Thread: Playing an instrument

Contemporary classical saxophonist/conductor here. The stuff I play is mostly modern classical concertos w/ orchestras. I also should be playing w/ an indie pop group coming up in the next few months if I can get away from my infernal job long enough to attend rehearsals...

The big thing I'm trying to do is make a (successful) career as a conductor. My favorites are Yuri Temirkanov & Valery Gergiev.

Very cool to read all these. I knew I had found a company of discerning gents here.

My own best instrument is probably trombone, even though I haven't played real regularly since high school. (My youngest daughter now plays the same King 2-B I used then. ) The one I've played longest and still noodle around on when I find the time is the piano ... still, these days I'm just a middlin'-piddlin' player. Have been learning the last few years to improvise for (very amateur) accompanying purposes, after all those years of classical lessons--a whole new world.

And I am possibly the world's worst bluegrass/jazz/random-eclectica fiddler, but I love it and am not going to let anything stop me until I achieve mediocrity, dammit.

Um, and I could probably find my three or four guitar chords again if I had a while to refresh my memory. And I've done many years of singing off and on (that's off and on timewise, not off- and on-key), if you count voice as an instrument.

PA23-250, there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening in contemporary classical music now--great time to be doing it! It seemed to me when I was in college many years ago (rank amateur's viewpoint) that the music was stuck in a kind of sterile rut of imitative atonality, but it's broken out of that in a big way. Here's to that career. (I do a certain amount of composing and songwriting, but at my geezerish age it's never going to be more than a sideline if that.)

I play guitar... been playing for 34 years now... loads of fun!

I play the radio, sometimes the fool. Actually I was in my high schools marching band, I played the cello.

27 years playing guitar, mostly classical but when I'm on the electric it's
classic rock and blues. I also have many instruments in my home that I
collect but can't play them worth beans.

Gary

I have been playing 6 string guitar for about 25 years. I have owned a few. Right now I have a Taylor 714. Its nice. I wouldn't call myself a "player", but I play what I can. Mostly I'm a three chord song player. I like classic Appalachian blue grass and Celtic music. I cant hardly read a note but I can play most any tune I hear. Id love to be a real "player" but the Lord didn't give me that ability , so I just have to like what I can do.

I'm a guitarplayer, I play in a (death)metalband, but at home I play more Django Reinhardt, johnny Cash, jazz... kinda stuff.

I play the cello. I'm just a beginer, but I like it. Can't wait to be skilled enough to play the Bach suites

Deathmetal and Django?! I'd attend that gig!

dirty sound of an overdriven tube amp cranked up to 10.

Mine goes up to 11.