Who is/was also a musican?

[Chris Stratton]

Seems many people here have mentioned in passing that at some point in their lives they were semi-serious about being a musician.

I played trumpet from childhood, started to treat it as a personal priority in high school even though not headed towards a music major in college. Gradually switched over to french horn in college. Spent a few years learning how to hammer sheet metal into horns and trumpets, considered going back to school for a music program but decided I wouldn't get in. Ended up with the principal horn chair in one of the area's weaker community orchestras.

Then pretty much quit when I took up dancing. I did both overlapping for the spring season, but would sit there in rehearsal wishing I was at dance practice. Since it's hard to play the horn well without daily practice, I ended up quitting 'cold turkey' rather than simply get even worse than I had already become due to lack of interest.

It hurt in some ways, still hurts some. But I think maybe the memories are better than what it would be like if I tried again without really practicing.

 

[tsb]

i was in band, orchestra & choir & wrote and arranged in high school & college. about ten years after i graduated (U-M Ann Arbor) i heard one of the arrangements i did for the MMB sh-t band (it's not worth explaining) being played in the background during a nationally televised game. that was gratifying.

i used to still conduct/direct/play/sing in various groups for a while after college but that changed when i started pursuing dance. on a lark i did the bach double concerto in d minor (for violin) with a friend recently. i was surprised to discover that the upper arm on my bow arm hurt the most after my first rehearsal. i still try go through my lounge lizard routine on piano at least a couple of hours a week (all it takes is to remind me how many mortgage payments i could make for what i paid for the stupid thing). singing is generally reserved for church (i'd join the worship ministry except we have 3 services a weekend and that's a lot in addition to doing kid's church), the shower & the car when i'm on the freeway (i drive with the top down except when it's raining) & i still maintain an almost three octave range. i honk on my sax from time to time mainly to annoy the neighbors who have two dogs that bark at the slightest provocation (including the act of unrolling the charmin whilst performing a movement of a different sort in the privacy of my own commode...) but i have three guitars & a fretless bass gathering dust.

the musical background helped improve the learning curve for dance tremendously. but on the negative side, i now have a habit of "jack & jill" ing not just with a partner but also with a song when i'm not familiar with the particular arrangement - i occasionally anticipate and lead some sort of break knowing that i would have have put one there if I had done the arrangement...

 

[MacMoto]

I played percussions at school and also briefly learned to play the keyboard, but my true love was singing -- 6 years in choir.
My singing voice is gone now, but I often sing along to my favourite salsa songs as I dance.

 

[Genesius Redux]

Jazz trombonist. 8)

When I was in high school, I loved all that sugary white boy type playing; I idolized players like Tommy Dorsey, Urbie Green, Bill Watrous. Just wanted to play high and sweet.

Then one of my teachers in an improv class turned me on to the late, great Jay Jay Johnson, the Man, the Trombone God--and from then on I listened more to these deep soulful growls--Jack Teagarden, Kid Ory, Juan Tizol, Bootie Wood (best plunger technique ever!), and more recent cats like Steve Torre (from whom I had the pleasure to take a seminar), and the newest hottest kid on the circuit--Wycliffe Gordon I think his name is?

Rhythmic sense as a musician, though, at least as a brass player, doesn't necessarily translate into rhythmic ability on the floor. I'd imagine it would be a little different among percussion players, or even pianists, where coordination of bodies to instruments might create a rhythmic sense in the body. Is that the case?

 

[Chris Stratton]

I know I had a real hard time with some timing things in dancing early on.
Where the music background really helped was in that it gave me tools for fixing the problems - I figured out exercises, ways of counting to enforce them, and then did them, walking or 'dancing' alone in deserted parts of campus late at night, just as I might have once hidden in a practice room with a metronome to correct a troubling passage.

 

[Genesius Redux]

I figured out exercises, ways of counting to enforce them, and then did them, walking or 'dancing' alone in deserted parts of campus late at night, just as I might have once hidden in a practice room with a metronome to correct a troubling passage.

Classical musician?

