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Thread: Tell Us About Your Phases As A Player/Performer/Artist

  1. #26
    Subterranean Tapir Hobo Chang Ba's Avatar
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    Well...it appears I'm quite a bit younger than everyone who has posted in this thread already. As such, my experience is quite less than all and I don't have much actual work to show for my efforts...nevertheless I felt the urge to contribute to this thread.


    Inspiration: My parents were not that musical. My mom had a piano in the house when she was a kid so she can tinker around on that conditions permitting. Sure, they listened to music but by no means to a high degree. However...When I was in elementary school (third grade to be precise) the school brought in a man with a variety of orchestral instruments (trumpet, saxophone, flute, etc). They gathered all the kids in the all purpose room and had him do a presentation...talking about music and introducing all the different types of instruments that were out there. He went through all the major ones but the one that resonated with me more than anything else was the saxophone. I don't know why (still can't explain it) but I loved what I was hearing. Next year (the first year they let students join a musical ensemble) I started playing saxophone. Unfortunately, I didn't last long as I had quite stubby fingers and couldn't properly reach all the right keys for particular notes. I quite after a few months and switch to drums, which I played all through my school years and still play to this day. (Though I was I had a saxophone now to try and learn again.)

    As for musical influences...I didn't really care about music (aside from playing it in school) and didn't listen to much at home (just radio in the car). My dad is a fan of classic rock mostly, and my mom doesn't really care for music listening on any serious level. Starting in high school I started buying CDs (for unknown reasons) and then one day (in 2003ish) I found King Crimson and my path to prog was set. Music then became my interest and I started to get as much as possible. Over the years I branched out into other realms (avant-garde, metal, and most recently jazz) but prog-rock still remains my favorite and was certainly the biggest jumping point for me musically.

    Phases: As I said, I played drums all through school. Joined the marching band in high school and did various things around town (parades, walmart openings..., etc) in the drumline, but we weren't really a competing band and only did one true competition (which we failed at quite spectacularly). During my freshmen year of college I jammed a bit with a few people I met but nothing really came out of these things other than laughs and injuries. In 2008, I formed a band with my cousin which was much more musically interesting and produced alot of good stuff (IMHO of course). He mainly played bass, I mainly played drums, and we both played various other things intermittently. In 2010, me and my cousin started a new band with an additional member on guitar. Both bands are currently still running, although the first one was put on the backburner a bit with the formation of the second. Both bands have a fair amount of material and hopefully one day we will record it (or record some things better) or just release what we do have. We have played three gigs in and around town, mostly to people we know, which were fun to some degree. The main problem with continuing things further is all logistical, as we don't really live close to each other and my cousin spends a good part of the year out of state.

    As for myself...I've tried to conquer other instruments to limited success. I can dabble on the keys slightly and can strum a guitar. I've tried to write things for a 'solo career' type thing but have since learned I do not have the instrumental prowess nor technical intelligence to perform the music I want to perform or record it if it does get played. Yet...I still try and write as much as I can and come up with ideas as one does in this type of thing...randomly and without warning.

    The future: Hopefully the two bands can do something more in terms of producing actual things. For myself...I keep trying to learn new instruments and have realized that I need to scale down the 'solo' stuff. Atm working on solo instrumental pieces and more ambient keyboard dominated stuffs. I would also love to start a band with people who live closer to me so we can be more consistent in practicing/working ideas out/jamming/etc. Luckily I do have many musical friends, though we share very few common grounds in music, and we all seem to be at different levels of proficiency which makes whatever jams I do have...interesting to say the least. But...I'm still very much at the beginning of the path than the end so hopefully there will be more to write here one day.
    Please don't ask questions, just use google.

    Never let good music get in the way of making a profit.

    I'm only here to reglaze my bathtub.

  2. #27
    Member davis's Avatar
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    I took lessons/played clarinet during second and third grades. I chose the instrument for 2 reasons. A good friend of mine played clarinet at the time and my aunt was friends with Pete Fountain, from whom received an autographed photo. My one public performance was with the elementary school orchestra at a Christmas concert at the local high school in December 1964. I quit because I got really tired of having to take lessons every week.

  3. #28
    Member Lebofsky's Avatar
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    In kindergarten (back in 1975) we had an assignment to draw a picture of ourselves in the year 2000. I drew myself surrounded by computers and music gear. It's now 2013. Still surrounded by computers and music gear. So really just one phase.

    - Matt

  4. #29
    Member Seven8's Avatar
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    - Age 9, took piano lessons for about two years, influenced by my Aunt who was an amazing pianist and could sight read just about anything. Boy I miss her. Sadly, quit piano because I wanted to play baseball after school, not practice piano (even though my Dad by then had acquired a Steinway grand)
    - Age 17, took up electric guitar after I couldn't stand listening to a friend from high school playing "Yesterday and Today" (Fast Ladies (Very Slow Gin)) any more because he kept playing it wrong!! It was just so obvious to me that he was playing one of the chords a half step sharp. Finally I grabbed the guitar from him and figured out the notes and showed him, even though I had never played guitar before. I think those piano lessons at a young age really helped develop my ear. Soon afterwards I got a guitar and punished my ma.
    - At age 19 I switched to bass because I knew lots of guitar players but no bass players. I took lessons for a few months just to get the technique down but was mostly self taught.
    - Age 20 to early 30s I skipped around from band to band mostly playing covers, always trying to get guys to play prog and/or originals but never found the right people. I played parties, weddings, bars, or on the street. Some bands were better than others, some were fun and some were downright dreadful. But I got tired of guitar players that always had to play louder than everyone else, the big egos (and big hair) and the music business in general. The last straw came when the last band I was in kicked out the drummer because he kept missing practices. We had a gig coming up so we found a replacement drummer, rehearsed, and showed up for the gig only to find another band setting up where we were supposed to play. Turned out the old drummer was so bitter he canceled our gig. Yeah, he showed us!
    - Early 40s, I heard the band Metaphor and found out they were practically from my back yard. And they were looking for a bass player! I emailed them to say I really liked their CD "Starfooted" (which was true) and to wish them luck finding a new bassist. And oh, I used to play bass but that was a long time ago, blah blah blah... Long story short, they coaxed me out of retirement and I played on their last two CDs. Now I'm playing fretless exclusively and just started playing with Mind Furniture, who had their first gig in quite some time with Moetar a few weeks ago. Good times!

