I have been wondering for a while how or why people choose the instruments they do. The guitar and fiddle, for example, are very popular instruments and are always handy in a party. They are relatively portable and there are always plenty of opportunities to learn.
What makes someone decide that they desperately want to be a double bass player though, for example? It is not that it is not a great instrument. It is. It can add a lot to a band and you can et some great sounds out of it. It is not particularly a 'party instrument' though. Anyone who gets one suddenly needs to get a car akin to a hearse to transport it round.
It does not have to stop at a question of portability though. Do you wake up one morning as a school child having had a few recorder lessons and suddenly think: "I want to learn the French Horn"
Anyway, the question is why did you choose the instrument(s) you have done? Was it social pressure? The opportunity to learn? Hearing the playing of any one individual? What made you get up that day and go "I know what has been missing in my life... the Crumhorn". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumhorn)
Personally speaking, I learnt the guitar because my dad played it and it was therefore accessible and I also wanted to play like him!!
I can't remember why I originally picked the flute. I think I just liked the sound. I remember it annoyed my sister though because she suddenly declared that that had been what she wanted to learn (she ended up picking the clarinet instead).
I chose the whistle because the fingering is similar to the flute and you can get a basic whistle really cheaply. There were also one or two lying around the house when I was younger. I only later found out what a great instrument it is.
I picked the bouzouki after watching Manus Lunny in Capercaillie one to many times.
Alistair
P.S. Great quote from that link about the Crumhorn:
"Crumhorns sound nothing like a trumpet, something like an oboe, and nothing like a duck."
Well, everyone starts off on guitar and the mandolin is an obvious second choice. I didn't really think about traditional music at the time, although there were "folk" inspirations. Rather, it was music such as Lindisfarne, Rod Stewart songs, Ry Cooder and a few others which inspired me.
When I started playings tunes, the fiddle was another obvious choice-same tuning and the like. As was tenor banjo, octave mandola etc. Same tuning but even more volume.
For me it's the harmonica. Perhaps the most protable of instruments, if not taken seriously in all quarters even though there have been many excellent artists on the harmonica over the years.
I started out as a fourteen-year-old playing bubblegum music in garage bands. I liked the electric bass but we already had a bass player (I was the lead singer). Among the music we copied was British blues-rock and there was occasional harmonica in some of the tunes. At first I hummed the harmonica parts on an electric kazoo I had made (you think I'm making this up?) but after awhile I started to feel silly about it so I got a real harmonica. That started me down a long blues path that eventually led me to my native Canadian traditional music along with its sources in ITM, Scots, French, and native American music (first nations musicians have a centuries-old fiddle tradition).
I played the piano because my mom made me take lessons, then I discovered Mr. Bach. So I had to play the pipe organ. I always loved the sound of violins and wanted to play in the orchestra but ended up playing clarinet in the school band because there was one left over from my brother's musical days. (Frugal parents.)
One evening, I was sitting in the audience of the local talent show, when a fellow got up and played some old-time fiddle tunes, and I instantly knew that I HAD to have one and learn to play. Finally. So I did. (I just wish I had been a more assertive child; I wouldn't have wasted those 40 years....)
It has always been the quality of the sound for me; I could never have played the saxaphone. Harpsichords drive me crazy with the tinkly plinkly thing.
I started playing violin when I was 5. My dad played and so I was to follow in his footsteps. All was well and good until the mid 70's came around and I decided that violin just wasn't very "cool". Started playing guitar like everybody else. Luckily about 30 years later fate stepped in and the next thing you know I was playing Irish tunes on the fiddle. Like you batlady, I really regret all those wasted years.
a friend played irish (and swedish!) tunes on a tin whistle, and the combined effect of the tunes and the instrument was too exhilarating not to ask him to lend me the whistle for a couple of days. eventually, he gave it to me. i guess he had no choice..
I didn't pick the instrument, it picked me. The only thing lying around the house was an old Mandolin. 11 musicians all learning tunes, including Seamus Creagh, and two of us trying to learn songs........ impossible. So it was a case of if you can't beat them, join them. Two years of playing up to 17 hours a day soon gets one into the swing of things. We played either in the house or the pub. Didn't eat properly, drank too much. All in all two years of self abuse which is probably why I can't play for a long time nowadays. Luckily I still have the voice.........
I think I started off on GHB because of the drones. Also, the whole military aspects with the uniforms, marching, etc. seemed really romantic when I was 10 years old ;)
I went to electric bass because it's just cool It wasn;t till a few years later that I got into guitar. I resisted at first because "everybody played guitar."
