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Is there anyone else here who plays/writes music just as a hobby, without any real ambition for it? I find it really relaxing, a nice break from the stresses of teaching, parenting and working on my Ed.D.
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I guess my being in the high school orchestra was a hobby because my only goal out of it was to have fun and make friends, and I was never the best.
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I played clarinet, bagpipes and percussion through high school and college, and I've taken enough piano lessons that I can plunk through some four-part hymns and the like. I still have a clarinet and a keyboard, but I don't play them as much as I ought to.
Generally, I'm with Elizabeth. I'm more a listener than a player these days. My greatest success musically was when I was a DJ. I no longer have that job, but I'm still a compulsive music collector. I'm up to about 1,200 CDs (and boxes of tapes and records) covering nearly every genre imaginable, and I usually bring them to work in mp3 format, either on my laptop or on burned CDs, and play DJ for my co-workers. It's about as close as I get to being a musician anymore, and, in answer to your question, I do find it relaxing. It's a great de-stressor and time killer while I'm working.
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.I'm learning to play the guitar. I makes up stories all the time and I have to listen to music CONSTANTLY. All the time... Almost every second. All sorts of genres.
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I play the piano and my saxophone as a hobby (since I'm no longer in a band) I sometimes wish I had more time for it though; I love playing.
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I keep listening to these two Isaac Hayes songs Joy and I wanna make love to you. And this song by Yoko Kanno called Genesis of Aquarion which is so cooooool. Madonna I have Nothing by Whitney Houston Dir en grey becaue they are the best band ever. Lots of Laura Nyro and other stuff.
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I do a weekly singer/guitar thing. I love it. When I first moved back from college, I didn't have a regular gig for the first time in about 3 years. It was relaxing for a few months, but then I started to miss it intensely. Playing music is very therapeutic for me.
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I love Isaac Hayes. Have you ever heard the Hooverphonic song "2Wicky" that samples "Walk On By"? Super groovy, but dangerously addicting.
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I am trying to teach myself guitar so I can play rhythm for my son. It is soooo hard! My clarinet is broken, or I would play that with him. I want to learn how to really improvise on the clarinet. I always played well, but I want to learn to play off the cuff.
Clarinet is much ignored in rock music, and I think it is such a cool sound. Railroad Earth has clarinet in some of their songs. the guy plays a metal clarinet. I had never seen one before.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I play guitar just about every day. I love it, it just takes all my worries away.
Lately I've been starting to try to learn how to sing, that and play at the same time without sounding like a cat being tortured.
I used to be in a band, I sort of miss it. I can't seem to be able to find a good group of people to play with these days. Granted, I haven't really tried very hard, but I just feel like bands are so much better if you're friends with the group beforehand Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I got a degree in music comp and promptly quit writing music. I don't think I've finished a thing since, although I have started a few things about once a purple moon...
I played clarinet too. I play it about once a year at christmas, if that. Earlier this year I tried to do a rock band thing with some friends w/ me on clarinet but it didn't work.
I've seen metal clarinets. I don't think there is anything great about them. However, a soprano sax is something else. I love them and played one in high school, but not since.
I sang in large choirs in high school, even barbershop. Since then, all I've sang at is church. Mormon church choirs have a bad rep.
I've also conducted church choirs and "primary" (children) for many (5, 10? I can't remember) years. I'm finally released from all music callings and besides church choir I'm not doing anything musical...
Except I started a thread about hatrackers doing a choir. Right now that appears to be my only real music outlet as the only friend I still have from college days wont condescend to sing with untrained singer me. (he's had singing lessons his whole life or something and I've never really studied *singing*... He says if I want to write some music though, he wont have to condescend because I studied to do that... )
So anyway, even with this background, I find it hard to do music on the hobby level. It is more of a *wish* level. I could join some random choir, but I tend to not like them. And I'm not about to spend more of my life in school so I can say I'm trained, so the types of people I want to hobnob with will. And I don't want to write music because I don't know if my brain cells have recovered from having studied music composition. Haha. Just kidding. I don't know why I don't write music. I just don't.
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I almost got my music degree. I compose mainly for myself, and others when asked. I'm not prolific by any means and in the last three years I have been suffering from a tremendous writers block complicated by Adult ADD. I have many unfinished works and no motivation to finish them. I think I’m no longer interested in composing for myself anymore, and no one I know is really all that interested in the work I’ve already done.
