Jump to content


gchance

Member
  • Posts

    22
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About gchance

  • Birthday 11/24/1969
  1. I've owned the YesYears VHS since it came out. There's been SO much history with the band since 1991 that they really need a new version, but that will never happen unfortunately.
  2. Was it Korg Krome Users by chance that you're a member of? Some of us Bandhubbers are attempting a homegrown alternative, organizing it on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/816271198714040/ And if you're not a member of Korg Krome Users, come on by. https://www.facebook.com/groups/KorgKromeUsers/
  3. I was asked to repost this here: Hi! My name's Greg, I'm 45 years old, and after 34 years of fits and starts, I'm taking this thing seriously. As with most of those things, there's a lot of good storyline that comes along with it. As a kid, I wanted to play piano, BADLY. I was different than most, in that it was never a chore for me. My mother saw this, but we were a very low income family. My father was a seasonal cannery worker, and the rest of the year, we lived off his unemployment, combined with welfare. All that said, they tried their best, bought a piano on credit, and put me in lessons with the "church lady". Somewhere between six months and a year later, they decided they couldn't afford it any longer, sold off the piano, and took me out of lessons. As a teenager, my mom bought me a cheap Yamaha PSS-480, which I keep to this day because even though it's a toy 80s synth, it has MIDI. I used to use it to transpose sheet music into Deluxe Music Construction Set on my Amiga, back in the day. Then in the early 90s, I happened to be at Skip's Music in Sacramento, and bought a "professional" synth: a Kawai K1! Again, I still have it, but it has issues. I've cleaned it a few times, but a few keys don't work. Even bigger, MIDI gets confused when you play more than one key and just plays random notes. razz In April of this last year, I started tinkering again, but was extremely frustrated because of the above issues. I decided enough was enough, and converted an old hobby (classic video game collecting) into a new one. A month later, I was the owner of a Korg Krome, along with a digital piano. I also enrolled myself and my kids in piano lessons; originally, I wanted my good piano/keyboard player friend to teach me, but he insisted he didn't have the time. He was my #1 choice for many reasons, one of which being that he's not only a piano player, but a KEYBOARD player, which to me seemed a logical thing, given what I want to do (play keyboards, uhhh huh heh huh). John's been playing in bands for 30+ years, and is currently in a Journey tribute. RIGHT. I'm progressing in my lessons fairly well, but the weaknesses I've always had are still there. I seem to have a mental block with music theory and reading music, and the conversion from the paper to brain to fingers is slow, very slow. Nevertheless, I've been working on it, but now I have other hurdles that I'll mention in a minute. In July of last year, my teacher announced we had a recital coming up. Prior to lessons (and to buying the Krome), I had been working on learning the intro to Firth of Fifth, which is a big reason I bought the new gear. It's tough to learn something like that when not only are some keys not working, but you only have 61 of them! At any rate, I found the sheet music for the intro, and my teacher said sure, if you think you can do it, by all means, and away I went. I progressed really well, but on rehearsal day I bombed SPECTACULARLY. It also didn't help that I was the only adult in a group of kids ranging from 8 to 17. Can you imagine? I came home and the next day, made a video of a virtually flawless Firth of Fifth (albeit a tad slower). I was determined, though, to not only get the intro down, but learn the rest as well. A week later, I woke up with my thumb refusing to bend all the way, along with severe pain. The issue would lighten later in the day, but it was bad to the point of not being able to pick things up. I found I could still play, but it wasn't entirely comfortable. Two weeks later, I woke up with the first three fingers of my right hand in severe pain, which lasted a few weeks before finally going to the doctor. His solution? He printed out two webpages, one a treatise on trigger thumb, the other a treatise on carpal tunnel syndrome. He started pushing me to have surgery, and my thought was, I've had two weeks of symptoms, why should I have surgery? Combined with other things I didn't like about him, I switched doctors. I got a new one, who had electrical tests performed on my hand to confirm that yes indeed, I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I've managed to stabilize it at very least, and I'm not in pain anymore, although I do have some numbness from time to time in my fingers. With the trigger thumb, I got a cortisone injection, which seems to have resolved the problem. So with the two things in control, I'm back at practicing... but now I can't play Firth of Fifth anymore. DAMMIT! Meanwhile... the Journey tribute I mentioned above was formed out of another band that had played together for quite a few years (I want to say 15, maybe more, may be less). I count them all as good friends, very good friends. There seems to have been a shakeup with the band, though, and the lead singer and bass player both left. The bass player is now another good friend of mine, but I don't know the new lead. Speaking of lead singers, Skip, the guy who left, approached me and said, what do you think about Foreigner? Oh yeah, you know me, I grew up with their music like all those bands. He says great, well, I'm forming a band... He really wants me to play, like REALLY wants me to play. I told him, this is going to be a lot of work on my part, and I'm willing to do it. Learning new songs is always a good thing, but if I'm going to put out a great amount of effort, it needs to happen. This was Christmas. He approached me again on Sunday morning, and said yeah, you know I talked to you about Foreigner, but we also want to play some Journey tunes as well. Hot August Nights is coming up (a big shindig in Reno), and that gives plenty of time to work them up. Nervous? Sure. Excited? Yup. I'd already been working on Journey tunes, along with the Foreigner tunes, but wow. Here's to new adventures, eh? Once again, hi everyone! Greg
×
×
  • Create New...