Musician Talk

[Róisín]

Best ways I know to increase lung capacity are running, swimming and singing. The Dargavel method (for training opera singers) also seems to work well for breath control for wind instruments. I know that one of my younger relatives did it to improve his breathing for bagpipe, pennywhistle and flute, and got the bonus of singing better.

My kids all learned the recorder, but it never suited me.

[Auxivele]

Welp. Hello there, fine People of the Internet.

I used to take piano lessons but stopped after I moved out of the country for 7.5 months and didn't have anything to practice with and my piano teacher moved just a few months after we came back. I tried to pick it up again but couldn't. I've been trying to teach myself guitar off-and-on but don't seem to be very good at it, though I'm going to try again once school is out for the summer (does anyone have tips for learning the guitar?). I played the clarinet through elementary school and into middle school but in 7th grade I switched to the bass clarinet which I now play. I would like to sing but can't sing on key and own a fife and an ocarina, neither of which I can play very well. I think that's everything?

[urbicande]

Welp. Hello there, fine People of the Internet.

I used to take piano lessons but stopped after I moved out of the country for 7.5 months and didn't have anything to practice with and my piano teacher moved just a few months after we came back. I tried to pick it up again but couldn't. I've been trying to teach myself guitar off-and-on but don't seem to be very good at it, though I'm going to try again once school is out for the summer (does anyone have tips for learning the guitar?). I played the clarinet through elementary school and into middle school but in 7th grade I switched to the bass clarinet which I now play. I would like to sing but can't sing on key and own a fife and an ocarina, neither of which I can play very well. I think that's everything?

For a guitar?  Get a guitar that feels good in your hands.  If you try them out in the music store, buy the one you tried, not another one.  After that, it's like anything else.  Practice practice practice.

I played bass clarinet as a kid!

[Auxivele]

For a guitar?  Get a guitar that feels good in your hands.  If you try them out in the music store, buy the one you tried, not another one.  After that, it's like anything else.  Practice practice practice.

I played bass clarinet as a kid!

Thank you for the tip. (Gonna have to step up my game with the whole "practicing" part of it... I tend to forget to do important details like that... XD )

Bass clarinetists unite!

[DB (f.k.a. DaveBro)]

As an unsuccessful guitarist, I advise getting an electric guitar--the lighter pressure required on your chording fingers will allow you to practice longer / with less discomfort.  I have wimpy fingers. 

I play flute and fife, and played bagpipes years ago.  The only instrument I studied as a kid was piano.  The rest were learnt casually as an adult, although I did take a couple of years of flute lessons.  I am theoretically a member of the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable (http://seedandfeed.org/), but have been kept pretty much sidelined by revolving injuries. 

Shamelss Pluggery Follows:

The bulk of my musical joy comes from singing at housefilks, such songs as can be found at The Virtual Filksing (http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/virtual.html), Echo's Children (http://www.echoschildren.org/), and Cat Faber (http://catfaber.bandcamp.com/).

My favorite harpist is Gwen Knighton Raftery, of Three Weird Sisters, and Box of Fairies fame. (http://www.threeweirdsisters.com/discography.html)  If you listen to anything by 3WS, listen to Iowa.

If you try any of these links and songs, I hope you like them. 

[urbicande]

My favorite harpist is Gwen Knighton Raftery, of Three Weird Sisters, and Box of Fairies fame. (http://www.threeweirdsisters.com/discography.html)  If you listen to anything by 3WS, listen to Iowa.

And I would have said In a Gown Too Blue!

RE: Electric.  You'll build up callouses with practice.  But that's why it's important to get a guitar that feels comfortable when you play it because you're more likely to play a guitar that doesn't hurt.

[Juniper]

As highschool finished up however, I was pretty depressed from other things, and I got kinda burned out on all the music stuff I was doing. I slowly started dropping out of ensembles and various lessons and stopped signing up for things. I kind of overwhelmed myself and I regret that. There was a time when playing viola gave me so much joy, and I lost that. Now I am here trying to get that back.

If any of you have any tips for me, I would love to get back into it. Play some more stuff. Find that joy I used to get.

Ah eeeee sorry this took me forever to respond to even though I intended to weeks ago.

But I was gonna say you're not alone in that and I can hecka relate. When my depression got really nasty I neglected music for several years, which is also why I say I've played piano on and off instead of consistently. When I was in early college and my mental health was getting better (mostly because I was out of the nasty situation that was causing the nasty mental health) I minored in music to kinda try to force myself to get back into music, but I was very obviously behind everyone else in the department from years of practice lost, and everyone in the department both professor and other student were very, eh, not understanding. When I'd try to explain to the friends I'd made within the department why I was so behind I'd get responses like "why couldn't you just play through the pain ? / If you were really so depressed you should have just used music as an outlet instead of slacking on practice / I've been sad before and had problems but I didn't just give up on what I loved." ect. ect. So it was kind of just frustrating and discouraging and a lot of people made me out to feel like I wasn't a "real" musician or didn't really care about it. Like, I'd be at parties or social gatherings with other people from the music department there and they'd be talking amongst themselves and say things like "well, we're really the only two musicians here so we're really the only ones who'd appreciate a live performance like that . ." ect and I'd just be standing there like "Um, hello ? So I'm not a musician ? I sit by you in Orchestra ?" So like, I guess I responded by desperately wanting the department's validation and doing everything possible to get it mostly by neglecting my main studies that I'd actually gone away to school for and just practicing all day every day to try to be a "real musician" to everyone else. Of course it didn't work and there was a lot of breaking down and crying in my practice room and wondering if I had the right to call myself a musician and stuff.