Why did I decide to take up flute 20 years after starting music? I dunno. The obvious choice for me would have been uilleann pipes. . . I love 'em. Practically, though, they cost multiple appendages to own. They are also too loud for apartment practice and have a high pain-in-the-ass factor. But I think there's more to it than that - Irish flute has such a wonderful mellow sound, but can get energetic or fierce. Hard to analyze logically, really.
But. . .there's a bunch of instruments I'd like to become proficient in. . .bazouki, cello, electric bass. . .etc.
Harmonica – I was nine years old, had heard it on cowboy songs, saw one in a store, begged.
Guitar – It was 1957, okay? Whaddya expect?
Recorder – Heard Pete Seeger play one, also had a friend who played, loved the sound.
Fiddle – Hearing some really good old-time and Cajun fiddling turned me on to the expressive possibilties and hinted that “maybe I could do that someday”. By the time I got around to it, I was into ITM.
Mandolin, banjo, whistle – What can I say? I fall in love with every instrument I hear. I want a hurdy-gurdy. And a crummhorn.
I’m trying to be realistic and limit myself to just two instruments, so now it’s just guitar and fiddle. And sometimes banjo, but that doesn’t count because it’s so much like the guitar. And an occasional toot on the thistle – what harm could that do?
I play fiddle because at 7 years old I fell in love with the deep, resonant voice of the cello. Nobody told me it was a cello, though, and my young imagination somehow transposed the sound to fiddle. Even after 25 years on fiddle, I would just as soon leave the E string alone, and I wish I had three more lower strings. But I'm happy with my small portable noisemaker and the perfect fit with Irish music.
Now I'm learning flute. I think certain instrument voices speak to each of us, and I've always loved the sound of wooden flute--rounder and fuller (reedier) than metal flutes. But I've played strings all my life (fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo), so flute seemed physically alien until I finally picked one up and was surprised at how natural it felt--left hand not much different from fingering a fiddle, and right hand not much different from holding a bow. The bit with the lips is tricky, but even that's coming along. and I love the feeling when the whole stick is full of vibrating air and I can feel the columns humming under my fingertips. Everyone should be given a wooden flute at birth just to enjoy that feeling, and to understand how to breath music--it informs everything I do now with timing, rhythm, and phrasing on any other instrument I pick up. Great fun.
I got fed up carrying a piano around! My then girlfriend was learning the harp, and I started noodling on it. When we got married, I took over the harp!
My dad had a trumpet and a cornet in the basement, and my older brother picked the trumpet, so I started as a cornet player. Rest of the instruments were result of concious choice, chosen because I heard them and liked their sound. Bought harmonica for myself in high school and a guitar in college. A piano came with my wife. Bought tin whistle about a decade ago, and accordion about 3 years ago. My wife started fiddle about 6 years ago. Have some bodhrans too, but they don't count because we just use them as wall decorations. Recently inherited some fifes and a banjo when dad died. More instruments than I know what to do with.
Well I picked up the accordion because I heard that girls dug it .... er.. well ok.. not really. I wanted to play Irish Music and didn't want to drop alot of money on it before I found out if I had any talent. My Dad had an old Hohner Black Dot and the rest is history.
As for Concertina, well.. its just a natural progression for a box player isn't it?
Fiddle because my dance teacher discovered that I'd played viola in high school and she wanted a built-in fiddler for the shows that requested live music as well.
I also played folk guitar in high school, but have never really tried playing it for backing. Also played the recorder a bit, and so I can sort of get a tune out of a whistle or a flute, but not really.
When I was 6, there was a kids song I listened to all of the time and it had a flute part in it that I really liked. My parents bought me a recorder at first because it was cheaper (presumably), and then I advanced to the flute not long thereafter. I was a good enough classical musician, but was always given the metaphorical hand slap by competition judges who said I tapped my foot too loud. I was never a huge fan of dynamics and all that other stuff that makes classical music classical, so after high school I discovered Irish music where foot tapping isn't as greatly shunned, and it seems more about having fun than anything else.
When I was 15 I decided I'm not going to be the next Fats Waller and dropped the piano. My father told me that at least I could learn to play guitar. He sorely regrets this day since.
I can't say I'm totally enamoured with my instrument - we have better days and worse days. But inadvertedly I *hate* performing solo on this instrument in the public. I really enjoy rhythm playing and the harmonies/chords you can get out of it. There's Irish music for me.
I've tried some other instruments though, and none of them stuck for too long - except for flute, which I am working on hard at the moment. It's so much different from the guitar, and I am so much closer to the music, there's so much expression in this instrument.
