Is anyone here a musician?

[Eliminature 5,209]

Throughout lockdown, the only thing that has been keeping me anything close to sane is my music practice. I'm an amateur pianist. At the moment, I'm working on some classical pieces as well as popular blues melodies. My music teacher is excellent. 

Does anyone else here play an instrument? Do tell! I'd love to hear about it. What is your instrument? What pieces do you play?

[Sophie 24,412]

Pianist of nearly 26 years. I enjoy a mixture of classical music, Mozart, Beethoven and a few others (Canon in D will always be my favourite piece ever ) and I play a lot of piano covers of more recent popular songs. Usually  from around the 70s onwards. Rolling Stones - She's a rainbow, Heart - Alone, Whitesnake - Here I go again, Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine are a few songs I have played this week. 

 

[Thiscouldbeanywhere 381]

I used to play tuba in high school

I played harmonica for a bit

Havent played either in ages

I'd like to learn fiddle

[Kupar 13,341]

I am learning to play the hammered dulcimer. I used to play the piano, not particularly well... I went through the grades but only to 5. On the dulcimer I play folk tunes. My main 'instrument' is my voice. I have sung in choirs large and small for 45 years. Very varied repertoire, from big classical works to small group unaccompanied early music/madrigals, and 'popular songs' (but not a fan of that sort of thing really).

[Kupar 13,341]

40 minutes ago, Eliminature said:

Throughout lockdown, the only thing that has been keeping me anything close to sane is my music practice.

Music is an amazing thing. Take care @Eliminature

[Eliminature 5,209]

30 minutes ago, Sophie said:

Pianist of nearly 26 years. I enjoy a mixture of classical music, Mozart, Beethoven and a few others (Canon in D will always be my favourite piece ever ) and I play a lot of piano covers of more recent popular songs. Usually  from around the 70s onwards. Rolling Stones - She's a rainbow, Heart - Alone, Whitesnake - Here I go again, Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine are a few songs I have played this week. 

 

Oooh!! Amazing! That is supreme. Especially the Stones. 👍🏻❤

[Thiscouldbeanywhere 381]

I played piano as a child 

Havent for years though

[gldenwetgoose 21,498]

In the world of jogging / cycling (etc) it's said 'it doesn't matter how little you do, you're still beating anyone sat on the sofa'.  I'm sure the same applies here - it doesn't matter whether you play all the time or never... I'm still in awe of anyone with any musical skills and talent.

I firmly don't fall into that camp. I'm sadly well and truly on the sofa. I have lots of musical friends, professional and part time musicians and teachers... and whilst I know some of the theory I'm definitely in awe.

A couple of years ago I was photographing a weekend music event for a friend and it happened to be my birthday - I got dragged on stage in front of about 100 guests, for the band to play Birthday to me (The Beatles track, which certainly beats the kids party Happy Birthday but does last a cringeworthy much longer).  I had a tambourine thrust into my hand and discovered I literally can't follow a beat without intently watching the drummer.  Not my forte at all....

[Kupar 13,341]

13 minutes ago, gldenwetgoose said:

In the world of jogging / cycling (etc) it's said 'it doesn't matter how little you do, you're still beating anyone sat on the sofa'.  I'm sure the same applies here - it doesn't matter whether you play all the time or never... I'm still in awe of anyone with any musical skills and talent.

I firmly don't fall into that camp. I'm sadly well and truly on the sofa. I have lots of musical friends, professional and part time musicians and teachers... and whilst I know some of the theory I'm definitely in awe.

A couple of years ago I was photographing a weekend music event for a friend and it happened to be my birthday - I got dragged on stage in front of about 100 guests, for the band to play Birthday to me (The Beatles track, which certainly beats the kids party Happy Birthday but does last a cringeworthy much longer).  I had a tambourine thrust into my hand and discovered I literally can't follow a beat without intently watching the drummer.  Not my forte at all....

That's very honest and enlightening, as well as quite amusing. I'm sure you had a happy birthday nonetheless!

[Kupar 13,341]

1 hour ago, Sophie said:

Heart - Alone

Ooh. Coincidentally I watched the video of this the other day and got the same tingle from seeing the Wilson sisters gyrating as I did when it was a new song 🙂

[Sophie 24,412]

18 minutes ago, Kupar said:

Ooh. Coincidentally I watched the video of this the other day and got the same tingle from seeing the Wilson sisters gyrating as I did when it was a new song 🙂

I have a huge crush on Nancy Wilson 

 

[Kupar 13,341]

3 minutes ago, Sophie said:

I have a huge crush on Nancy Wilson 

 

Me too ... and she could play 🙂

[lovestoseepee 297]

I did start to learn to play the piano but I then moved away from where I started to learn and haven't looked for another teacher. Also I haven't practiced in a long time so will have most likely forgotten how to play.

