Hey everyone, I've been lurking here for the past week or so and finally decided to join.
I'm 15 years old (I'll be 16 tomorrow) and I live in Portugal. I've played piano/keyboards for almost 7 years, the first 4 of which I took classical piano lessons. About 3 years ago, I started playing guitar and discovering new music, and quickly lost my interest in the piano. I played almost solely guitar for 2 years, only playing piano like twice a month or something. However, I began to explore blues scales and progressions, so when I re-started playing I had some basis. I developed my guitar skills immensely during that time. Then I got into the 10th grade and met my now-bandmates. A great guitar player, who plays mostly blues rock: Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin; and a percussionist, who then had only had a a single try at regular drums. Even though I felt, and still feel, the guitar player isn't as good as I am, nor as versatile (he pretty much only plays blues/blues influenced stuff), since I also played the piano, I decided to go ahead and learn it seriously. Starting in April, I began my re-discovery of classical music. I still had a not-so-vague memory of some of my classical pieces, so I relearned some of Bach's 2-part Inventions and Preludes and Mozart's sonata in C major and finished reading a piece by Mussorgsky called Tear. I was then on an ELP love affair, so I decided to tackle Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. I learned the first 2 promenades, Gnome and Old Castle, which I'm still learning.
Before I went on my classical rampage, I learned the introduction to Genesis' Firth of Fifth, which was a nice technical challenge early on.
That's about it for sheet music. Now I'm learning some boogie-woogie riffs and 60s/70s stuff to play with the rest of the band. Mostly into The Doors right now, and having a blast.
About jazz, I've always wanted to learn some jazz theory, so I could play it more easily. What I'm doing now is trying to write songs, which somehow always come out with a jazzy flavour. Other times I just sit at the piano, strike a chord and just let the music take me though a journey. A lot of jazzy stuff comes from this kind of improv too. Well, I guess exploration is the best way of learning, but still I'd like to learn some jazz basis. In the band, we mostly play Pink Floyd/The Doors/some adapted King Crimson stuff, with a jazzy flavour/Blues jams. Some times, we play some Hendrix or Zeppelin, and I either grab a guitar, a bass or just convince the others into playing a funky/jazzy version of the selected song. I still haven't presented my songs to them, although often I play bits of them and they get intrigued and ask me what I'm playing.
I guess I play about 3 hours a day, when I can, which unfortunately is not everyday. I've stepped back from the guitar for awhile, because I need a better amp. So, that's my story over there.
On to equipment:
When I was taking piano lessons, I played only either a Yamaha DX-7 or a Roland D-50, I can't remember. Only in the last year of lessons, my parents got me a Roland HP103e for Christmas. I played that almost exclusively for about 2-3 years, and this year I connected both the D-50 and the HP103e with MIDI, using the weighted keybed on the HP103e to control the synth, routing the D-50's audio back into the HP103e internal speakers. It's not a very good controller, but it's alot better than the cheap plastic keys of the D-50. I use the D-50 mainly for some organ sounds and lead-sounds. The D-50 is a pain in the ass to edit patches with, and I've been craving a better sounding, more directly customizable keyboard for a while now. I've convinced my father to get me a Nord C2, when it comes out, and I think it will satisfy most of my needs for quite some time.
List:
Roland D-50;
Yamaha DX-7, both are my father's and the DX-7 is currently with my older brother;
Roland HP103e;
on to guitar stuff:
Gibson Les Paul Studio from 2006;
an Ibanez old midi guitar, can't recall the name (also my father's);
Line6 Spider III 75 W amp
And I guess that's it. I hope you enjoyed the read and I hope I'll enjoy my stay. Also, please forgive my english, as it's not my mother language.
Cheers