As to how I started to play Irish music - it's too embarassing to write on the yellow board.
I started violin in fifth grade because playing in the orchestra would get me out of taking the "generic elementary school music class" and I didn't particularly want to learn to play the recorder. I fell in love with my fiddle so I guess I'm lucky I didn't like the recorder. I got a whistle a little while ago because my parents won't let me take my fiddle on road trips, but fiddle is my instrument, I can't really see myself playing anything else.
I went to a Dubliners concert when I was about 12 years old. When I heard Barney play the instrument I imedient fell in love with the sound of the banjo. Later (when I already played the instrument) I heard recodings from Gerry O'Connor and others...and decided I wanted to do the same...so,,,that's basically my story
Guess I should answer since my bio is part of what caused you to start this thread.
I started piano when I was in the first grade becuase both my older sisters were playing it and anything they did. . .you get the point. I'll be starting my 15th year of study this fall.
I picked the violin/fiddle when I was three but didn't get one until I was nine. I did two years of classical violin (hated the structure) and then switched to fiddle. It's always been my favorite instrument. I've just always liked the sound.
I guess the next instrument that I started was the bowed psaltry. My parents gave me one for my 10th or 11th birthday. Not sure which. It's a little bit high-pitched for me and not quite as versatile as I would like and it's way too hard to play fast tunes on.
I was then given a hammer dulcimer by a complete stranger when I was 12 or 13. I don't play it as much as I should but I love the sound and feel of the instrument.
I then was given a banjo by a friend which I am still slowly working on learning how to play. I love the sound and the style of playing. I'm working on playing it clawhammer style and purely as a back up instrument for the old-time style here in the States.
Finally, the last instrument I aquired was the mountain dulcimer. My parents had been playing these since I picked up the fiddle and I had messed around with this one, but I had never bought one. My parents gave me one of theirs for Christmas during my freshman year of college. I was happy with it, but I found a rare mountain built by Mark Tindle for sale by a friend so I bought that last year.
As to why I still haven't picked up the guitar, while my bro and I learned the fiddle are sis picked up guitar. I just never had the time to pick it up. Right now I'm concentrating on learning the instruments I have, but mandolin and guitar are tied for next on the list to learn. The piano and the fiddle are still my "main" instruments, piano for all things classical and fiddle for all things folk related. I'm taking classical voice this fall, but it may be too structured. We'll see, I'd like to learn just about everything with strings.
I bought a harmonica in the Donegal Gaeltacht in 1966 and learnt "Pretty Flaminigo" by Manfred Mann in a couple of days. To this day I still do not know any notes on the instrument, you just play it.
Then I heard John Sheehan and Barney McKenna playing "Roisin Dubh" on two mandolins so I wanted one of those. But I got one of those small banjo-mandolins instead, and then a susuki neopolitan mandolin, about 1971. Still don't know any of the notes on it either.
Bought a tenor banjo, Christmas 1972, but couldn't play it right handed, and lacked dedication. It is only recently that I discovered scales and things, which makes mandolins, and the guitar, a lot easier, although I do not play the guitar, just to sing to the dog at home.
In 1976 I bought a bodhran, and moved to sunny England, the home of ITM. The rest is history.
I also bought hundreds of whistles over the years, for the basic reason that it a great instrument, sadly lacking these days with all these flutes, and still only cost £3. For financial reasons everyone should start on a whistle, I mean you don't want to spend loads of money on a piano which wee Jonny/Jenny might never play.
I started playing balalaika in Highschool then switched to mandolin for the versatility.I also played fiddle for years.Once, when my fiddle was in for repair, I brought my old mandolin to a session.That was the first time anyone said anything favourable about my playing. I can take a hint .The fiddle stays in the case.
I've always been influenced by literature - a short story by Manly Wade Wellman inspired me to acquire a guitar as a teenager. By the time I was 18 had borrowed a 5-string banjo, two years later I got my own. Whistles, harmonicas, never was much good with them, always had a few. I've been through three mandolins, took me a while to work out what to do with them. Wore out/broke the first bodhran, take more care of the second. Two concertinas now. Gradually upgraded the guitars over the years, built mountain dulcimers, electric instruments for stage use, lately for my daughter. Now into the bouuzouki as the instrument of first choice.
Have you noticed how just about everyone else has also listed avariety of instruments ?
And then there's my SA with her dulcimer, flute, whistles, spoons, jews harp, and washboard..........