[steve25805 126,155]

Sadly the only thing I can play is the fool.

I am quite good at playing the fool when I set my mind to it.

[Alfresco 11,639]

I play the piano - to a certain level.   I am still very much learning it and have a long way to go.  I play the music line accompanied by chords mainly.  I can read music, but I can't read it fast enough to play multiple notes simultaneously, so I read the music line and put my own accompanying chords with it.  I am trying to develop more on the theory.  I do play a certain about by ear rather than from music, but I have to "know" the tune well in my head to be able to do that.  I'm not great at sticking to any one focused practice routine and tend to dip in and out of different things.  I'd never consider myself good enough to play in a band but I have played a few times on a public piano including a hospital concourse, a couple of hotels and a fairly quiet area on a cruise ship.

I have also dabbled with brass instruments and can just about hold a tune on a euphonium, but I don't have one and I don't practice so I'm not getting any better at it!!   Think I'll mainly stick to the piano.

I do find that it is a good way of taking my mind off things and I have my digital piano in my home office so when I need a break from work I can just move to the piano and play for 20 minutes and then go back to work.

[Kupar 13,341]

20 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

... so I read the music line and put my own accompanying chords with it...

That's a real skill in its own right. Quite a lot of people who've had a more formal piano-lesson-based upbringing struggle to do that.

It always surprises me how different people's musical brains work. Some (like my wife) can play, at sight, complex music they've never seen or heard before; others, like my son, can't do that to the same degree ... but play more by innate musicality. With my son, if he's heard a song, he can play it - melody, accompaniment - the lot. Then play it in a different key. No sheet music required. Mother and son have huge respect for each other's completely different musical brains. I can't do either of those things ... and I can't do what you can do either!

Edited December 7, 2020 by Kupar

[Kupar 13,341]

13 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

I have also dabbled with brass instruments and can just about hold a tune on a euphonium, but I don't have one and I don't practice so I'm not getting any better at it!! 

How did you come to be able to play the euphonium?

[Alfresco 11,639]

Just now, Kupar said:

That's a real skill in its own right. Quite a lot of people who've had a more formal piano-lesson-based piano upbringing struggle to do that.

It always surprises me how different people's musical brains work. Some (like my wife) can play, at sight, complex music they've never seen or heard before; others, like my son, can't do that to the same degree ... but play more by innate musicality. With my son, if he's heard a song, he can play it - melody, accompaniment - the lot. Then play it in a different key. No sheet music required. Mother and son have huge respect for their completely different musical brains. I can't do either of those things ... and I can't do what you can do either!

Yes, totally different mindset.   I really admire people who can do either set well.   A lot depends on how the individual's brain works and how they have been taught.   Some can play very complex pieces from written music, but ask them to play twinkle twinkle little star or happy birthday without music and they can't even play the melody line.   On the other hand, someone who can play a complex piece by ear may not have a clue how to play the simplest piece from music.   I'm somewhere in the middle - I can do a bit of ear and a bit of music reading but don't do either to a high standard.  I'm happy because I enjoy playing and my wife enjoys listening so that's enough for me, but I'm always striving to learn more.  Changing keys is another thing.  If you truly know your music then you think of the music more in terms of what numbers than actual notes - i.e. you know that a major chord is the C, E, G, C, which are the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th notes in the C major scale, so if you know your keys well then you can instantly play any major chords because you just go to the 1,3,5,8 of whatever scale.  So an F major chord would be F, A, C, F for example.   So theoretically you can change to a new key simply by changing your start position.   In practice it is a lot harder to master than that.  I can do it to a certain extent but I tend to play in the keys of C major (all white keys), F major (1 flat) and G major (1 sharp).  I can work the others out, but I can't sit down and naturally play in them.

[Alfresco 11,639]

11 minutes ago, Kupar said:

How did you come to be able to play the euphonium?

My dad used to be in a brass band.  He played Eb bass, Euphonium, Trombone.   He taught me the basics and I tried to learn the cornet, but I found the mouthpiece too small.  He told me that I may find the Euphonium easier, which I did, but never owned one, so I only ever had the odd go at it when I was at his house.  It is actually a baritone euphonium to give it the proper name.

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Alfresco

[Kupar 13,341]

2 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

My dad used to be in a brass band.  He played Eb bass, Euphonium, Trombone.   He taught me the basics and I tried to learn the cornet, but I found the mouthpiece too small.  He told me that I may find the Euphonium easier, which I did, but never owned one, so I only ever had the odd go at it when I was at his house.  It is actually a baritone euphonium to give it the proper name.