One of the frustrations I had in school while working on my music degree, and partially why I left, was because of the abhorrent level of superciliousness within the students and faculty. Their attitude was don’t bother writing any new music as there is no value in it unless you’re Bach or Mozart.
To say I’m a bit depressed and frustrated about it is an understatement but truthful nonetheless.
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Aw but composing is so awesome. As long as it is something epic and cool that makes you feel good and explosive manyt are bond to like it.
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I played saxophone in high school but haven't come back to it in College, mostly because the music program here is so geared toward majors that people who just want to play for fun get kinda left out. I played in a pickup Jazz Band for a while before they shut it down. I love playing Jazz music, and I was always pretty good at it. When I was home this summer my mom said what a shame it was that I don't play anymore because she considered me to be the best of all us kids who were in band, and now I just miss it.
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I'm like a lot of you... when I was a teenager, I had dreams of being a professional musician (I was a Christian, so I thought of it as a ministry). I was part of a Christian rock band called New Citizens for a couple of years... we were sponsored by a local Baptist church, playing camps and youth services, and even cutting a demo once. Then we all went to college and moved on... I continued to fiddle around in cover bands for a while, but when I got married I sold my instruments and put that behind me (only occasionally doing the odd show with other teachers to make the kids laugh at the schools I worked for). This summer, though, I started playing around with Apple's Garage Band, got a midi keyboard and a plug to hook my teenage daughter's guitar into my iBook, and started goofing around. It really helped relieve the stress I was beginning to feel, and though I doubt I'll ever actually do anything with it, it's a lot of fun to create stuff for others to listen to. I post my stuff on iCompositions along with tons of other amateur musicians, and we give each other feedback and share in a rewarding hobby (you can even hear some of my pieces if you go to the website in my profile— www.icompositions.com/artists/DavidBowles ).
There once was a time when most fully rounded people were able to play an instrument, and parties centered on everyone's singing songs together. Too bad we've lost that...
[ November 14, 2005, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: David Bowles ]
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posted
I find it somewhat theraputic to write lyrics. It doesn't even have to make sense. Over the summer a friend of mine and I wrote raps based on stories by Dr. Seuss. Did they make sense? Of course not! But it still helped to relax us.
We've used this randomisity to occasionally write songs for our band. We have lyrics, but we have no music. We can't play our instruments very well. He is supposed to play guitar and I am supposed to play bass. We have two other members who play guitar and drums, but they do not particpate in the writing process.
I have a feeling our band won't ever really get organized. We do have a name though, and we have a plan. But no real music.
posted
"There once was a time when most fully rounded people were able to play an instrument, and parties centered on everyone's singing songs together. Too bad we've lost that..."
Ha. At my grandmother's funeral this week, my aunt and my dad got out the old piano music from when they were younger, and layed Name That Tune with my elderly aunt. it was so much fun, and I thought the sae thing, David: I wish we still did this as part of our "fun."
Some people still do, and that is why I really want to learn enough guitar that my son and I can play together. it is such a lovely feling in the brain when you play music with someone, or sing together.
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Oh and I am in Jazz Band. Loads of fun that. I'm in normal band and marching band, as well. And I listen to music almost constantly. I think I have background music for everything...
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Those of you who use Macs, you ought really to try playing around with Garage Band... you'd be surprised at how versatile it is...
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I've sung in choirs since I was three. I also sing with the family band-- the Crescent Valley Specials. And I'm the designated kazoo soloist when we perform "Saint James Infirmary Blues". I write songs occasionally, and I sing all the time at home, always have.
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Music used to be my hobby. I was an ed major with a minor in music. I was good enough (vocalist) to be in the touring groups all through college, so I've been able to see the world and sing in great European cathedrals...My music life easily dwarfed the life I led as an ed major. (I did musical theater, opera, and I remember being jealous of my music major friends when they would talk about their choral lit and theory classes. )
I finally came around and got my degree in music. Now that I do it as a profession (High school choir, elementary music, church choir), I don't EVER get a chance to sing solo or in a good ensemble. That makes me sad when I have time to think about it. I really had it good...I was good enough to sing for people, but I didn't have the drive to go all the way. Just the way I liked it. I still get asked to sing in different places now and then, but now I'm the conductor more often than not. I love that, but I miss performing. I'm a ham. I get such a rush from performing with a great ensemble, or even doing solo work. *sigh*
I should probably start doing some of that again, shouldn't I? I read David's story about it relieving stress and think "Yeah. That makes sense. I should DO that!"