When I was about four years old I was wandering around my gramas house and I came across my grandfathers violin. He was a music teacher, but died when I was very young so I never knew him. I tried playing it. It sounded awful obviously as it was way to big for me out of tune, and the bow only had a couple hairs left on it. My grama didn;t play music so she decided to give it to me. My mom then took me to an orchestra concert to show me what the violin and classical music sounded like. I then started suzuki violin and got frustrated that you actually had to learn the instrument and that it wasn;t something you just knew how to do. I stuck with it though even though my progress was slow. My parents do morris dancing and contra dance and sicne I had been little they were constantly dragging me to folk festivals and dances. In highschool I got burned out with classical violin and decided to play the music that has been running around my head since I was first convcieved because of my parents influence. This music runs in my veins. I would be denying who I am as a person if I didn;t play it.
My first weapon of choice was the flamethrower. It seemed so cool, yet carried the possibility of glamorous self-immolation with it, what with a tank of petrol being on your back, and everything. But not being in the American army in the Pacific Arena in the second world war, the ladies at the Social Security wouldn't give me one (excuse the crude double-entendre).
I soon realised that I was unlikely to be allowed to possess any weapon at all, and that the more I asked for one, the more likely it was that I would find myself incarcerated in a special ward for those more interested in portable weapons of destructions than receiving their monthly dole check.
Now I have my own job, my own independent income, and I can buy the weapons I like.
But to be quite honest, I've completely forgotten what I was trying to buy, and indeed to say.
PEACE AND LOVE!
Ras Tafari
Ottery
I started with guitar because my older brother had a garage band (in the middle 60's) and who's cooler to a moldable mind than one's older sibling?
Dabbled with blues harmonica but never very seriously.
Started learning mostly American folk tunes, then I discovered Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. I almost cannot pick up a guitar without trying to work out a finger style arrangement for the piece in question.
Began playing mandolin when I noticed a dearth of them at a folk festival I used to frequent (that & if guitars were a dime a dozen the price was greatly inflated). Discovered that the mandolin's fingerboard patterns are (to me at least) more sensible than the guitar's and that finger style guitar seems more suited to solo or small ensemble performance.
I first consiously heard an hammered dulcimer on the Chieftains "Bonaparte's Retreat" album; Derek Bell playing on the "Rights of Man". I knew then I must learn to play one. It took me a loooong time to actually get one.
All that said the mandolin is my instrument of choice. I've also found out that I had a pair of ancestors, uncles of my father, that had a vaudeville act on guitar and mandolin. Funny, only my brother and myself were at all interested in learning to play any music and this was well before the family history story came out.
I 'll try anything for a half dozen tunes. Some work out and others don't. I think I stuck with the fiddle because I knew it would take a while, and by the time I could really play I was used to it. I like it now.
I was playing guitar, because everybody else did, but being a callow youth and not having a car, I got tired of carrying it around. On day my Uncle turned up with a spare fiddle (he wasn't a player. I looked at that and thought, "Seatrain, It's A Beautiful Day, Blind Faith." Yeah, I'll give it a shot". 3 & 1/2 decades later I'm still trying it out.
Then one day was the magical moment when I realized that all te stuff I'd been hearing all my life was something I could play, or try to play. I've pretty much been playing Irish fiddle ever since.
My mom wanted one of her kids to be a symphony musician. As the youngest I got the short straw, and was handed the instrument of her choice. Thus the violin. Luckily I liked it! And when it came to playing fiddle, I chose to do that. (Not hindered by the occasional thumps of my mother turning over in her grave.)
Harp? I wanted to play one for as far back as I can remember. So I chose that one from the start, although my first harp was a gift.
Mountain dulcimer? Another choice of mine. It's just plain fun. Also my husband plays it very well, and he wants us to get a courting dulcimer one of these days.
I was a teenage drummer. Nobody else I knew played the drums so it was a good way to get in any band I wanted! I then taught a friend of mine to play them and he turned out to be much better than I was, so I let him have the drumstool and migrated to the electric bass. Fast forward five years of pretending to be in The Ramones, and one starry night I heard Nick Drake, and (produces hankerchief, dabs tear from eyes) my life was changed forever. I just knew I had to be able to make music like that, so acoustic fingerstyle in weird tunings was the way to go for the next ten years. Then, quite recently, a friend of mine introduced me to some fiddle players who do all the "diddly dee" crap. Next news, I'm playing Drowsy Maggie (don't groan) on a mandolin. Currently entertaining the neighbors with my efforts on the fiddle.
