Keyboards, Organ, Vocals, Native American Flute, Hand Percussion, Electric Guitar, and Drums, in order of skill level.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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Mouthpiece really does make a huge difference, not only in sound but also playability of the instrument to you as the player. Always, ALWAYS, try out a mouthpiece before you buy.

Here"s an example. A mouthpiece can improve a $200 horn, but really only so far.

 

I"ve been on Monette trumpet & flugel mouthpieces for maybe 8-9 years and their LTJ trumpet the past 6. I"m a little biased. ð It"s all about the musician not the tools.

 

[video:youtube]

 

The Monette mouthpiece on the cheap Jean Baptiste sounded much improved. Of course the Monette horn was a pleasure to listen to. I winced every time he switched to the Bach was played, except on that last common jazz lick.

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The Monette mouthpiece on the cheap Jean Baptiste sounded much improved. Of course the Monette horn was a pleasure to listen to. I winced every time he switched to the Bach was played, except on that last common jazz lick.

 

I watched the vid just now and immediately saw he played Arban's Variations on Carnaval de Venice. I've been playing that piece for practice for many years and know it well.

 

You could hear that he had a bit of difficulty when he switched from the Monette to the Beach, especially when he jumped the octave down on that piece. After further looking at the gear he used I now know why: the Monette mouthpiece has large cup, much larger than the Bach's. The Monette is closer to a standard Bach 1,5C, while the Bach mouthpiece he plays is a standard 7C. That would in fact explain the warmth and richness difference in the sound when switching mouthpiece. If he played a simple $50 Bach 1,5C mouthpiece, would he have had the same fullness on the Monette and Bach as with the Monette mouthpiece? Also, what bore is the Monette trumpet? If it's a L and the Bach seems to be ML (standard Bach Strad), than that would explain a bit too. I played large bore trumpets and they can have a very full and rich sound opposed to ML bores.

 

That said, this video feels a bit apples oranges to me. Great player though!

Trumpet player by trade, but fell in love with keys too.
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It"s cool how all of you play different instruments, My primary instruments are keyboard, piano, Melodica, and various hardware and software (mainly) synths as well as drum programming.

My secondary instruments (not in band though) are percussion (including sound effects for concert band, I own some unusual percussion and SFX like a slit drum and a cheap Chinese bulb horn but I think I removed the squeaker out of it... ;) hehe, I also have slide whistle, kazoo, and various things to hit together or air/acoustically driven SFX), tin whistle, recorder, and ukulele. I also have other stuff like 3 harmonicas, a toy suling (Indonesian flute), and shakers and toy instruments.

I hope to learn the regular flute since I have a fife. Also I want to learn acoustic lead and rhythm guitar, synth bass skills, and viola, as well as a reed instrument.

Also if you consider them an instrument, I play the rubber duck and rubber chicken.

Yamaha MX49, Casio SK1/WK-7600, Korg Minilogue, Alesis SR-16, Casio CT-X3000, FL Studio, many VSTs, percussion, woodwinds, strings, and sound effects.
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I hope to learn the regular flute

 

Now that you mention it... My wife played concert flute for years and I finally gave in an gave it a serious try. As a brass player I can tell you that concert flutes are wildly inefficient with your air! It took ages for me to blow efficient enough to finish a scale :freak: All that air that goes to waste... It made me dizzy, literally. If I want a flute for a composition, I'll ask my wife or just use a virtual one :P

Trumpet player by trade, but fell in love with keys too.
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I hope to learn the regular flute

 

...concert flutes are wildly inefficient with your air! It took ages for me to blow efficient enough to finish a scale :freak: All that air that goes to waste... It made me dizzy, literally...

Same here. I used to think that I could make music on anything until I tried:

1. Flute (breathing)

2. Violin (bowing)

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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Same here. I used to think that I could make music on anything...

 

Yep, me too. I have enough training and lung capacity for all wind instruments, even tuba, but then there was this cute little flute thing. Never thought that would be my nemesis. I can even play reeds better than a flute, hah!