    Hey Sean, what's your story?

  5. #30
    Member Yodelgoat's Avatar
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    Grew up in a music household - My mom forced us to learn piano and reading music at a very early age, Then Violin, then Saxaphone in 5th grade. I had older brothers who got me into Led Zeppelin when I was about 10. Thats a little young to be into "Whole lotta love". Anyway, Brothers both played guitar, so I started off just playing bongos along with them, but that lasted about 3 days, then I wanted to get a real drumset. when that didnt happen, I created my own, wich was a joke, but I probably had one of the most unique kits in the world. A metal lampshade for a crash, a metalic box for a snare, the bongos for toms, and I actually "borrowed" a kick drum pedal from a guy who was proabably too stoned to ever miss it, and hooked it up to a 5 gallon bucket. my hihat was a phone book, slapping it with the stick kinda gave it a high tone. Needless to say, it wasnt much but it gave me something to do while my brothers played. We were awful, but wrote our own songs.

    Then I heard the lemmon song.... I decided that John Paul Jones was a god. My mother was far more willing to get me a Bass. So she did. A Danelectro. It was Hideous. No amp, just the bass. We quickly figured out that we could connect the bass up to the aux jack inside the mono family record player - which suprizingly, had an RCA jack, but you had to go way up in the back of the thing to get to it. It worked. I continued to play Sax and BAss through High school. Played Bass in Stage band and sax in regular band. In my frosh year my parents bought me a Fender JAzz. Awesome! At the same time a friend of mine who was actually a really good drummer, picked up bass, so he and I switched off between bass drums. He had a real good set, so I picked up on my chops and became pretty decent at covering songs. I got to where I could play KArnEvil9 pretty much as constructed. Not bad for a jr/sr in high school. We played in bands constantly, But we didnt play no surf music... We played prog. - and becuse of the Jazz background we also started a private jazz band that played big band music, and eventually got into Funk - Tower of Power, AWB and such we made pretty decent money playing for tips on boat cruises on Lake Washington and Puget sound (Seattle area) We played the Jazz stuff on the way to UW football games on a riverboat called the Virginia 5 for a bunch of rich old fogeys who loved the fact that 16-18 year olds were playing little brown jug and moon river. The boat would dock just outside Husky stadium. On the way back when everyone was loaded, we broke out the funk/Yes. (The horn players would sit out while we did the prog stuff. ) Prog was perfectly cool in those days 73-76.

    Looking back, that was quite an interesting time, both for music and for being young and a musician.

    Played in various bands just to get by during college. It had kinda come to be less fun because music had become so much about stage/lifestyle image. Punk had reared its head, and you had to have a shitty "attitude" to be considered cool. still, Alchohol flowed, so it was still really wasnt bad. I was already pining for the days when you could play Black Sabbath, Yes along with Chicago and "what is Hip?" (TOP).

    By the way, I was always kind of in demand as a bass player or drummer, because my best instrument by far was my voice. I could totally shred vocalists like Robert plant, Geddy Lee, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles Even Sinatra... I had golden pipes and therefore, it was pretty easy to find a gig.

    I got married, started a family, and got invited into a full time band called Jaugernaut (not Juggernaut - different crappy band) We put out two albums on Vinyl, while playing on the road. Half of us were influenced by Pop, Half by Prog. It was kind of considered "POMP" we had management, but no label. Always just on the edge of getting signed. Band split in 1986. I kind of retired, but started playing casinos in a band called Nitecrew in 95. By that time I had lost both my hair and my dignity. Quit that band in 99 and moved to Texas. In 2000, was contacted by some guy in Belgium (the country) who asked me if I was the same guy who was in "Jaugernaut" Well apparently our albums had made it over to Europe and had been bootlegged there because no one could get ahold of us - we had all scattered. Anyway, that led me to re-release the two albums on CD, wich actually sold pretty well - especially in Japan and Europe. wich kind of sucked me back in to my love affair with writing music. I started recording and wrtitng, and asked the old guys in Jaugernaut if they would like to join me. They ultimately werent interested. In 2005 I released an album I wanted to be a band effort but just wound up being my own. It got picked up by Progrock records in 2008 and pretty much flopped. So here I am still loving writing and recording music, but with no plans of ever releasing anything to the world. I love Music, but I despise what the industry has become. This is not a knock on Progrock - they have been good to me, Its just an observation about how things work, - or dont anymore.

    There you have it. The longest and the most pathetic yarn in this thread.

    Oops, I didnt realize I'd already responded here, consider this to be an addendum, and me to be bored.
    Last edited by Yodelgoat; 02-14-2013 at 11:31 AM.

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