Musician's thread?

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'll probably get a short scale bass when I have the chance. Because if there's anything I need it's more instruments I can barely play.

[TSTR]

Ramones records man, teach you everything you need to start out with.

[Ziggy]

I got a saxophone for Christmas! I've been wanting to pick up the sax for years now, and I finally got one. I thought the fingerings would be the hardest part for me to learn, but I was wrong. Having played the trumpet for so many years, and never a woodwind, the hardest part for me is learning correct embouchure.

So this December will be 2 years that I own the sax. I'm ashamed to say I haven't played it nearly as much as I should have. It's not that I was too lazy, or didn't want to. Rather, that I need absolute solitude to feel comfortable practicing. Sax, like most acoustic instruments, is very loud and there's no volume knob. Hitting wrong notes is one thing, but with sax there's also the potential to make very horrible noises. I guess when I was in elementary school learning to play the trumpet, I didn't give a rat's ass how awful it sounded (or how awful I was) and didn't care if the whole neighborhood heard me. But as an adult, you're a little more self conscious about such things.

Anyway, I'm getting better. I figured out the embouchure. I still need a lot of practice, especially rapidly switching between low and high notes, but I'm at a point now that I don't totally suck. In fact, I think I outgrew my mouthpiece. I think it's time to step it up to an intermediate mouthpiece and start experimenting with different reeds.

I can play a C scale in two octaves (which is almost the entire range of the alto sax) pretty quickly, so now I'm starting to learn sharps and flats. I've been practicing playing the main melody part to Aquatic Ambiance (the water level music from Donkey Kong Country 1). It's a pretty good beginner song since there isn't many sharps and flats. That seems to be the best way to learn the fingerings for a new instrument. Learn the C scale, then introduce a new flat or sharp 1 or 2 notes at a time.

I'm still kinda shocked how easy it is to play the full range of notes on the sax. On trumpet, learning to play the lower notes takes a while. And learning to play anything over high C takes a LOT of practice (it's like the equivalent to lifting weights but for your mouth). There's only three valves, so remembering the fingering for every note is easy. With sax, it's easy to play the full range of the instrument but there's a shit ton of keys and remember the fingering for every note is a lot harder. I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is it's kind of like "culture shock" for me, but for instruments (if you know what I mean).

One of my goals in life is to own and be able to play many instruments well. Not to be amazing or masterful at every instrument (although I wouldn't mind that) but at least be competent. Good enough to be able to do what I want. That said, I think I'm coming along with the sax that I can start learning another instrument. I still have to practice the sax a LOT more before I'm as good as I'd like to be, but I can start learning something new now.

I've had a violin for a while. I got it around the time I graduated high school. I broke a string (it was an old violin) pretty quickly after getting it and haven't played it since. I finally got around to buying a new set of strings. This weekend I plan to clean it up and restring it. Then I'll start to learn to play. I'm hoping I wont suck too hard right from the start being that I have experience with stringed instruments.

I've been listening to a lot of jazz covers of video game music the past few days. It's motivating me to practice my instruments more. One of the reasons I'd like to be able to play a variety of instruments well is so I can have a wider variety of instruments to make recordings with.

I found a pretty long play list of jazz covers on YouTube. There's a couple of really awesome covers in there. It definitely has something for everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuiCe_o ... uiCe_oRoyA

[Ziggy]

http://www.alesis.com/products/view2/samplepad-4





I picked up one of these a few weeks ago. I've been thinking about getting something like this for a while now. Mostly so I can have a quick and easy way to record drums for demos. But I also thought it would be neat to integrate digital drums into recordings or live music, in addition to an acoustic drum set.

This isn't the most advanced or amazing unit, but I wanted something simple (and cheap in price!). That said, it's very easy to use. My only real complaint is loading samples from an SD card. You can't organize things into folder, all samples have to be on the root on the card. So if you have 20 kick drum samples, 20 snare, 20 hi hat, et cetera, it will take a long time to scroll through to get to what you want. Also, the LCD screen limits file names to 8 characters, so it can be a challenge to give your sample descriptive names.

My only minor complaint is that it should really have an enter and back key. It has 4 arrow keys, and hitting combinations gives you the back and enter function. It can get a little annoying.

Other than that, I'm loving it. I recorded a little improv song to mess around with it a little, maybe I'll post it over the weekend if I remember.

[Ziggy]

So looking at this thread, it looks like it's been a year and a half since I've written / recorded any music. That simply will not do!

My goal for 2019 Q1 is to finally get my home studio set back up. My goal for the rest of 2019 is to write enough songs for a full length album, and perhaps record as many. I want to record a minimum of 2 (of my best) songs and release them on a 45. Yes, I want to get some actual records produced! It'll be a low quantity, and I'm only going to self promote. Something like Bandcamp, SoundCloud, et cetera, and the normal social media I guess. I might even try and get some local radio stations to play them. I'll test the waters with the 2 songs, then decide what I want to do with a full length album in 2020.