When I was very little I was taken to a pantomime at the pier in Southsea and there was some kind of harmonica variety act - I was one of the kids who got to go on the stage and we were all presented with those little Hohner keyring harmonicas, and told to blow, blow, suck suck blow. Obviously wouldn't happen now - choking hazard, inappropriate wording etc. But I loved that harp and slept with it under my pillow until it got lost. I've always had harmonicas around ever since and love them. But I mostly try and play fiddle at the moment.
My dad used to play Chieftains and Bothy Band records when I was a kid. He used to tell me to listen for the bodhrán on the Chieftains LPs. Then one Christmas a bodhrán magically appeared under the tree - I was 7 at the time. Istarted going to classes with the McPeakes and really fell in love with the music then. Going to Miltown when I was 8 helped matters along. I was frustrated that I couldn't play the tunes; I had a Bontempi organ that I could knock out a few jigs and reels on, though. Then my cousin, who had been in a marching band, told me she was packing it in and gave me her accordion! Best thing that ever happened to me, although my friends might disagree. I taught myself how to play it, which is painfully obvious even now. I also learnt some harmonica; originally bought it as a present for a friend in Belgium, but I spent more time playing it than she did!
Played some whistle when I was 8 or 10, took up classical steel flute at school, then electric guitar at 11. Gave up flute when I was 13 and played guitar more. It was only recently that I re-began listening to the irish music i had listed to years ago. learned a few
acoustic guitar things from my uncle then decided that the bouzouki was cool. I still wan't one. I also want an accordian, but just because they sound so good.
My mother decided to learn recorder with a friend when I was eight. I quickly got my sticky little hands on the instrument and tutor book.
My mother confiscated it ASAP and tried to shut me up with a plastic recorder which was much quieter and wouldn't hit any notes above upper D. I used to seek out the real one. I discovered miserable keys and became a dab hand at playing funeral marches, which I made up as I went along. The tears would pour down my cheeks. It was a lovely sensation. I also made excellent police car noises, imitated the wind in the chimney and pretended to lure an imaginary snake out of a basket with pseudo-oriental noises.
For my ninth birthday my distraught and deafened father got me a beautiful 50 year old guitar-shaped mandolin and tutor book from a junk shop - presumably the quietist instrument he could find. I played the same mandolin for 27 years (with the same strings for 12 of them because I didn't know you could buy new ones) but I moved into a particularly damp house and its neck went like a banana in 1989.
I never knew anyone else who played a mandolin - or had much idea what to play on it other than nursery rhymes for whatever child was around and Auld Lang syne at New Year - till in 1983 I heard the strains of the Trumpet Hornpipe in the now defunct Royal Oak on Pickford Street in Macclesfield and round the corner found a felt cutter called Peter (an excellent musician and singer) picking happily away. "So that's what you do with them!" I cried (I didn't really, but I might have).
I was sent to piano lessons at the age of about 8 or 9.
Looking back the teacher was as inexperienced at teaching children as I was at learning piano. He started by teaching the details of notation, key signatures white/black notes scales etc. I got terribly frustrated at working out where these pesky black notes should be used instead of the nice white ones. Gave up after a few months.
35 years later (!) a friend I sang with lent me a melodeon - wow an instrument with no black notes, and as I worked the bellows it felt as if it was breathing. I was hooked instantly.
I'd learned electric guitar to the stage where I could play the blues, to the point of being able to do that thing where the guitar plays along with and plays off the vocals.
Then at an ITM session a friend encouraged me to have a go on his bodhrán. I found I had the knack of playing it. I could follow the tune and play off it, support it, like playing blues guitar.
So the bodhrán sort of picked me. I've tried playing rhythm guitar for the Irish stuff but the bodhrán does it for me. We usually have a couple of good guitar players anyway.
But I love it when that thing happens that's like you're surfing and riding a good wave and you know it could all go arse-up any second. And it doesn't!
Well, when I 6 my mum decided that we were both going to learn the piano. I hated it and didn't practice very much - 8 years later, I'd made about the same amount of progress that most people make in two or three.
Then, in grade 8 music class, we were supposed to choose a string instrument to learn. I didn't want to play the same instrument as everybody else, or need a moving van to carry it around, so violin, cello, and bass were out of the question, leaving viola.
I started taking private lessons when I had to drop music class, and my teacher was a fiddler. She taught me classical stuff, but every now and then she would get all of her high-school students (five of us) together and teach us fiddle tunes. They were a lot of fun to play.
Fascinating subject - must be the first time I have read just about every bit (and extra praise to Ottery for the flamethrower)
As for me -
Piano - because my Dad was a brilliant pianist and taught me basic 3 chord specials when I was 3. I used to sing 'Kitty of Coleraine' to my granny who questioned the appropriateness of a very little girl singing such a song.