Trumpet player by trade, but fell in love with keys too.
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I first tried a Flute in the 70s. A band member I lived with rented one and was going to learn how to play it but he couldn't get a sound out of it and gave up. He let me try and I got a sound right away but the dizzy feeling discouraged me. Years later in the 90s I really wanted to give it a try again and happened to join a band that had two accomplished Flute players which helped a lot. This time I stuck with it and the dizziness passed after a week or so. It still does give me a nice light-headed feeling at times. Anyway, I practiced playing Irish jigs, favorite Flute solos from recordings and got good enough to play the occasional Jethro Tull song and other Flute parts on stage. For a while I had a duo with a bandmate and he learned Flute pretty quickly with my help. I had another lead singer bandmate who was interested in trying it but he blew into it once, got dizzy, and gave up. More recently I had two brothers taking Piano lessons from me. The younger brother wanted to play Flute so he tried and tried but after a few weeks just couldn't get a sound out of it so gave up. His brother gave it a try and did quite well but decided not to continue. Even more recently I had a young girl student who was learning Piano and Flute. She was more into the Flute than Piano but was doing very well on both. Then one day she decided she didn't want to play Flute anymore and switch to Alto Sax. Luckily I had an Alto which I hadn't played in a while. I got back into it and we did Sax lessons for close to a year. She was coming along very well when the Covid thing hit and now lessons are on hold indefinitely.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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Guess I won"t learn it. Don"t need to since synthesizers can replace any instruments in any genre since you don"t need live Winds, horns or strings anyways for music I make.
Yamaha MX49, Casio SK1/WK-7600, Korg Minilogue, Alesis SR-16, Casio CT-X3000, FL Studio, many VSTs, percussion, woodwinds, strings, and sound effects.
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Guess I won"t learn it. Don"t need to since synthesizers can replace any instruments in any genre since you don"t need live Winds, horns or strings anyways for music I make.

Really glad you don't use live chickens........ :facepalm:

 

Jake

1967 B-3 w/(2) 122's, Nord C1w/Leslie 2101 top, Nord PedalKeys 27, Nord Electro 4D, IK B3X, QSC K12.2, Yamaha reface YC+CS+CP

 

"It needs a Hammond"

 

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Sometimes you make a great choice utterly clueless.

My monoprice 119.00 HSS Strat arrived. My first electric guitar. Why did I wait so long? To tune and mess around I just plugged into my mackie mixer at first. But I've been eyeing the Access Virus TI I bought last January, since it does take external input for a great effects section. Maybe I can plug right in......google google....holy crap:

50174894933_6d77a91201_z.jpg

stomp by unoh7, on Flickr

The Virus was made by Kemper, who now makes a killing with the famous "Kemper Profiler" for electric guitars. In the OS4 update for the Virus TI he tossed in all the stomp boxes above, emulated. Long story short, the Virus TI is an unbelievable companion to an electric guitar, which never entered my mind during purchase. All effects and filters available and it amps guitars both clean and with an analog style boost, before you get to all the rest. Great delays, etc.They are cheap now and the keybed is outstanding Fatar TP8s. FYI

50175692432_cb72778aea_c.jpgLovers by unoh7, on Flickr

 

So today I was shopping teachers, and I must say the selection for guitar is even better than keyboard:

[video:youtube]

3.3 million hits on a guitar lesson, something must be good. It is.

 

After an hour with the guitar, applying stuff 3 or 4 teachers had shown me, I went back to the Montunos I've been working on with my keyboards. Whoa. The guitar work had me loose and natural right off.

 

My point is: just attempting a new instrument helped my keyboard, and what was starting to bore me got fresh again. The guitar is such a huge contrast, and the huge array of articulaton options in wide use is eye opening. This guy gave me a great peak into finger strumming:

[video:youtube]

So as some have noted, there is dabbling, and there is really playing, at gig level. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the fun and good for you :)

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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Piano was my first instrument. Started lessons when I was young and it came naturally. Got in trouble for not practicing enough and was forced to stop lessons. Started again in high school. Was accepted as a music major on piano. That was the most terrifying audition ever.

 

Drums is my comfort zone. Where as I have stage freight on keys, I have played drum in front of 25,000 without a thought. Was also accepted as a music major on percussion. Currently have 3 drums sets. A 5 piece Doc Sweeny boutique set, a 15 drum DW set, and a huge Roland V-Drum set. 12 congas, timbales, etc... I love drums.

 

Trumpet. Piced it up in high school. Sold and gave away 5 trumpets this year but still have two.

