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Owlyross
Rohan
Feb 28 2007, 9:47am
Post #26 of 65
(1104 views)
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I do both to a fairly good degree although I wish I was a better singer...
I kinda always wanted to play guitar, but only started when I was about 15/16, so I've been playing for just over 10 years. I'm entirely self-taught and know nothing about theory, well, that'sa bit of a lie, I know the names of the notes and rudimentary stuff about harmony and establishing a key, but it's mostly a big show. I've played in a couple of rock bands, the biggest achievement being playing to about 500 people at the local University and playing to more at a couple of festivals in Leicester. I am now a singer-singwriter and play low-key shows around the area as I just want to enjoy music, not try and make a career out of it (which looking at it really hard, I made the decision not to do when I was about 22, and it certainly held my real career up).
I'm not the real musician in my family, my brother has grade 8 on a number of instruments, French Horn, Tenor Horn and Piano, studied music at Goldsmiths University in London and is now a music teacher.
Anyway, if you'd like to hear my little ditties, you can go to
www.myspace.com/reinventingthewheeluk
or
www.soundclick.com/reinventingthewheel
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Benjamin Franklin
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Horace Walpole (1717 - 1797)
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Feb 28 2007, 1:21pm
Post #27 of 65
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He really is a cute little leprechaun of a fellow. His wife came out to play a duet with him a couple of times, and she towered over him.
I've seen him interviewed on TV a few times, like back when Carson hosted The Tonight Show, and he seems to have a delightful personaity.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Feb 28 2007, 1:28pm
Post #28 of 65
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I, too, had to try to corral pianists into playing my theory exercises. I never did take the final semester of theory. I was a business major, anyway, and knew I didn't want to play professionally so I didn't see any point in it. (Business and music were in two different schools within the university. They wouldn't allow you to declare a double major from two different schools.)
It sounds like you had it even rougher than me because you really wanted to go for it. But it sounds like you did all you could.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Feb 28 2007, 1:43pm
Post #29 of 65
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The kalimba, I mean.
Drum and bugle corps? You mean like one of the DCI (Drum Corps International) corps??? Man, you must have been good.
Star of Indiana was always one of my favorites, along with pretty much anybody but the Cavaliers.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Feb 28 2007, 1:47pm
Post #30 of 65
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It sounds like you were probably serious about it, but krumhorns always make me smile and giggle a little.
It must have been a lot of fun playing in your family Renaissance band. I would've loved doing something like that as a kid.
One of my college buddies, a French horn player, went on to get his masters and learned lots of other brass instruments. He went on to do other things, but he still plays different low brass instruments in community bands in the NY area. He said it's amazing how friendly people are to you on the subway when you're carrying a sousaphone, hee hee.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Feb 28 2007, 2:55pm
Post #31 of 65
(1116 views)
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When I was a child, we didn't have a piano, so I took accordion lessons. I played it or years. But, sigh, accordion jokes aside, I just never found any music I really enjoyed playing on it, and ended up with way too many repetitions of Beer Barrel Polka and Fascination.
Years later, after I'd given the accordion to the Salvation Army, I discovered Celtic music, which actually makes the accordion sound sexy. Sigh.
By that time I'd grown up and bought myself a piano. I knew how to play the right hand from my accordion lessons (I was playing the kind of accordion with a keyboard for the right hand) but never did learn what note went with what key on the left hand. I finally bought some decals to stick on the piano keys!
The years passed, and the kids grew up, and I'd play a little bit .... And LotR came out.
I loved HS's music so much I bought the music books and AT LAST learned how to read the left hand. All the decals are off the keys now, and I can play Christmas carols and other music. Now if I can just find myself a book of intermediate classical music....
I admire those of y'all who've taken lessons. I've never done that, and I'm sure I've adopted some pretty bad habits when it comes to fingering. But hey, I can sit down and play In Dreams and the first part of Twilight and Shadow (when Arwen has her vision of Eldarion) by memory, and the other pieces in the books if I have the music in front of me -- the chords at the ends of "Minas Tirith" and "King of the Golden Hall" are great fun.
So I'm happy.
Don't y'all get a real emotional rush from music? And not just the LotR music, either.
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Owlyross
Rohan
Feb 28 2007, 4:10pm
Post #32 of 65
(1132 views)
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My grandad was a dedicated accordian player and used to play around all the local pubs, right up to his death at 84. He used to get home later than my mum and dad!
