what has changed since you learned how to play music?

i've been playing music for a good 13 years or so now... and i was just thinking yesterday as i was practicing, how weird is it that i can look at all these dots and squiggles on this piece of paper and interpret it to become something beautiful? but i guess that's just how it is when you're a musician. things we learn that are forced to be stuck in our minds, that we forget we had no idea about before playing music, and many non-musicians still know nothing about. it's always interesting when i show a close friend or family member a piece of music, and they just stare at it with a blank expression, having no idea what it means.

i guess i take it for granted, when i really shouldn't...

 

It's always funny to try to get my family to play my clarinet- they can't get a sound, even my trumpet playing brother. I've been playing clarinet for 6 years, and looking back on my first and second year instruction books, it's hilarious seeing the notes I wrote in the margins. "Breathe here!" (after 3 measures, if I wasn't so out of practice, I can play for about 36 slow counts), "watch the articulation" (on 8th notes, now I can articulate 32nd on a good day)... even writing down fingerings for notes I know can never forget.

Also, 2 years of marching band means I can never again walk with music playing and not step with the beat. I also have a hard time slouching, my posture is near perfect after hours in the position.

Music changes everything.

 

Playing music has definitely turned me off to appreciating a whole ton of other bands. A band really has to meet my personal criteria to be considered good, now.

On the same tip, I listen to what people are doing with instruments, and in a way it's expanded what I listen to, pulling ideas from different genre's and incorporating them into what I want to do. Put my own spin on it.

Also, since I started playing, computers have become such a great medium to process sound through. Hell, I'd put my guitar down from sheer boredom for five years, and it wasn't till I plugged it into my computer that I got turned back onto it again!

 

I feel more virile and I detect an enlargening of the testicles.
I have grown hair in places I had none before, and my hands have turned from slim delicate devices to meat paddles.

 

everything

 

since I learned....lets see, the wheel was invented, the gauls took over what is now France, electricity was invented, Contantinople became Istanbul, a cure was found for polio, Amelia Airhardt got lost, Michael Jackson went from black to yellow, there were 2 world wars, high definition television came along......

 

Fulmah-how exactly do you plug your guitar into your computer? what program do you use?

 

People often say I sound like some Eric Clapton carbon copy and it gets irritating because people are like "You copy Eric Clapton's solos too much" or that I sound like I'm obsessed with SRV Which isn't always a bad thing, but I overdo it...

 

maybe it's jersey, and not the music! haha. but i kid.

 

I can't see how I used to be able not to check the time signatures of songs! I walk in polyrhythms now, and I think of everything in patterns, but I used to have trouble with counting out the metre of a song, and I don't know how I could ever get along without being able to figure shit like that out.

 

you have to have a soundcard that will take the 1/4 inch jack and also run ASIO sound drivers. After you have that, any program that records live audio will work (Soundforge, FruityLoops4, Cubase, Logic, etc). Soundforge, I don't think will let you do live manipulation, you have to record clean and apply effects on top of it.... I don't like that, so I use Fruity, which lets you run in real time with a dizzying array of effects/synthesis/sound modulation programs.

Most people are way too quick to shun computers, I think. But when it boils down to it, that stomp box or effects rack you have is really just a circuit board, and your average home pc is much more powerful and versitile... it's all in how you use it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions....

 

i hear that... when i'm walking down the street with headphones on, or just sitting down somewhere listening to music, i'm always tapping some kind of rhythm out somewhere...

ever catch yourself whistling all the time also? i know i do it.

 

That joke was funny..............................
...................................
.........................................
...............................................................for me too poop on!


Ever since I became a musician, I cannot resist the urge to try and know everything I can about everything I like in the musical world.

 

After 7 years of concert band and 4 years of marching band throughout jr. and sr. high my sense of reality is altered and my family shuns me. I'm the only one that can read music, let alone play anything. As time goes on in my relatively uninteresting existence I know more and more about music every day. My current instrumentation includes: saxophone, trombone, euphonium, mandolin, guitar, banjo, balalaika, harmonica, bagpipes, I have a violin but it never sees the light of day, and I used to be able to play oboe but said the hell with it. Most of my close friends are musicians as well. I often say to other musicians, "why are you out of breath?" or " how can you be out of step while marching and playing?". I was looking at myself in the mirror the other day and realized that I have funny shaped stomach muscles. The muscles right at the bottom of my rib cage are much bigger than the rest. I guess that is from breathing from my diaphragm, unlike most people that breath incorrectly from their chests. That's how I am now different.