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I played the drums for a bit today. I can't do much more than a standard beat so I just keep doing that over and over. It relieves stress every now and then.
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I had dreams of being a "broadway pit musician" in HS and College. But, after a tour with a military band and getting to know the pit musicians there, I lost the dream. However, I did play with a National Guard band for 15 years, and always played with a community orchestra. Both activities were high points in any given week. However, now I live in the desert in more ways than one. The bassoon and the sax sit in the closet. If there were something avalable in the community I would definitly do it. That is where my warmest frends generally came from.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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What a great thread. Music is wonderful. My 3-year-old sings all day long, probably because we do, too! We've made up songs for prayer time, teeth-brushing time, and many others. They help a great deal.
Growing up we were always singing, and I still love to hear my parents sing together ("O Divine Redeemer" from them is amazing). They've also sang with my aunt and uncle for 20+ years.
I sang in 9th and 12th grades, then I did the vocal jazz ensemble during freshman year of college. On my mission we performed a musical based on "From Cumorah's Hill." Since then it's been ward choirs and the at-home stuff I mentioned above.
My senior year at BYU I talked about forming a physics choir composed of my (very talented) classmates, but that never materalized. I've talked about it with my classmates here in grad school, since many of them play an instrument or sing. Maybe when we're not so busy with classes and homework...
I played the viola for 10 years but had to stop after high school for lack of my own instrument. I dreamily check Craigslist now and again...
I love music. I love the way it can move, inspire, relax, excite, entertain, and teach me.
[Edit: added what follows]
Musical experiences I wish to repeat include singing in a cathedral and playing great orchestral works (anything by Shostakovich, Barber's Adagio for Strings, Elgar's 9th Enigma variation, Handel's Messiah, Sibelius' 2nd Symphony, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, etc.) as part of a full symphony orchestra.
Oh, and when I started college I wanted to be a H.S. choir director!
quote: Those of you who use Macs, you ought really to try playing around with Garage Band... you'd be surprised at how versatile it is...
I have a Mac with this program. But it is too confusing for me and stupid Help thing isn't any help at all.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
GarageBand is great. Takes things like this forum to get me to actually make something.
quote:There once was a time when most fully rounded people were able to play an instrument, and parties centered on everyone's singing songs together. Too bad we've lost that...
Indead. It was like that in high school... not in college. Too worried about grades.
posted
That's why communities like www.icompositions.com have sprung up, so that people who are interesting in making music (and not a lot of greedy bastards richer than they already are) can share and support one another.
Steve,
Using loops is a good way to start in GB. Play around with dragging loops onto tracks, see what happens. Of course, to really use Garage Band well, you need to have a midi instrument or a connection for your live instrument (even if you're just "mic"ing an acoustic one). There are tons of tutorials at icompositions.
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posted
I need to get a decent microphone for acoustic tracks. Incidentally, DB, I've extended the piece I linked you earlier (the one I wrote over the Canadian Thanksgiving).
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I have a hard enough time participating here and I know a lot of the people and feel pretty comfortable, there is no way I'm going to try to fit in where the only thing I have in common is the desire to make music. I have no lack of people who want to make music. But people I consider friends? That is another story. And that is probably why I don't do music much anymore.
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I sing Irish and American folk music in pubs.
quote: There once was a time when most fully rounded people were able to play an instrument, and parties centered on everyone's singing songs together. Too bad we've lost that...
Hang out with Irish folks. Most people will at least have a "party piece" and gatherings will almost always include a sing-song or a sessiun.
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twink, awesome! For some reason that track makes me think of a team-up between Philip Glass and Portishead... I really dig it.
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You are sort of a freakin Donna, TX Renascence man. Education, Music, Lit... what else do you have up your sleeve? I listened to several of the tracts and liked the one for your son the best.
The school here needed a male in 6th grade so I am now teaching social studies (took the history Excet a couple of years ago). The kids are all right, but they are big babies. I don't miss Donna at all, but I hear really great things about the IDEA Academy.
My daughter graduated number 2 in her class from McHi in the spring, passed all of her AP exams, and is going to A&M. She will be a sophmore at the end of this semester!
My son is #10 in his class but does not work too hard to make As. He is also playing baseball.
As for me, I do yardwork and am fixing up an 86 El Camino. A little muscle car action! It will be Dereks when he turns 16 in Feb. He will probably destroy all of my hard work and $ spent the first month he drives it.