Piano Accordion - because it's the nearest thing to a portable piano. Apart from the Rolf Harris Stylophone (don't knock it, they're fun!!)
English concertina - because it's lighter to carry than an accordion and because having learned one reed instrument that's the same whichever way the bellows are going, and Anglo or meodeon would have been more difficult.
Am now learning the Theremin - just for the hell of it.
Ever since watching the Marx brothers I wanted to play the harp, but could never afford one. Maybe one day - I'm only 57, there's time...........
PLayed guitar and banjo in teens but not very well, also clarinet very badly in school orchestra. Luckily I was able to give the clarinet (nice old wooden one) to one of my sons who plays it brilliantly.
But as for real weapons, where the acid tongue won't reach, I recommend a carving knife.
Walking down a street in Edinburgh on Sunday, heard the sound of a flute coming from a pub, popped my head in the door and there was Cathal, the man himself.
Had a lovely tune or six with him...............magic.
What made you pick your weapon of choice?
What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I have been wondering for a while how or why people choose the instruments they do. The guitar and fiddle, for example, are very popular instruments and are always handy in a party. They are relatively portable and there are always plenty of opportunities to learn.
What makes someone decide that they desperately want to be a double bass player though, for example? It is not that it is not a great instrument. It is. It can add a lot to a band and you can et some great sounds out of it. It is not particularly a 'party instrument' though. Anyone who gets one suddenly needs to get a car akin to a hearse to transport it round.
It does not have to stop at a question of portability though. Do you wake up one morning as a school child having had a few recorder lessons and suddenly think: "I want to learn the French Horn"
Anyway, the question is why did you choose the instrument(s) you have done? Was it social pressure? The opportunity to learn? Hearing the playing of any one individual? What made you get up that day and go "I know what has been missing in my life... the Crumhorn". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumhorn)
Personally speaking, I learnt the guitar because my dad played it and it was therefore accessible and I also wanted to play like him!!
I can't remember why I originally picked the flute. I think I just liked the sound. I remember it annoyed my sister though because she suddenly declared that that had been what she wanted to learn (she ended up picking the clarinet instead).
I chose the whistle because the fingering is similar to the flute and you can get a basic whistle really cheaply. There were also one or two lying around the house when I was younger. I only later found out what a great instrument it is.
I picked the bouzouki after watching Manus Lunny in Capercaillie one to many times.
Alistair
P.S. Great quote from that link about the Crumhorn:
"Crumhorns sound nothing like a trumpet, something like an oboe, and nothing like a duck."
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Well, everyone starts off on guitar and the mandolin is an obvious second choice. I didn't really think about traditional music at the time, although there were "folk" inspirations. Rather, it was music such as Lindisfarne, Rod Stewart songs, Ry Cooder and a few others which inspired me.
When I started playings tunes, the fiddle was another obvious choice-same tuning and the like. As was tenor banjo, octave mandola etc. Same tuning but even more volume.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Johnny Jay
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
For me it's the harmonica. Perhaps the most protable of instruments, if not taken seriously in all quarters even though there have been many excellent artists on the harmonica over the years.
I started out as a fourteen-year-old playing bubblegum music in garage bands. I liked the electric bass but we already had a bass player (I was the lead singer). Among the music we copied was British blues-rock and there was occasional harmonica in some of the tunes. At first I hummed the harmonica parts on an electric kazoo I had made (you think I'm making this up?) but after awhile I started to feel silly about it so I got a real harmonica. That started me down a long blues path that eventually led me to my native Canadian traditional music along with its sources in ITM, Scots, French, and native American music (first nations musicians have a centuries-old fiddle tradition).
Winslow
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Winslow Yerxa
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I played the piano because my mom made me take lessons, then I discovered Mr. Bach. So I had to play the pipe organ. I always loved the sound of violins and wanted to play in the orchestra but ended up playing clarinet in the school band because there was one left over from my brother's musical days. (Frugal parents.)
One evening, I was sitting in the audience of the local talent show, when a fellow got up and played some old-time fiddle tunes, and I instantly knew that I HAD to have one and learn to play. Finally. So I did. (I just wish I had been a more assertive child; I wouldn't have wasted those 40 years....)
