Musician Talk

[Juniper]

Hello all, going through the board I couldn't help but notice that while we have a thread for discussing listening to music and another for collaborating together to make some music groups, there isn't one that's purely for discussing being a musician and sharing your experiences as musicians.

Some possible topics could include: practice tips and techniques, theory, talking about your instrument and instrument care, writing music, stories / anecdotes related to being a musician, and anything else related you can think of !

[Juniper]

I can start us out by sharing some of my background in music.

I've been playing the piano on and off for about 16 years (I say on and off because sometimes I go long periods of just being way too dang busy, but it's always a wonderful feeling when I can find time again to play) and I've taught piano lessons to beginners for a while. Actually teaching piano lessons was technically my first job

I've got some classical training in violin, but I wouldn't say I'm the strongest violinist or that I took to it as easily as I have other instruments. Although I REALLY like doing fiddle tunes, my favorite being Celtic fiddle. I tried to start a Celtic music club at my college a few years back, but nobody showed up except a few of my friends and that might just be because I kind of made them go so meetings for Celtic music club consisted of us laying on the floor talking while waiting for people to show up  (surprise, they never did)

I took a few years of harp lessons through my school, and that was very pleasant. I'd love to get back into harp one of these days, but it's such a pricey instrument that the only reason I had the means to do was because I was doing it through my school. I got to do both lever harp and pedal harp, but I liked the larger size and sound of the pedal harp more (not to mention how much easier it is to change keys on the fly with a pedal harp) also this might sound really weird but I think one of my favorite things about the harp was that it felt weirdly intimate to play. Like, you play it by leaning it against your shoulder and kind of wrapping your limbs around it, it definitely added to the soothing aspect of playing the harp.

I also got to play the pipe organ in my school's concert hall a few times and that was AMAZING!!!!! I mean, we're talking about a HUUUGE instrument that's bigger than a lot of rooms so it's just SO BIG and SO POWERFUL and you feel SO POWERFUL while you play it!!!! A fun thing I learned in regard to playing the organ is that when you play the organ you get to wear these special shoes that have a bit of a high heel to them so that it's easier to play more than one note with your foot and pivot between two notes with your feet easier. That was another one of my favorite parts of the pipe organ, it engaged all four of my limbs way more than a piano and I was actually playing notes with all four limbs at once.
 

[Róisín]

Have you played one of the little table harps or Bardic harps? I used to play one of the full-sized Celtic harps, but as my hands have crippled up with rheumatoid arthritis, that got too painful to bear. Last year my husband got me one of the little table harps, which I can hold on my knee to play. It doesn't sound as good, but my hands can manage.

[Juniper]

Have you played one of the little table harps or Bardic harps? I used to play one of the full-sized Celtic harps, but as my hands have crippled up with rheumatoid arthritis, that got too painful to bear. Last year my husband got me one of the little table harps, which I can hold on my knee to play. It doesn't sound as good, but my hands can manage.

Yes !!! My harp teacher let me borrow a small lap harp for a while, it was useful for practicing technique in my apartment when I didn't wanna walk all the way across campus to the practice rooms haha. Plus like a lot of lap harps it was really pretty and ornate.

My only problem with it was that the levers really didn't work, so if I needed to change the key to anything besides C I needed to pull out my tuning peg and manually re-tune it to the new key :c

[urbicande]

I play some guitar, I write some songs.  Nobody will ever pay me for any of them,  but I enjoy it!

[viola]

My life has more or less been intertwined with music for longer than I can remember.

I started on piano when I was 4 or 5 and I remember my first recital, playing marry had a little lamb. In elementary school I joined choir, and I was in a bunch of musicals that we put on at school. Then in middle school I started playing viola. By the time I started high school I was doing piano, viola, and choir, which was a bit much, so I dropped piano. With my choir I performed in carnegie hall in new york and then toured in italy a few years later. With viola I joined an orchestra and I started a quartet at my school. I practiced a lot. Like an hour minimum, during the summer it was like 3 hours a day. I worked on some pretty intense concertos. That summer I also picked up guitar. In second to last year of high school I was in choir, two orchestras, two chamber ensembles, and I was doing competitive auditions and competitions and stuff. The year after I cut back to orchestra and one ensemble. I was also in two choirs that year, and I started playing flute in marching band. Eich gave me some guitar lessons and I was also practicing that. I studied music theory all four years of high school, and took college level music theory courses in listening and theory.