I don't look at Hatrack much anymore. It is not as interesting as it once was.
posted
I wanted to be a rock star once (and I still do ) but now I'm afraid it's solely for relaxation. I don't have time or the motivation to do any more.
Posts: 609 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Right on, pH. You're up on me if you actually play the bagpipes. I put that on the list because I used to play it, but I was in the band for exactly long enough to leave no trace of it on my long-term memory. If someone handed me a pipe now, I'd be hard pressed to even get the drones going, and that's saying nothing of figuring out how "Scotland the Brave" goes.
Aren't they fun, though? They look so easy to play when you see other people doing it. I remember the first time I tried to play them myself. I literally passed out before I could get a sound out of them. When I finally got to the point where I could play them without losing consciousness, I was so proud of myself.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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I was a bagpipe tuner for three years in high school in addition to playing. I own a set, which is currently at my parents' house. Also, I can play the Imperial March.
I was once asked to play in a short skirt on MTV, but I ended up not doing it. However, as a result, I can also play the Backstreet Boys.
posted
I would like to express my feelings for those of you who have great talent in musical arenas. If you pass on, with the music still within you, how have you bettered society? To those who have been given much, much is required. If you have talents given unto you, you are expected to develope them.
Several years ago, my then 14 year old daughter sort of took me aside and told me that she had noticed that I was not composing anything anymore. She also noticed that I was moody, grumpy, etc. She told me that I needed to have a project and that since I couldn't seem to come up with one, she would give it to me. She told me that I should write a "Braodway-style" musical about my favorite Book of Mormon story, which she knew was the 2000 strippling warriors mentioned in the Book of Alma. She sort of "shamed" me into it, I must admit.
Well, that sort of "jumpstarted" me. After the musical. I started work on a Xmas cantata that I always kept saying every Xmas that I would write--but always for "next year." Sound familiar? The Xmas cantata exploded into a sort of "Life of Christ" type of work which the Ward Choir Director told me was way too long. I split it and we did the death and resurection portion for the following Easter. I recently finished several songs for the original roadshow I submitted last summer. Even though my roadshow was not selected, I was still able to keep on "working," and those of you in the situations that I have seen described in this thread understand how important it is to keep on doing SOMETHING.
I know what it is like to have an instrument in the closet (or the garage or in storage, etc). If all that you can do is listen, that is great--if that is all that you can do. If you can do MORE, you SHOULD--even if it never gets past that box on the end of the lower shelf of that bookcase out in the garage (you know, the one behind the boogie boards that you never use anymore).
You might approach the Ward Choir Director and submit ideas, sketches, scores to her/him and see if you can do something in that area. Please remember when you write something for the Ward Choir, that you write it for the Ward Choir and NOT for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, OK? Those of you with abilities in the area of popular music might consider the roadshow angle; its a lot of fun!
My arrangements of music for the Stake that I live in have brought requests to me for original music to be used at an interdenominational Thanksgiving festival sponsored by a city near where I live. I have also done a fair amount of writing for many non-LDS churches in the area, also.
I am getting rich off of this? Heck no! But I am getting some of my stuff "out there," and as musicians, we all have a sort of mental defect in that area, RIGHT? I don't play very much anymore, but I still want to. The local Bishops are still somewhat "afraid" of orchestral music in Sacrament Meeting--but I keep on hoping and working toward that goal (Clifford Barnes always felt sorry for those lines he wrote.).
I sincerly hope that these words do not come across as a "sermon" or are felt as a "denigration" to or about anyone. They are not given with those intentions. We who are musicians need to stick together and help each other out. If one of us "loses," I personally feel that we all "lose." I don't want ANY of us to "lose." I want us ALL to "win," and help each other out.
As this is my first post here at "Hatrack," I fell that I must apologize somewhat for the length of my comments. I hope that I didn't lose too many readers due to its length.
Posts: 101 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Well... I guess it's not all a total loss then. There are still people out there like you who can still better society.
But it's only going to mean anything to those who are looking for different things, which, compared to those who are not, is very small. And I don't think I’m being all that cynical either.
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(he's had singing lessons his whole life or something and I've never really studied *singing*... He says if I want to write some music though, he wont have to condescend because I studied to do that... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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I write songs occasionally, and I sing all the time at home, always have.
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) but now I'm afraid it's solely for relaxation. I don't have time or the motivation to do any more.
