Train Hard - Stay Humble

if you play, what instrument or even instruments?

Just for the record, i play piano, and some guitar.

Please feel free to tell us about your experience.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Philosofist on April 4, 2009 at 11:17pm

Drums -6 years and still my favorite instrument to play. Although not into as much now it used to be my life, and led me to go to SOTA and now I have a great musical education in theory and sight singing and working with very talented people. a lot of hard work put into it.

Guitar-on and off 3 years, not too much playing at all, I like to write songs and record them with drums, mostly metal riffs.

Piano- kind of, the best piece I can play is River Flows in You by Yiruma who is a great composer

And singing of course.

Permalink Reply by Iliketovaultthings on April 5, 2009 at 12:27am

Trumpet 6 years, my absolute favorite. I'm all about Jazz baby. I started to play the guitar some years back, but it didnt work out too well..... Jazz is like like the musical equivelent of Freerunning =)

Permalink Reply by Philosofist on April 5, 2009 at 9:14pm

Improve and realbook stuff? Or fakebook, whatever you want to call it. DnB is the equivalent of Parkour, lol.

Permalink Reply by Martin Coder on April 13, 2010 at 9:15pm

hes right

Permalink Reply by Kirill on April 5, 2009 at 8:11pm

wooo! nice bro's awesome! ! !

Permalink Reply by Keeler on May 21, 2009 at 9:51am

I've only been involved in music for a couple years, but it started by me managing for a very very talented band of a couple of my friends that I shortly after lived with. So my life was just packed with music for about a year and a half, maybe two. I play almost entirely by ear and where the music takes you, but I am also actively adding to my knowledge of music theory.

Vocals - Instrument of choice. Always have had a fascination with awesome singers. So I think I was secretly studying singers without realizing I'd ever be able to reproduce it. Comes in handy now though. ;)

Bass - Probably my most solid physical instrument. I play by ear where the song leads me, and it's nice that bass allows me to just fall back on a couple single notes to get back in the groove without messing anything up or having to remember a guitar chord I'm not sure of.

Hand Drums - Kinda my first actual instrument I got in on. My fingers know how to keep a beat and make some flavor.

Guitar - Fairly inexperienced, just considering how ridiculous some people can get at guitar. But if you've got a good melody going, I can usually find it.

From there, pretty much anything that makes noise, I'll feel it out and put it in key and tempo with the group. So if there's no need for anything fancy, I have some experience on piano, synth, drum set(metal particularly)

Anyone know a spot to jam? Cause we should definitely get something together and throw down.

Permalink Reply by Habilis on February 6, 2010 at 4:31pm

My main instrument is my voice -- 6 years experience in large choirs, musicals, a capella, pick-up bands, and (most recently) De Anza's top vocal jazz ensemble, Vocal Flight.

I used to play violin in 5th and 6th grade and I recently purchased a viola -- teaching myself currently and intending to join De Anza's orchestra next quarter.

I've always been into drums / rhythm instruments, but have never had a legit drum kit to work with -- I use whatever's at hand. My main inspirations in this regard are Blue Man Group and Stomp - both of which I'm intending to audition for at some point in my life.

I have also been collecting some odd little instruments recently that I've had a lot of fun playing around with: I got a glockenspiel, a Hohner melodica, and a set of kashaka/ aslatua/ banakula (a sick shaker/polyrhythm instrument from Ghana).

Within the past few years I've also photographed a few shows of local rising bands (most notably Alma Desnuda) with good results -- if any of you need a photographer keep me in mind. :-)

Permalink Reply by Martin Coder on April 13, 2010 at 9:16pm

electic guitar - for like 1 1/2 years, not the best
piano - 2 1/2 years, again, not the greatest at it

Permalink Reply by June Huang on April 23, 2010 at 2:06am

Just messing around with my acoustic. I've done covers of some songs but they're nowhere near that great as some YouTube sensations. :P

Permalink Reply by alex on May 16, 2010 at 11:09am

I play drums, working on piano and bass, and I make electronic dance music.

Permalink Reply by Garrett Smith on September 12, 2010 at 10:31am

Rock guitar - and metal, too!

Guitars:
Ibanez RG Metal with custom wound dimarzios (thanks Steve Blucher and Gary Brawer).
Ibanez RG9570
2 Ibanez RG8670
1 Godin nylon electric / spruce top (multiac?)

(plus an acoustic guitar that I seldom play)

Amps: a 40w VHT Pitbull and a 30w Mesa Boogie. Also have a rack setup with a Pod Pro and an Eventide Eclipse (but don't ever use that).

Influences - Yngwie Malmsteen, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, Pantera, Tony MacAlpine, Ritchie Blackmoore, Black Sabbath, Frederic Chopin, J.S. Bach, Slayer, Gustav Leonhardt, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Joe Satriani.

I like heavy rhythyms/riffs. I tend to embellish riffs with pinch harmonics and licks. I like interesting sonorities and I tend to arpeggiate a lot (both attributes are Friedman Cacophony-influenced). I also like standard rock stuff, bending, pentatonic licks.

Sight reading in G/F clefs is fair/poor.

Currently working on a Chopin Etude.

Permalink Reply by Quinn Sommer on September 12, 2010 at 7:58pm

I play the violin- 10 years. I also play all the other stringed instruments (cello, viola) but don't actually own any of them except for the violin. I was trained classically but love modern violin music and improvisation. Have always wanted to pursue rock violin. I am looking for people to play with as it is hard to find anyone so let me know!