Open Thread: Hi, I’m Joe, and I’m a musician.
Reader roll call! A few of you out there have already become devoted readers, and if you’re spankin’ fresh to this blog, now’s your chance to join our community.
Let’s open the round and hear from you guys. Are you a musician? How do you defien yourself as a musician? Where are you from, and if you want to, you can tell us how old you are, to demonstrate that making music is timeless and ageless.
Let me start.
Hi, I’m Arjun, 19 years old, student of business administration in Switzerland. I play the guitar, mostly classical, btu a lot of jazz as well. Started some piano as well.
I was chosen in my canton’s talents for 2007 and recorded a CD with 5 other musicians that marked the peak of my musical career.
Since I will from now on not pursuit music professionally, I decided to commit myself to this blog to remain in the habit of exploring my own potential as a musician, documenting what I’ve learned, and most of all: Sharing ans spreading the joy.
Your turn.
POSTED IN: Uncategorized
10 opinions for Open Thread: Hi, I’m Joe, and I’m a musician.
Vicki
Jul 23, 2007 at 11:01 pm
My name is Vicki and I sing folk music, Pagan songs, Sacred Harp, and filk. Sometimes when people ask what I sing, I tell them “I sing along” because group singing for the fun of it is my favorite. I play a custom-chorded Autoharp, and some piano. I plan to learn a few dance/fiddle tunes this year after being inspired at the BACDS Family Dance Camp.
My children are almost grown and only one of them has played an instrument recently. I’m 54.
At festivals, I frequently lead singing circles.
Arjun Muralidharan
Jul 24, 2007 at 3:05 am
Wow, Vicki, the Autoharp is a fascinating little instrument. I didn’t know exactly what is was, but after some research, it turns out to work like so: You press down the button for a chord and all the strings except the ones in the chord get muted, so you can freely strum through all strings.
Pretty neat, wish the guitar worked like that…sometimes :-) .
You say you have custom chording, can you tell us more about regular chording and what you have done with it?
Mark Gibson
Jul 24, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Hi All, I’m Mark and I’m a musician/sound engineer and music blogger. I run http://www.ImproveYourMusic.com, http://www.AustralianMusicHistory.com as well as an all-Australian internet radio station called http://www.AllAustralianMusic.com
I’m really enjoying your new blog and hope you continue to do well.
Arjun Muralidharan
Jul 25, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Hi Mark, your site is fascinating, just along the lines of what I do here. Keep in touch, I’m sure we’ll have tons to share.
Nolan
Jul 26, 2007 at 9:21 am
Hello all,
My name is Nolan, age 20 from PA, USA. I am a piano student in a Music Business program at a public university. I enjoy performing classical music, accompanying singers/instrumentalists, playing keyboards in show pits, and occasionally singing in choirs.
I would really like to start teaching piano so I can share my love of piano with others seeking to learn.
I like to write about various music topics on my blog, including piano and popular music.
Arjun Muralidharan
Jul 26, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Hey Nolan, hope you enjoy the blog. You have som great piano-related articles.
It’s fantastic to see so many music blogs out there, it’s really a “hidden world”. I hope to be working together with you guys on a few occasions, and hope to learn a lot from your side.
Vicki
Jul 29, 2007 at 5:46 pm
The great thing about the Autoharp is that when the chord bar is pressed, you can only play correct notes and harmonies in the same chord!
My Autoharp started out similar to the 15-chord Oscar Schmidt layout on this page and ended up more like the Keith Young 15-chord layout.http://members.cox.net/keithyoungdulcimers/autoharp.htm
(I hope that link worked!)
Notice that the chords are now in a circle of fifths, so transposing is as easy as moving my fingers up or down one bar. This is such a great idea that I think only regular Oscar Schmidt Autoharps lack this feature. Also notice that Keith’s turned the chord bars “upside-down” so that there are more buttons in the back row. I have Gm and Em, so I don’t have room for E and B7 on my 15-bar ‘harp. I can’t play in E but Autoharps generally don’t have the right bass strings for that anyway. The four minors on the bottom moves my 7th chords up where they are handy for my thumb.
xztheericzx
Nov 5, 2007 at 8:57 pm
i’m eric. joining a couple boards and looking
forward to participating. hehe unless i get
too distracted!
eric
oOgerryOo
Dec 16, 2007 at 6:34 am
Hey,
I’m Gerry.
Just saying hi - I’m new.
Scott
Jan 1, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Hi I’m Scott…and I try to play Guitar. I have tried to get a band together in the past but it failed because of time and focus problems. I seemed to be the only one that wanted to make time and no one else wanted to focus. Sure just kinda Jamming is fun and all but I couldn’t get everyone else to focus on becoming a band instead of dreaming about being rock stars.
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