It has always been the quality of the sound for me; I could never have played the saxaphone. Harpsichords drive me crazy with the tinkly plinkly thing.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Michele Sims
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I started playing violin when I was 5. My dad played and so I was to follow in his footsteps. All was well and good until the mid 70's came around and I decided that violin just wasn't very "cool". Started playing guitar like everybody else. Luckily about 30 years later fate stepped in and the next thing you know I was playing Irish tunes on the fiddle. Like you batlady, I really regret all those wasted years.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by RogueFiddler
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
a friend played irish (and swedish!) tunes on a tin whistle, and the combined effect of the tunes and the instrument was too exhilarating not to ask him to lend me the whistle for a couple of days. eventually, he gave it to me. i guess he had no choice..
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by red
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I didn't pick the instrument, it picked me. The only thing lying around the house was an old Mandolin. 11 musicians all learning tunes, including Seamus Creagh, and two of us trying to learn songs........ impossible. So it was a case of if you can't beat them, join them. Two years of playing up to 17 hours a day soon gets one into the swing of things. We played either in the house or the pub. Didn't eat properly, drank too much. All in all two years of self abuse which is probably why I can't play for a long time nowadays. Luckily I still have the voice.........
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I think I started off on GHB because of the drones. Also, the whole military aspects with the uniforms, marching, etc. seemed really romantic when I was 10 years old ;)
It wasn;t till a few years later that I got into guitar. I resisted at first because "everybody played guitar."
I went to electric bass because it's just cool
Why did I decide to take up flute 20 years after starting music? I dunno. The obvious choice for me would have been uilleann pipes. . . I love 'em. Practically, though, they cost multiple appendages to own. They are also too loud for apartment practice and have a high pain-in-the-ass factor. But I think there's more to it than that - Irish flute has such a wonderful mellow sound, but can get energetic or fierce. Hard to analyze logically, really.
But. . .there's a bunch of instruments I'd like to become proficient in. . .bazouki, cello, electric bass. . .etc.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by wormdiet
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Harmonica – I was nine years old, had heard it on cowboy songs, saw one in a store, begged.
Guitar – It was 1957, okay? Whaddya expect?
Recorder – Heard Pete Seeger play one, also had a friend who played, loved the sound.
Fiddle – Hearing some really good old-time and Cajun fiddling turned me on to the expressive possibilties and hinted that “maybe I could do that someday”. By the time I got around to it, I was into ITM.
Mandolin, banjo, whistle – What can I say? I fall in love with every instrument I hear. I want a hurdy-gurdy. And a crummhorn.
I’m trying to be realistic and limit myself to just two instruments, so now it’s just guitar and fiddle. And sometimes banjo, but that doesn’t count because it’s so much like the guitar. And an occasional toot on the thistle – what harm could that do?
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Bob himself
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
The jaggy bits could hurt your lips!!
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I play fiddle because at 7 years old I fell in love with the deep, resonant voice of the cello. Nobody told me it was a cello, though, and my young imagination somehow transposed the sound to fiddle. Even after 25 years on fiddle, I would just as soon leave the E string alone, and I wish I had three more lower strings. But I'm happy with my small portable noisemaker and the perfect fit with Irish music.
Now I'm learning flute. I think certain instrument voices speak to each of us, and I've always loved the sound of wooden flute--rounder and fuller (reedier) than metal flutes. But I've played strings all my life (fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo), so flute seemed physically alien until I finally picked one up and was surprised at how natural it felt--left hand not much different from fingering a fiddle, and right hand not much different from holding a bow. The bit with the lips is tricky, but even that's coming along. and I love the feeling when the whole stick is full of vibrating air and I can feel the columns humming under my fingertips. Everyone should be given a wooden flute at birth just to enjoy that feeling, and to understand how to breath music--it informs everything I do now with timing, rhythm, and phrasing on any other instrument I pick up. Great fun.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Will Harmon
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I got fed up carrying a piano around! My then girlfriend was learning the harp, and I started noodling on it. When we got married, I took over the harp!
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I heard Cathal McConnell playing with The Boys Of The Lough in (1980 I think it was).
Managed to get myself a wooden flute several days later, and that was it for me.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by curlew
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
My dad had a trumpet and a cornet in the basement, and my older brother picked the trumpet, so I started as a cornet player. Rest of the instruments were result of concious choice, chosen because I heard them and liked their sound. Bought harmonica for myself in high school and a guitar in college. A piano came with my wife. Bought tin whistle about a decade ago, and accordion about 3 years ago. My wife started fiddle about 6 years ago. Have some bodhrans too, but they don't count because we just use them as wall decorations. Recently inherited some fifes and a banjo when dad died. More instruments than I know what to do with.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by AlBrown
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Well I picked up the accordion because I heard that girls dug it
.... er.. well ok.. not really. I wanted to play Irish Music and didn't want to drop alot of money on it before I found out if I had any talent. My Dad had an old Hohner Black Dot and the rest is history.