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Benjamin Franklin
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Horace Walpole (1717 - 1797)
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Arwen's daughter
Half-elven
Feb 28 2007, 5:28pm
Post #33 of 65
(1093 views)
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but I gave it up after. It was Howard Shore's first instrument, too. I asked him after the Chicago symphany (the poor man was exhausted before we reached him for an autograph). I actually pulled mine out the other day, but my clarinet needs to be recorked and repadded before I could even begin to play again.
I originally wanted to play the trombone, but my older sister was first chair clarinet in the school band and very good and I was expected to follow in her footsteps. I was never as good as she was.
My LiveJournal
My Costuming Site
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Alassëa Eruvande
Valinor
Feb 28 2007, 6:58pm
Post #34 of 65
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I started in the sixth grade and played all through junior high and high school, for a total of 7 years. I loved it. I was moderately talented, compared with the rest of the students. I relied a lot on playing by ear, then worked out reading the music later.
In the fall, we concentrated on marching music for the half time shows for football games. There was also a marching contest in late fall. In my senior year, we got a First Division, which is the highest score.
In the spring semester, we concentrated on more orchestra-type music. This was my favorite as we played a lot of classical music. For football games, it was more pop music for marching band. You have not lived until you have heard "She Works Hard For the Money", "Centerfold" or "Beat It" played by 120 semi-talented, semi-disinterested high school musicians. 
When I was 27 and had just paid off my first new car, I purchased a repo'd piano. I had such high hopes of learning to play and had always wanted to play since I was a kid. We never had the resources either for piano lessons or a piano as I was growing up. But, having little musical talent, and relying heavily on playing by ear, and having been "confused" by reading flute music all those years ago, I did not do well at the piano. I quit taking lessons after six months. I still have my piano, and have moved it twice, but now I tell people it's for my kids to take lessons. I'm thinking Little Eruvande needs to start this summer.
Great topic!
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Draupne
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 28 2007, 7:05pm
Post #35 of 65
(1085 views)
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how anyone can mistake my horn for a weapon when travelling but quite a lot do. The shape would make it a rather strange weapon though.
Maybe they're just afraid I'm going to start playing?
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Alassëa Eruvande
Valinor
Feb 28 2007, 7:06pm
Post #36 of 65
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That's so cute!
I had a few names for my flute, but "Beauty" was never one of them.
I also picked the flute because it was the smallest instrument offered. Piccolo wasn't offered until high school. I didn't want to have to schlep around a massive French horn case.
I considered a community band once, too, until I heard them play. Not that I was such a hot shot, but they were really baaaad! 
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Stapper
Lorien
Feb 28 2007, 7:29pm
Post #37 of 65
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is the recorder, both the sopran (the normail size) and the alt. I'm better at the sopran... Just a matter of wanting to learn music, and then the recorder's the normal thing to start with around here. I sticked playing it so long that I had to play the alt as well...
My brother's very good at playing the pianio. It made me try too. I had lessons for a year, then I quit. Whatever I learned there must've had some effect, but I reckon it has largely worn off.
Also, I'm learning myself to play the guitar. The reason I picked it up was my father playing in a cover band with two very cool guitar players - or technically: 1 guitar player and one pianist who takes up the guitar for some songs. (Mind you, most of the band members are 40 or younger, so my dadand the trombone player are the odd ones out.) I'm not making any a lot of progress, but at least I know how to read notes, and can play them... one at the time. Though, I did learn how to read TABs (or how d'you spell it in English?). Maybe I should consider taking lessons?
Belinda's law: The chance a computer crashes is proportional to the importance of the document you're working on
FOTR:50 links / Samwise's cookbook / TORn birthday calendar / 'Things you never (want to) hear people say' list
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Annael
Elvenhome
Feb 28 2007, 9:30pm
Post #38 of 65
(1101 views)
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I sing first alto or second soprano.
“For the record, I am not a nut. I am an optimist. That’s exactly like a nut except with a better attitude.”
- Scott Adams
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Lurking Girl
Bree
Feb 28 2007, 10:43pm
Post #39 of 65
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I can play piccolo as well. Although, it has been a few years now since I've really played much or in public. I guess I started on flute because my mother had played flute when she was in elementary school. It was a perfect match and I played from sixth grade through college and then off and on by myself. I am a high school teacher and have been known to sit in with the school pep band at basketball games for fun.