 

Saxaphone. Played baritone sax my senior year of high school. Sold my alto sax last year. Still have a Roland Aerophone.

 

Bass. I have 5 bass guitars, 6 amps, and some pedals. The basses range from 4 to 6 string.

 

Guitar. The one thing I learned my first trip to college. Played guitar in my first garage band. Have a nice collection of acoustic and electric guitars.

 

Flute. Have a nice Yamaha, learning to play.

 

Harmonica. One instrument that has defeated me, but I have not given up. I have a few nice harmonicas, and a set of fairly cheap harmonicas in each key. One of these days I will learn to play. The challenge for me is being able to blow a single note.

 

Didgeridoo. Yep. I have one. Learning to play it.

 

I have a collection of other instruments too numerous to list. Percussion, hammer, folk. Even a strange folk stringed instrument that is meant to be bowed.

 

Oh, guess I should mention modular synthesis. Got a fortune in that. Strange, though keys and drums are my main instruments, my most expensive instrument is a Taylor acoustic guitar, followed by a Mesa Boogie Mark V amp and a PRS electric guitar.

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

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Enjoy the guitar journey, uhoh7! Fingerpicking is a rewarding approach for playing guitar. My favorite piece of gear that I got this year is a nylon-string Breedlove that I found used at Guitar Center. Acoustically, it's much softer than the classical guitars that I tried, but it's got an onboard preamp and can be plugged in if needed, and more importantly it has a very nice low action so that the fingerstyle tunes I've been working on are a joy to practice and play rather than a chore.
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Fingerpicking is a rewarding approach for playing guitar.

I've been finger picking the guitar since I was a little kid. I've always wondered how well the combination of that and a lifetime of piano playing would apply to the Harpejii, but I've never wanted to invest the $$$ to find out.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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Fingerpicking is a rewarding approach for playing guitar.

I've been finger picking the guitar since I was a little kid. I've always wondered how well the combination of that and a lifetime of piano playing would apply to the Harpejii, but I've never wanted to invest the $$$ to find out.

 

I was also curious about the Harpejji.

 

I'm a late starter to fingerpicking. I switched from thumb and index alternate finger picking - for single note lines - to mostly index and middle with thumb muting more than picking - just last year.

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For some reason, ever since I picked up a guitar at around age eight or nine, I have used the thumb and first three fingers to finger pick. It just came as second nature to me. One insurmountable brain fart for me is that I am incapable of using finger picks. I guess partially because I am self taught on guitar, I can't resist the urge to strum with the backs of my fingers every so often which dislodges all the picks and drops them into the sound hole making a distressing and embarrassing sound as they rattle around through the strings and inside the box.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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For some reason, ever since I picked up a guitar at around age eight or nine, I have used the thumb and first three fingers to finger pick. It just came as second nature to me. One insurmountable brain fart for me is that I am incapable of using finger picks. I guess partially because I am self taught on guitar, I can't resist the urge to strum with the backs of my fingers every so often which dislodges all the picks and drops them into the sound hole making a distressing and embarrassing sound as they rattle around through the strings and inside the box.

 

I just play with bare fingers, just like the teacher that I got my current fingerstyle technique from - Sean McGowan. Until I learned his technique, I couldn't figure out how to not get a thin tone on the upper strings of my Tele when fingerpicking with bare fingers. No more thin tone - unless I want it to be thin on purpose.

 

Although I haven't been spending much time playing keys, I still don't want fingernails getting in the way when I do feel like playing keys.

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I'm a saxophonist, but started on Hammond Organ at 11 (sax at 15). Piano is my double these days. I played on and off through law school and a law career, but when a pit bull bit my left forefinger 7 years ago I couldn't' play sax at all. When the finger was strong enough, I started working on scales on a digital piano. With Covid, I've not touched a sax in 4.5 months - until today, on my new to me, new, 100 year old Conn New Wonder.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Enjoy the guitar journey, uhoh7! Fingerpicking is a rewarding approach for playing guitar. My favorite piece of gear that I got this year is a nylon-string Breedlove that I found used at Guitar Center. Acoustically, it's much softer than the classical guitars that I tried, but it's got an onboard preamp and can be plugged in if needed, and more importantly it has a very nice low action so that the fingerstyle tunes I've been working on are a joy to practice and play rather than a chore.