I dunno when it happened or how but I started to realize that I didn't do music or love it before just to have validation and acceptance, that it was about me and making myself happy and by doing it just to please other people and try to earn their validation in vain I was doing it wrong. It's something I should be doing for my own satisfaction and pleasure, ans because I enjoy it and the only time my music and playing should be about other people is that music is also in part about bringing joy and music to others, but not about needing their validation to feel validated as a person or anything.

So I think Urbanicide has the right idea TBH.

[Róisín]

Juniper, that definitely makes me want to smack your music department - way to put a kid off music! I'd say do it for yourself, that makes for good music and a happy soul.

[Juniper]

Juniper, that definitely makes me want to smack your music department - way to put a kid off music! I'd say do it for yourself, that makes for good music and a happy soul.

To be fair not everyone was like that, I'm still friends with a few people who were pretty supportive and had similar circumstances. I think I'd just fallen in with a crowd of people who were, idk, I don't even think they intended to be de-validating or they had malicious intentions, I think they didn't know what they were saying or doing had that affect on me, they mostly seemed to kinda have "big fish in a small pond" syndrome, it was a pretty small department, and I guess I was a small fish in a small pond ?

[amaranthineamusement]

Ooooh, just spotted this thread, so I'll show up I guess.

I started with piano when I was reeeal little (I think my mom has a really funny picture of me using a toy piano when I was one lol) and have kept up with it until now, though I do more fake-booking and rhythmic piano than actual music reading. I started trombone in grade 6 too, and have kept up with that. I also play ukulele, and I teach recorder to a pretty crazy class of 3rd grade boys. Oh, and I also play drums.

I have music you can listen to at my bandcamp, https://dominiquecottrell.bandcamp.com/ (if you want to listen to pop music) and on my soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/dominique-cottrell-682109890 (if you want instrumentals). My originals aren't professional level or anything, but it's fun to write music so... yeah. I released my first album in 10th grade for my personal project, and music has sort of been trickling out since then.

Right now I'm kind of on hiatus because I'm taking exams and it's crazy, but usually I practice as a way to lose stress, etc.

Nice to meet you all!

[urbicande]

Ooooh, just spotted this thread, so I'll show up I guess.

I started with piano when I was reeeal little (I think my mom has a really funny picture of me using a toy piano when I was one lol) and have kept up with it until now, though I do more fake-booking and rhythmic piano than actual music reading. I started trombone in grade 6 too, and have kept up with that. I also play ukulele, and I teach recorder to a pretty crazy class of 3rd grade boys. Oh, and I also play drums.

I have music you can listen to at my bandcamp, https://dominiquecottrell.bandcamp.com/ (if you want to listen to pop music) and on my soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/dominique-cottrell-682109890 (if you want instrumentals). My originals aren't professional level or anything, but it's fun to write music so... yeah. I released my first album in 10th grade for my personal project, and music has sort of been trickling out since then.

Right now I'm kind of on hiatus because I'm taking exams and it's crazy, but usually I practice as a way to lose stress, etc.

Nice to meet you all!

Oh, I like that!  Nice stuff there!

[DB (f.k.a. DaveBro)]

Ooooh, just spotted this thread, so I'll show up I guess.

>snip<
I have music you can listen to at my bandcamp, https://dominiquecottrell.bandcamp.com/ (if you want to listen to pop music) and on my soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/dominique-cottrell-682109890 (if you want instrumentals). My originals aren't professional level or anything, but it's fun to write music so... yeah. I released my first album in 10th grade for my personal project, and music has sort of been trickling out since then.

Right now I'm kind of on hiatus because I'm taking exams and it's crazy, but usually I practice as a way to lose stress, etc.

Nice to meet you all!

Icarus was especially pretty...I caught myself smiling with enjoyment.     Let me know if you ever get down to Mbabane, Swaziland; I've a couple of friends with whom you might hit it off. 

[Basse]

A question for the clarinet players, what is a good "brand" if one where to look into buying one that is cheap but still sounds good.
Haven't played saxophone for about 4 years now but is still thinking about getting a clarinet some day.

[ginger]

Oooh, may I join the fun?

I'm primarily a vocalist, having sung chorally for the past three years in two singing groups, with musical theatre interspersed here and there, as that is likely my favorite thing to do. My favorite genres of music: show tunes, folk music, occasionally pop, k-pop, and...I guess a little bit of everything? But country. Country is regrettable almost entirely (with very few exceptions).

I have a ukulele who has been sorely neglected and needs some love. *glances wistfully to uke perch at top of bookshelf*

I'm also learning piano and conducting! Both rather slowly, but learning them nonetheless. In piano, I can read rather slowly in an easy key (working on reading with more and more accidentals in the key signature but ;__;). As far as conducting goes, I'm learning choral conducting more so than instrumental (I get the feeling there are some differences, including the baton and all that jazz) and can currently conduct in 4/4, 3/4, and 2/2, but learning how to subdivide the beats as well (which is more difficult).

Anyhow, since I'm only three years into this adventure, (have been doing musical theatre for seven years or so, but began that with virtually no theory knowledge and just listened to pitches until I could mimic them) I definitely have much to learn! But, gaining some more music literacy over the years has been really nice, as it has enabled me to both sing better and conduct musical conversations on chat with you lovely folks!

[Mélusine]

... Someday, I'll be rich and make a new try for learning an instrument. Someday.