"Concerto for Doorstop and Vuvuzela" was not a resounding success.
So, hey, how ya doin? You guys doing okay? How’s the day going, everyone having a good time? Yeah? Right on.
Man, we suck at small-talk.
So we’ve noticed that a large sampling of our audience tends to be quite a multi-talented lot. Seems like everyone has a hobby of some sort, and not just simple things like “reading” or “drinking”. Although we’ve noticed that both of those are popular as well. It seems we have the kind of audience with hobbies like “second century yak-mounted ancient Tibetan base-jumping” or some such thing. And if anyone actually does partake of that particular hobby, please let us know.
One thing we haven’t discussed however is whether our audience tends to be musical. I was watching Mark Applebaum’s TEDtalk, and noticed that he considered himself to be the world’s greatest doorstop spring player; I think the girl in the photo above could give him a run for his money. He also completed a piece entitled, “Concerto for Florist (& Orchestra)”. He believes that virtually anything can be an instrument, it just depends on how you play it. Personally, I’ll stick with the guitar and piano.
How about you, our multi-talented community? Are you musical? Do you play any instruments? If so, how well?
Nope.
Seriously? You were high on my list of suspects for people who would probably do a mean version of "Dream On" on the penny flute.
Oh, there's all sorts of musical talent in the family. I, however, am adopted.
Don't let him fool you. You should hear his voice when he smacks his thumb with a rock hammer. The man has pipes, I tell you.
[youtube UnwOE_44D9M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnwOE_44D9M youtube]
I'm pretty awesome at the air guitar. And anything can become a drum (just don't expect me to keep a beat).
While I enjoy listening to all kinds of music, I am unable to produce it myself. I have no sense of rhythm, I can't sing, dance or tap my fingers in step with music.
I can't even walk in step, which caused all kinds of trouble while I served in the military…
I play the congas. Seriously, I do. I've played with bands on and off for quite a while. I can sing, too. Usually backups, but I've fronted one or two garage bands. It's a real kick in the ass, being onstage and making noise.
Amen to that. I kinda want to get a garage band going again… you know… now that I have a garage and stuff….
You could always stuff it full of project cars and an accumulation of just-in-case spare parts.
That's the problem already. Four cars, an old motorcycle and a quad makes for a pretty jam-packed garage.
Hmmm, how close are your neighbors? If they're close, how do you get on with the local police?
I played viola for ten years, but ran out of time for orchestra after freshman year of college. I occasionally dabbled in violin, but always preferred the mellower attitude of the violists. [1] I like to think I could cut it in the back of a symphony somewhere. [2] I really need to get Phoenix back out and tuned up.
[1] I know violists and they are fine people until, late at night, they start drinking a few bottles of cheap red wine and roasting chickens over a pit in a vacant lot and talk about going to Yucatan with a woman named Rita. – from The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra
[2] They also get very bitter in their old age when they realize that, for some reason, no one can hear them beyond the stage.
I come from a culture that views music as the gateway drug to heroin, prostitution, and an eventual career as a terrorist. So, no.
Hah! A closet kazoo player I'll wager!
I was a lonely boy, no strength, no joy
in a world of my own at the back of the garden
I didn't want to compete or play out on the street
for in a secret life I was a Roundhead general…
I was faced with a choice at a difficult age
Would I write a book? Or should I take to the stage?
But in the back of my head I heard distant feet
Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat
Fuck off, I don't believe that for a second, you're from Ireland. When my grandmother left, music there was a gateway drug to more drinking.
You need to read more, stereotype less, and spend some time in Ulster.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/06/the_1859_re…
I read books.
Music books?
I have books on the history of music… (4 volumes 1923 edition) The one on Opera was very very interesting.
I own three guitars. One acoustic and two heavily customized electric guitars. I completely re-did the wiring (and shielding) on both electrics and painted one. On the one I painted, I went so far as to wind the pick-ups myself. I have a half-built custom amplifier that I need to find time to finish now that I've got access to a 'scope.
I can muddle through Jimi Hendrix recognizably and have a modest amount of skill at blues/rock/metal improvisation. I don't play enough.
I've played guitar for around 38 years, off and on, and once upon a time I considered myself competent on the instrument. The style of music that I play is primarily fingerstyle acoustic, mostly Leo Kottke stuff anymore, although I'll plug in an electric occasionally and fool around with ZZ Top's and Pete Townsend's music. I currently own five guitars which get far too much neglect.
I grew up singing which continued from grade 5 till just after highschool in a serious manner and during my junior and highschool years I played Trumpet alot. I own a guitar that I can strum a few chords on but don't expect me to turn them into a song and I have a rudementary command of a piano (I can play the hell out of Happy Birthday).