 

Thank you GovernorSilver! Actions oh yes, I am now intimate with truss rods of all sorts, and eyeing my nuts. ;)

 

I think they call it Pandemic multi-instrumental disease. I'm now an agressive beginner with acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass and violin. Good news is all these cheap instruments arrived and exceed my expectations in quality. The $60 Violin arrived with a basically blank bridge, so I had to become a bridge shaper. Luthiers can charge $200 for that, I read. They use these nasty little wood cutting knives, but I have a selection of files and stones, and they were fine. Just to learn what to do and do it was half a day, but that's OK.

 

I assembled some literature and started looking for instructors on Youtube. Caveat Studiosus! (Student Beware)

 

From 35 years of skiing instruction at all levels I know the dangers of early bad habits. Obviously keyboards can cause all kinds of issues, and I had done days of research to try and stay out of trouble once I started playing multi hours every day a few years ago, to try to level up 35 years of piano hacking from sheet music collections. So now I'm learning the basics of these stringy things (I did play enough guitar to learn the cowboy chords years ago). Yikes!! Potential for hand injury is worse than keyboard, obviously, not to mention just dead-end bad habits. But I listened to many approaches. I learned to fret lightly. What strings to finger pick at first. Then I started learning how to use a pick and bass plucking technique; and left hand fretting ideas. I am astonished at how these skills are taught by a majority of guitar teachers who model dangerous wrist bends and if ever confronted reply: "well look at so and so, he is famous and he does it!"

 

Now I'm not a fan of Adam Neely really, some of his more recent stuff denegrating certain genres did not impress me, however researching wrist issues I found some videos which helped launch his Youtube channel, and this is exactly what they are about:

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

Adam's production skills and I'm sure his playing has come a long way, but I cannot find anything better about how potentially dangerous the de-facto wrist postitions taught today both in many written methods and in videos are, and how to avoid them with safer alternatives. Despite the terrible video, Adam does an outstanding job demonstrating both. To me it's outrageous the "old ways" of left hand thumb and right hand plucking are taught without a mention of potential issues, (apparently rampant amoung would-be guitarists---as they are still with keyboardists as well).

 

Yes, some players learned to function with contorted wrists. Many others got hurt. Let's celebrate the sound of the players but promote safer techniques going forward. There are certainly examples of virtuoso players with neutral wrists, so no evidence a safer postition will hold you back.

 

I'm truly loving learning the strings and my keyboard playing is more fun and improving faster from the stimulation. I guess "learning an instrument" during the pandemic is "a thing". A great one, I think, but: Caveat Studiosus :)

 

Best to all

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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Just bass and clarinet for me - I do a mean cowbell though ;)

 

I've learned cowbell can be a real force. Through the spring and early summer I spent many hours learning about various latin genres, partly because they are fresh to me, and partly to level up my time keeping on the keyboard.

 

So I had to learn what is a timbale, what are the basic congo patterns, the clave of course, what do the bongos do? etc. Cowbell is critical in the complex "salsa" (timba et al) song forms as a way to really distinguish the various parts. I will never listen to a cowbell the same way again. I need to get one. Or a few.

 

Are you good at hitting various parts of it in fast tempos? It's impressive done well. The other thing the latin study has brought me is a whole new apreciation for the trombone, which is really the flashy lead in lots of salsa. I never heard so much incredible trombone playing.

 

So here is a triva question for everyone:

 

Which came first, the bow or the violin? (by violin, really meaning strings taught over a hollow body of any sort) By first, I'm talking deep time. Which was a source of music for humans first?

 

Make your guess and listen to this:

[video:youtube]

 

There is something deeply cathartic about drawing a bow across strings. Since a decent student violin is now as cheap as 60 bucks, if you love sound, you need one. It doesn't matter if you ever learn to really play it. You can certainly play with it. There is nothing in this world, no synth patch, no recording remotely like it. The timbre of bow on strings, with F-holes inches from your ears is like a druid cry from the bogs of time. It is mesmerizing and deeply mysterious.