 

Aha. That makes sense now. I had visions of you just finding a euphonium somewhere, getting the hang of how to play it, then losing it 😉

[Alfresco 11,639]

The advantage of playing something like a brass instrument is that you only have to worry about one note at a time.  You can only physically play one note at a time so you can read the music more easily.   You can play the piano like that, but to play the piano to its potential you need to play multiple notes at the same time, co-ordinate both hands and do different things with each hand at the same time.   That is where I find playing the piano a challenge - isolating what each finger and hand is doing -  especially if they are playing different timings.   

[Alfresco 11,639]

1 minute ago, Kupar said:

Aha. That makes sense now. I had visions of you just finding a euphonium somewhere, getting the hang of how to play it, then losing it 😉

My Dad was quite a keen musician.   He also couldn't read music very quickly so it was him that set me down the route of playing the music line and putting chords to it.   He was a church organist for years but rarely used any music at all.  He tended to play in just a couple of keys so if he needed to play something that was written in a key that he didn't like then he would use the transpose function on the electronic organ to move the pitch accordingly and then play it in F, which was his favourite key.  

Dad could play brass instruments, piano, organ, accordion, clarinet.  He was fairly adaptable, but could never get his head around stringed instruments, except that he learned the harp later in life.   The reason that he learned the trombone was that the bass trombone player in the band he was in resigned so they had nobody who could play it.   All the other guys specialised in just one instrument so Dad said he would have a go and he converted fairly easily.

[Kupar 13,341]

22 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

Yes, totally different mindset.   I really admire people who can do either set well.   A lot depends on how the individual's brain works and how they have been taught.   Some can play very complex pieces from written music, but ask them to play twinkle twinkle little star or happy birthday without music and they can't even play the melody line.   On the other hand, someone who can play a complex piece by ear may not have a clue how to play the simplest piece from music.   I'm somewhere in the middle - I can do a bit of ear and a bit of music reading but don't do either to a high standard.  I'm happy because I enjoy playing and my wife enjoys listening so that's enough for me, but I'm always striving to learn more.  Changing keys is another thing.  If you truly know your music then you think of the music more in terms of what numbers than actual notes - i.e. you know that a major chord is the C, E, G, C, which are the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th notes in the C major scale, so if you know your keys well then you can instantly play any major chords because you just go to the 1,3,5,8 of whatever scale.  So an F major chord would be F, A, C, F for example.   So theoretically you can change to a new key simply by changing your start position.   In practice it is a lot harder to master than that.  I can do it to a certain extent but I tend to play in the keys of C major (all white keys), F major (1 flat) and G major (1 sharp).  I can work the others out, but I can't sit down and naturally play in them.

Some instruments aren't chromatic and can't play every note in every scale. For instance, my daughter's folk harp is tuned to Eb major, and every note can be raised by a semitone, but in practical terms, there are some melodies, and some chords, that can't be played. My hammered dulcimer, though it's a reasonable size, also doesn't have every note. But as most folk music is in one of three or four keys with only occasional accidentals, that's OK.

16 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

The advantage of playing something like a brass instrument is that you only have to worry about one note at a time.  You can only physically play one note at a time so you can read the music more easily.   You can play the piano like that, but to play the piano to its potential you need to play multiple notes at the same time, co-ordinate both hands and do different things with each hand at the same time.   That is where I find playing the piano a challenge - isolating what each finger and hand is doing -  especially if they are playing different timings.   

Yes - that's why it's quite a tough instrument to learn - but also so rewarding: it makes such a full sound. The organ is even more complex as you have your feet playing notes on the pedalboard too ... and there are the stops to pull out to change the sound, and the swell pedal to change the volume...

Edited December 7, 2020 by Kupar
typos

[Kupar 13,341]

5 minutes ago, Alfresco said:

 he learned the harp later in life.

If you think about it, a harp is really quite like a piano stood up on end, where you pluck the strings instead of hit them with hammers via a keyboard and a wonderful, beautiful mechanism. (A big concert harp also has a wonderful, complex mechanism ... most people have no idea it has seven pedals, and dozens of multi-part metal linkages hidden inside it.)

[Alfresco 11,639]

2 minutes ago, Kupar said:

If you think about it, a harp is really quite like a piano stood up on end, where you pluck the strings instead of hit them with hammers via a keyboard and a wonderful, beautiful mechanism. (A big concert harp also has a wonderful, complex mechanism ... most people have no idea it has seven pedals, and dozens of multi-part metal linkages hidden inside it.)

Yes - that's why he could play it.  It is not at all like a guitar, cello, violin etc, where you get all the notes from just a few strings and have to work out the fingering.