I am also trained in music theory to a certain grade by the Royal Conservatory of Music although I'll be damned if I can remember what grade I completed and probably half the theory involved with that grade.
I can play the radio.
I was forced to take piano lessons for a year or so as a child, hated it.
I think my 1 year old might have some musical talent, at least she seems to have rhythm. Anytime there is any music on she will start dancing around and bouncing in time to the music. Maybe the talent skips a generation. Neither my wife nor I have any musical/artistic talent. My mother-in-law teaches piano and my mother used to play piano in church as was going to go to college in graphic design.
I suck at a whole bunch of things!
Guitar, bass, drums, you name it and I haven't dedicated myself to it!
Don't forget commenting…
<img src="http://tvrecappersanonymous.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/oh_snap.jpg" width="500">
My mother is a musical sort, and she and my step-dad own a music store–not a 'No Stairway–Denied!' music store, but the kind of music store where not only do they know what an oboe is, they probably have 18 different kinds of reeds for it. My step-dad is what you could call an old school artisan, what with the quality of repairs he is capable of.
So I have been around musical-ness for much many years, although I don't suppose it really stuck. Piano lessons at a young age, then drums/percussion up through high school, then played the tuba for my last couple of high school years. I can still mostly read music, and could play something slowly on the piano. I own a nice banjo I keep meaning to learn how to play, but haven't managed to yet. My kids got a toy accordion once for Christmas that I can whip up some pretty masterful imaginary tunes on, much to my wife's chagrin.
I'm decent on bass and I rock on a theremin. I'm getting better on the drums. I can make interesting noises on the rest of my instruments, but I'm not good on them in any traditional sense.
"I can make interesting noises on instruments" is probably the best description I've read of my level of musical ability. I'm a
greatgooddecentokaymedoicretolerable singer, but it's been so long since I've played any of the instruments I've learned that I'm pretty well useless at them once again.I'm doing my best to learn guitar. This time with an electric, i tried a few years ago with a steel-stringed acoustic which was probably a bad idea as a first guitar. I play some Rocksmith for fun but spend most of my time learning chords and scales and proper technique before i actually try to be any good at an actual song.
Maybe in thirty years i can play like this dude.
[youtube r5F9AqAd7gc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5F9AqAd7gc youtube]
Am I the only one with an accordion? Again? Jeez…
Actually, I can't play that thing. I practiced for a while and got to where I could keep both hands going along with the squeezing part and play a tune, but I never kept up with it. There's a new accordion shop in town that gives lessons, but I think they're all on Saturday when I'm working.
My girf plays bass moderately well (as did I, during the Reagan administration), we keep talking about trying to cover old New Wave tunes with just the bass and accordion. Think Rock Lobster. Truth be told, I can hear bad rhythm and out of tune instruments, but I can't sing or play in time very well. That's why I have this page bookmarked
http://www.metronomeonline.com/
Hmmm, I'm trying to envision the best instrument to complement your existing sound, and I'm torn between a trombone or a banjo. Perhaps you should hold auditions.
Remember, Weird Al had to start somewhere too!
I like the trombone idea, preferably muted.
I played trumpet from 5th grade through junior year in hi school.
Was going to play senior year but was in a car wreck that summer. Injuries to my face precluded playing trumpet for a decade or more.
As a result, I have pursued some other things.
I've always figgered that was God's way of telling me I was not meant to follow in Doc Severenson's shoes.
So every useful thing I've done since then (if indeed anything I've done could accurately be termed useful) is attributable to that crash.
Maybe I should go back and find that amphetimine-taking truck driver that ran me off the road and think him for everything I've done. . . nah, I guess not.
Maybe someday I'll take up the violin. . .
as far as musical stuff goes… I can play trombone, baritone, and tuba…. just haven't for years (like 10). I'm trying to teach myself to play guitar. I can play dulcimer, recorder, penny whistle.. I also sing, I'm a bass for a performing group that does historical re-enactments (revolutionary war to 1812 period). So, I sing a lot of french, don't understand it at all–I learned it the way that (supposedly) ABBA sang english, one syllable at a time.
so that's about it, nothing major, or that interesting…
I'm a lightweight ukulele player. Decided to try it out last winter as a birthday present to myself and holy crap, is it fun, but I haven't gone about it in any sort of studied manner. Mostly it's printing off songs that don't have too many chords and playing along to the MP3s. My uke is a pretty basic starter tenor that cost about $70, but I want to get something higher in quality (double the price, probably) for my 1-year anniversary of starting to learn to play music.
For what it's worth, if you've got the typical number of fingers on your hands, you can play a four-string uke from the day you first pick it up.