Funny thing with jazz, because I also sing--I've had the devil of a time with foxtrot, for instance. Because in playing and singing the melody line I work behind the beat as a musician and a singer. And I syncopate the phrases. Which works great in playing and singing, but it's terribly evil when you start thinking of the melody while dancing! :roll: :lol:

 

[Vince A]

I am a musician, as is obvious by my avatar . . . blues guitar!

I play guitar and some other instruments to a lesser degree. Being a musician and knowing music has greatly enhanced my dancing - the timing of mostly! I never have to "count" as I always know where I am at in the music and in dance, although with large patterns, I do count. And I do count in competition dance!

I take lessons every week in blues guitar, and am considering some jazz guitar lessons. I've just begun taking voice lessons too! :roll:

I also receive and give dance lessons on a weekly basis.

The two hobbies go hand-in-hand.

 

[delamusica]

Classical flutist.

I am a performance major at my university, have held a position in the New Artists' Philharmonic www.newartistsphilharmonic.org for the past two years, have been a guest soloist with the Front Range Chamber Players www.fortnet.org/FRCP/, am a member of the university's wind ensemble and orchestra programs, and actively participate in both the undergraduate and graduate chamber music programs.

I also play piano and dabble in guitar, and have played tuba/euphonium/baritone in marching and concert bands.

Oh yeah - and I dance, too. :wink:

 

[Kitty]

Both me and my boyfriend are musicians.

I play the violin in the university orchestra. Between ages 6-11 my parents even thought I could be a professional violinist.
My boyfriend plays piano, saxophone and guitars. He has to play piano for a few hours every day to feel completely happy. He was dreaming of becoming a professional (jazz pianist) but parents said they wouldn't pay for his college if he was a music major, and made him pick engineering.

I do think about dance (I have a practice right after orchestra) sometimes during rehearsal lately. Don't know how to stop that.

 

[Genesius Redux]

My boyfriend plays piano, saxophone and guitars. He has to play piano for a few hours every day to feel completely happy. He was dreaming of becoming a professional (jazz pianist) but parents said they wouldn't pay for his college if he was a music major, and made him pick engineering.

Good Lord, what parents do to their children! :x

 

[spatten]

I'm a hack at several instruments (piano, violin, stringbass, guitar). I never stuck with them - after about 4-5 years of playing I got disinterested. But dance I am going to stick with until I can get no better. Hopefully that will be when I am 80.

I do know enough to write the music I want. I enjoy writing songs on the piano - or messing around with more classical orchestrations.

Dancing to Latin took a little bit of time, because I was so used to listenting to the melody and not the backbeat.

Scott

 

[tsb]

My boyfriend plays piano, saxophone and guitars. He has to play piano for a few hours every day to feel completely happy. He was dreaming of becoming a professional (jazz pianist) but parents said they wouldn't pay for his college if he was a music major, and made him pick engineering.

Good Lord, what parents do to their children! :x

not unusual. i had the same kind of choice to make. in my case it was a cultural thing; my parents were immigrants & back overseas, the only way to improve your social standing was through education, and only by pursuing a 'respectable' vocation. as a consequence you don't find very many chinese (who have immigrant parents & pursue higher education) working in creative or artistic fields - even though the parents may even pressure their children to study music, etc.

 

[delamusica]

my parents have forever been trying to at least get me to choose between music and dance . . . see how well that's worked out! at least they support my being artistic at all.

 

[Kitty]

Dancing to Latin took a little bit of time, because I was so used to listenting to the melody and not the backbeat.

mee too, I think violin does that to you.

 

[spatten]

spatten wrote:
Dancing to Latin took a little bit of time, because I was so used to listenting to the melody and not the backbeat.

mee too, I think violin does that to you

It is comforting to know I wasn't the only musician who had to rethink to hear the music. Fortunately it didn't take too long.

This reminds me of my first competition. Even though I was sure of my timing, I was wrong on the cha-cha because I was listening to a triplet in the melody and not the backbeat. I think that is criminal music to play for a bronze heat.