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Aerin
Grey Havens
Feb 28 2007, 11:32pm
Post #40 of 65
(1089 views)
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Mar 1 2007, 12:13am
Post #41 of 65
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Someone wrote a murder mystery
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a few years ago in which an orchestra member gets killed and the weapon is a flute. I'm not sure how the murderer did it, whether they bludgeoned them with it (seems unlikely since a flute doesn't have much mass) or impaled them somehow (which would be difficult because it's so blunt). Or maybe they just played the Bizet "Carmen Fantasy" as badly as I did in my senior recital. Maybe some day I'll check it out.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
(This post was edited by Galadriel on Mar 1 2007, 12:14am)
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Mar 1 2007, 12:15am
Post #42 of 65
(1061 views)
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I called my flute Beauty and my piccolo The Beast. /
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~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
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Radhruin
Rohan
Mar 1 2007, 12:15am
Post #43 of 65
(1070 views)
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"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
~Oscar Wilde
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GaladrielTX
Tol Eressea
Mar 1 2007, 12:17am
Post #44 of 65
(1097 views)
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I could handle first soprano back in the day, but I doubt I could sing much above the staff nowadays. A combination of aging and too many years of untreated acid reflux (yeah, yeah, TMI). I'd probably do okay as a second soprano or alto.
~~~~~~~~
I used to be GaladrielTX, but I lost TX in a poker game.
(This post was edited by Galadriel on Mar 1 2007, 12:18am)
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L. Ron Halfelven
Grey Havens
Mar 1 2007, 1:33am
Post #45 of 65
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(Clears throat) Cold be hand and heart and bone...
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Sorry... weren't you looking for any Barrow-tones?
Fight for us! And regain your honor, learn valuable technical skills, and qualify for up to four years' college tuition! What say you?
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Morrowdim
Rivendell
Mar 1 2007, 1:42am
Post #46 of 65
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Those of us who play viola have a strong immunity to bad viola jokes.
Nah, no offense taken at all. About 10 years ago, the Dallas Morning News did a long article on the the oddities of those who play viola. I have it saved somewhere. It was too funny not to keep. LOL!
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Annael
Elvenhome
Mar 1 2007, 2:48am
Post #47 of 65
(1096 views)
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*makes nasal heh heh heh noises*
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since I can't mod up . . .
“For the record, I am not a nut. I am an optimist. That’s exactly like a nut except with a better attitude.”
- Scott Adams
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Aerin
Grey Havens
Mar 1 2007, 6:08am
Post #48 of 65
(1056 views)
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Elven
Valinor
Mar 1 2007, 9:11am
Post #49 of 65
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I tried the violin when I was about 11 because my father played a mean violin  but I gave up after about a year .. it was good fun though ...
Then I got a guitar, and tried that for a few years ... still have 2 guitars around the house, but never seen to play them much - one of them has 5 strings - my favourite ... I ended up learning bass guitar for about a year - I loved that.
Played the piano - I like writing songs on a piano - I like to sing, to the annoyance of the neighbourhood.
Now I have a harp, and have been playing for about 5 years ... though Ive had it a bit longer than that ... I finally found an instrument I adore and I can play with my eyes closed ... a skill I always wanted to master ... ... weird, I know ...
... I still cant read music though but I was just thinking today Id love to learn to play the drums 
Suffer ye neighbours!!!
 Elven x
"Never wash your name in hot water Elvenesque - it shrinks!" said the Gaffer.
Tolkien was a Capricorn!
..All we are saying ..Is Give Pete A Chance" ...
(This post was edited by Elven on Mar 1 2007, 9:12am)
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mawguy
The Shire
Mar 1 2007, 6:28pm
Post #50 of 65
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wow, looks like we've got most of the instruments covered! what a group!
i'm the boring one with just piano lessons since age 6. i still tickle the ivories when i have time, but i'm nowhere near the proficiency of age 16. *sigh*
even though i'm a girl (yes, shocking to some), i sing tenor -- the small top-middle range, but definitely tenor. my friends and i still sing on a yearly basis, the most recent being a "golden oldies" performance.
"Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Glóin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale."
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