 

My one very musical cat agrees (the other one does not seem to care). This cat plays all my keyboards. I have to close the lid of my upright to keep her from attacking the hammers. She will sprawl on the lid like a woman of ill repute for long periods when I'm playing, rolling and stretching. She likes my new guitars. On the first note from my clarinet she bolts to the back room. She is fascinated with the violin and is often trying to bite the strings if she can find a perch within reach. Horrible as I am, she never runs away from it.

 

You soon discover the bow can make many different sounds on the same note. The fretless issue is simple to deal with: you put four narrow strips of tape in well established locations. If you want to be in exact tune, you have your phone tuner on. I'm just learning the pentatonic scales and already it sounds close enough I don't use the tuner so much. I'll go back to it later.

 

The sound is worth the contortions. I bought several chin rests to try to get comfortable. To keep a neutral wrist in the left hand is challanging. The bows which come with the cheap ones are ok, but for $17 on ebay you can get a much better one. Real players often spend over 5K on their bow. Whatever, my cheap setup sounds way better than I ever though it would. The other PITA about violins is tuning. This is 14th century tech, wood pegs with a bevel, tuned in 5ths and the high E is pretty tight. Is there some reason a violin can't use guitar type tuners? There are little micro tuners on each string, but these are also very primitve. You tune every time you play, basically. I can tune it in about 5 mins, but it's tedious.

 

I think maybe the violin is a victim of it's place in classical and folk music, where "period" instruments are valued. I understand but really, no alternatives? You have to wonder how a fretted violin with modern tuning gears would be to play for normal people. Ah well. I'm always griping about that sort of thing, motorcycles or instruments. ;)

 

The keyboard is a wonder to play after some hours with strings over wood bodies. Harmonies ring so clear when all the minute variations of finger work are reduced to pressing a key, with only "how hard?" and how long it will stay pressed to worry the brain. I know there are alot of ways to press a key, but compared to guitars and violins, it is a simple gamut. That's not such a bad thing. ;)

 

Here is the best lecture I ever heard on all the ways to press a piano key (press CC for subtitles):

[video:youtube]

 

Vadim is the real deal. I never saw a better demonstrator. If you get bored, at 15:27 is a priceless story about Prokofiev, who purposely did not play in the russian style. Vadim playing Prokofiev is eye opening.

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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Upright bass is technically my main instrument: I've been playing for over 30 years, and gig with a jazz quartet semi-regularly.

 

I played sax as a kid (grade school through high school), but don't do more than noodle on it anymore.

 

I can play guitar the way most people can play guitar ...

 

However, all those compare to the obsession that is piano. :)

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Drums... I partially worked my way through college playing drums in rock and country bands in Missouri in the late 70's .

 

Even though I played piano as a child, I started playing drums when I was about 14 to meet girls because I thought being a piano player wasn't going to get me laid. I stopped playing drums seriously after I moved to New Orleans at the end of 1982 when I realized that, as a Midwest backbeat drummer, I couldn't play those funky New Orleans grooves. By the mid 80's I put the sticks down and focused on keys, only to find out that I couldn't play all of that funky N.O. Professor Longhair and James Booker piano stuff. By that time, I was too old pick up another instrument.

 

So here, I am 40 years later, a very mediocre week-end warrior keyboardist and drummer. I was fortunate that I did manage to eventually get laid, but not because of my musical chops (or lack thereof), but because my day job as an oil whore petroleum geologist provided me with a good stabile income.

Gigs: Nord 5D 73, Kurz PC4-7 & SP4-7, Hammond SK1, Yamaha MX88 & P121, Numa Compact 2x, Casio CGP700, QSC K12, Yamaha DBR10, JBL515xt(2). Alto TS310(2)

 

 

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Played Trumpet for many years, put it down for a while, but picked it up again when playing rock/pop keyboard gigs. Now I play it quite regularly, I love playing LH Keys and Trumpet at the same time. I can hold my own on bass and drums, but I've completely steered clear of guitar since it just seems overcrowded. However, I picked up a Ukulele last december, and I'm loving it. It's been very cathartic during Covid, I can steal away in the middle of the night and play under a bridge somewhere. I've got about half an album worth of Uke tunes now. When the world wakes up again from the pandemic, I'm going to hit open mics pretty hard with it, I'm having a blast. It also might become a gateway drug to guitar, but so far I've been able to keep from getting a 6 string.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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