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.

[Róisín]

Viola: losing music is a total bummer. I did, for several years after my first husband died, because of several things: first, I was utterly miserable, having been rather fond of said husband, secondly, between visiting a sick kid in hospital and working all the hours I could, I was madly busy, and to top it all off, most of the people I had played music with were several states away. I eventually started again when youngest son was back on his feet, and he and one of his older sisters wanted to study Suzuki method, and when a friend dragged me along to some céilidhs. Took awhile, but I was glad to start again.

[urbicande]

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.

I'd say start with finding some simple pieces.  After being away from it for a while, your playing skills won't do what your mind remembers.    And that will be frustrating as hell.

Scales.  Little folk tunes.  It doesn't need to be much, but start with 15 - 20 minutes a day.  Your skills will come back (and now you're doing it just for the fun of it)

[SugaAndSpice]

Anybody here play Cello? I do, it's such a wonderful instrument!

[viola]

Anybody here play Cello? I do, it's such a wonderful instrument!

My friend once let me play her cello, it was fun and it tickled my knees. 

Thank you everyone for your advice. I'll let you know how it goes!

[frostykitty]

Hope it's okay to wake up this thread?
I play percussion in my school band and our concert is really close, any practicing advice?
I am lucky enough to have a spare snare head and stand as well as a piano for my keyboard parts, I don't however have anything to use for the timpanis -- and you'll  never guess! That's the song I'm having the most trouble with! We're using all four, and I'm having a really hard time switching between them all in the finale (regardless of the speed, I'll panic and hit the wrong one too early). Not to mention, about half the song I have to keep the tempo (the band director is going to stop conducting) and I always end up rushing...

[Ana Nymus]

[...]

I'm no percussionist, but I'll try and give advice anyway!
For the timpani practicing, I'd suggest you set up a fake "timpani" to at least get the feel of playing. If you've got some drum practice pads, set them up in the same configuration as the timpanis on some tables or something. If you don't have any of those, then you can probably make do with anything that you can hit without breaking it or making a loud sound. You can practice your part on this fake timpani, and it won't make the sound, but at least you can get the movements down. Or so I think. Like I said, I've never played percussion, but I do similar things for piano and flue (drawing a keyboard on a piece of paper and playing it, or pretending my pencil is a flute, for example).

Keeping the tempo is really tough! When you're practicing, do it with a metronome so you know what the correct tempo sounds like. Writing notes in your music is also helpful: if you know you tend to rush in one section, writing a reminder not to may help. But yeah, practice with the metronome. Hope this helps! And good luck on your concert!

[Róisín]

Metronome and practice pads is good advice. The only percussion I play is bodhrán (Irish hand drum) rainstick, clapsticks (short mallee-wood sticks used to accompany dancers or didgeridoo) and I used to play balafon and the stringed raindrum for rituals, but they're a bit much for my hands, these years.

Best advice I had for occasions when I had to set the rhythm, such as setting the beat for Morris dancers or the Maypole, was to time it to my breath or heartbeat. Practicing with a metronome might serve the same purpose.

[Lin]

Ohh, this is a thing here. No percussion instrument experience so far, but quite a lot of woodwind experience.

I've been playing the alto and baritone saxophone since P.4, and it's pretty enjoyable.

I don't know if this is standard in other countries or regions, but we were forced to learn the recorder in primary school, and I remember hating its sound because it just sounded so sharp and mechanical. You have not known hell until you listen to a whole class of 32 people play on squeaky recorders.

Lately I've been working on Cinq Danses Exotiques by Jean Françaix, and can anyone tell me where exactly to breathe in movement three? There are like three rests throughout the whole song, and on the rare occasions in which I finish the song without stopping I'd be so strapped of breath I can't even start the fourth movement. So, basically, what should I do to increase my lung capacity? Or at least tell me some good points to pause for breath?

[urbicande]

Ohh, this is a thing here. No percussion instrument experience so far, but quite a lot of woodwind experience.

I've been playing the alto and baritone saxophone since P.4, and it's pretty enjoyable.

I don't know if this is standard in other countries or regions, but we were forced to learn the recorder in primary school, and I remember hating its sound because it just sounded so sharp and mechanical. You have not known hell until you listen to a whole class of 32 people play on squeaky recorders.

Around here, every 8 year old is issued a plastic recorder in elementary school.

I actually like the recorder.  I have a soprano, an alto and a tenor (although I rarely play them any more)