musicians ?

Guitar, bass (upright and electric), mandolin, ukelele, banjo, enough piano to fake it, and quite a lot of lessons on bagpipes many years ago. I’ll even thump a bodhran if you buy me enough beer…but then you have to buy me more to get me to stop.

I see a pedal steel in your pic - I played around with a dobro for about two weeks and couldn’t work that out very well, so I imagine a pedal steel would drive me insane.
 
well of course a banjo counts haha
tasty: i'll bet you just couldn't decide which one you liked better so you just decided to play em all haha
and yes that me playing the Mullen, its my favorite , it has a 3&5 set up tuned to E9
been playing these things for 30+ years
 
well its worst than that , there are about 100 different tunings for them to pick from,
but what makes most people give up on them is the fact that you have to use both hands , both feet and both knees to play them , and it causes most people to get frustrated and give up before they can get cordinated on them , like the one i'm playing in the picture , it has 3 foot pedals and 5 knee levers.....
 
grumpyoldman said:
well its worst than that , there are about 100 different tunings for them to pick from
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I’m used to that from Appalachian banjo tunings - literally hundreds, some for playing a single tune, though for most banjo players, it comes down to four or five, mainly.

The pedals and levers, though…I’d normally like that, because I like manipulating things. I remember reading an interview with Gene Parsons, when he was developing the B-bender mechanism with Clarence White, he’d first proposed a pedal fastened to the guitar through a guitar stand, and Clarence vetoed that, saying, “If I wanted to use pedals, I’d just play steel!” :laugh:
 
tasty; from what i have been told , those "bagpipes" you play are very much on par with learning the pedal steel , i have heard that it can take years to learn to play those
 
this is what the one in the picture looks like from the bottom

MVC-034S.jpg
 
grumpyoldman said:
tasty; from what i have been told , those "bagpipes" you play are very much on par with learning the pedal steel , i have heard that it can take years to learn to play those
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I took lessons for close to two years, given by instructors with one of the pipe bands in St. Paul, Minnesota. They gave free lessons as a way of continuing the tradition, with the understanding that once you passed muster, you’d join the pipe band (at considerable personal expense) and tour around for festivals and parades and such.

I was just about there when I was downsized at work and moved to Ohio for a new job, and any playing fell off after that.

The funny thing is that so much of traditional Appalachian mountain is based on Gaelic music brought over by the early settlers, and I have a good working knowledge of that, so the instructor would name a tune to learn, and I’d already know it on guitar and/or banjo, so that’d be half the battle right there.
 
Choral Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. Thrown out after a year. B.Mus degree from London University. I play (ed) the piano, but my instrument of choice was baritone.
Sang the Bach B minor mass, St Matthew Passion, God knows how many cantatas, Verdi Requiem, Handel's Messiah (as a soloist and in the choir) , Don Giovanni, La Belle Helene, Monteverdi Vespers, Haydn's Creation (Soloist), Beethoven's 9th (with Sir Colin Davies), soloist on a Choir Tour to Sweden, used to get calls from cathedral choirs (as a substitute), recorded all sorts of stuff for the BBC, radio, DeutscheGramofon.... sang all across the East / Mid west of the USA, most of the cathedrals in the UK, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall...
All before I was 23 years old.
Once I graduated, and couldn't find a job in the music industry after a whole year, I just gave it all up.
Carnegie hall 1973.jpg
 
tasty; my hat is off to you !!!
it takes a lot of patience and pratice not to mention a good set of lungs to get to any level on those things , you were lucky to find a teacher because i am sure there aren't many around
 
Only the fool I'm afraid.

I did have an acoustic guitar in the 60s and in the 70s I could play "Windmills of your Mind" on the Stylophone.

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Drummer here. Weekend warrior..Starting to slow down a bit..the pandemic took a lot out of old guy bands..I'm still in a band with some guys but the gigs are few and far between..

Here's a few songs my last group of friends recorded..I wrote and sang on three of them..my oldest and best friend died last year so we just sort of dissolved..He was the lead guitar player, rehearsal host, sound man and recording engineer of the band..I'm the guy in the middle who looks happy to just be there..You know what they say about drummers..they're the guys/girls who hang out with musicians..

There's some steel guitar on Three Sheets...another old friend who I grew up with and lives just down the street now..came and recorded this track for a steak dinner..lol..He still tours up here with a band called The Cooper Brothers..

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_nXVBHWVuI7cE3Z_L18vFA
 
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