As for Concertina, well.. its just a natural progression for a box player isn't it?
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by bill_mchale
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
“I would just as soon leave the E string alone,”
I’m with you, Will. I’ve been known to move a tune from A down to D just to play on those low strings.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Bob himself
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Fiddle because my dance teacher discovered that I'd played viola in high school and she wanted a built-in fiddler for the shows that requested live music as well.
I also played folk guitar in high school, but have never really tried playing it for backing. Also played the recorder a bit, and so I can sort of get a tune out of a whistle or a flute, but not really.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
When I was 6, there was a kids song I listened to all of the time and it had a flute part in it that I really liked. My parents bought me a recorder at first because it was cheaper (presumably), and then I advanced to the flute not long thereafter. I was a good enough classical musician, but was always given the metaphorical hand slap by competition judges who said I tapped my foot too loud. I was never a huge fan of dynamics and all that other stuff that makes classical music classical, so after high school I discovered Irish music where foot tapping isn't as greatly shunned, and it seems more about having fun than anything else.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Jason G
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
When I was 15 I decided I'm not going to be the next Fats Waller and dropped the piano. My father told me that at least I could learn to play guitar. He sorely regrets this day since.
I can't say I'm totally enamoured with my instrument - we have better days and worse days. But inadvertedly I *hate* performing solo on this instrument in the public. I really enjoy rhythm playing and the harmonies/chords you can get out of it. There's Irish music for me.
I've tried some other instruments though, and none of them stuck for too long - except for flute, which I am working on hard at the moment. It's so much different from the guitar, and I am so much closer to the music, there's so much expression in this instrument.
As to how I started to play Irish music - it's too embarassing to write on the yellow board.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Janek
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I started violin in fifth grade because playing in the orchestra would get me out of taking the "generic elementary school music class" and I didn't particularly want to learn to play the recorder. I fell in love with my fiddle so I guess I'm lucky I didn't like the recorder.
I got a whistle a little while ago because my parents won't let me take my fiddle on road trips, but fiddle is my instrument, I can't really see myself playing anything else.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I went to a Dubliners concert when I was about 12 years old. When I heard Barney play the instrument I imedient fell in love with the sound of the banjo. Later (when I already played the instrument) I heard recodings from Gerry O'Connor and others...and decided I wanted to do the same...so,,,that's basically my story
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Dark Raven
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Guess I should answer since my bio is part of what caused you to start this thread.
I started piano when I was in the first grade becuase both my older sisters were playing it and anything they did. . .you get the point. I'll be starting my 15th year of study this fall.
I picked the violin/fiddle when I was three but didn't get one until I was nine. I did two years of classical violin (hated the structure) and then switched to fiddle. It's always been my favorite instrument. I've just always liked the sound.
I guess the next instrument that I started was the bowed psaltry. My parents gave me one for my 10th or 11th birthday. Not sure which. It's a little bit high-pitched for me and not quite as versatile as I would like and it's way too hard to play fast tunes on.
I was then given a hammer dulcimer by a complete stranger when I was 12 or 13. I don't play it as much as I should but I love the sound and feel of the instrument.
I then was given a banjo by a friend which I am still slowly working on learning how to play. I love the sound and the style of playing. I'm working on playing it clawhammer style and purely as a back up instrument for the old-time style here in the States.
Finally, the last instrument I aquired was the mountain dulcimer. My parents had been playing these since I picked up the fiddle and I had messed around with this one, but I had never bought one. My parents gave me one of theirs for Christmas during my freshman year of college. I was happy with it, but I found a rare mountain built by Mark Tindle for sale by a friend so I bought that last year.
As to why I still haven't picked up the guitar, while my bro and I learned the fiddle are sis picked up guitar. I just never had the time to pick it up. Right now I'm concentrating on learning the instruments I have, but mandolin and guitar are tied for next on the list to learn. The piano and the fiddle are still my "main" instruments, piano for all things classical and fiddle for all things folk related. I'm taking classical voice this fall, but it may be too structured. We'll see, I'd like to learn just about everything with strings.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by musicfan
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I bought a harmonica in the Donegal Gaeltacht in 1966 and learnt "Pretty Flaminigo" by Manfred Mann in a couple of days. To this day I still do not know any notes on the instrument, you just play it.
Then I heard John Sheehan and Barney McKenna playing "Roisin Dubh" on two mandolins so I wanted one of those. But I got one of those small banjo-mandolins instead, and then a susuki neopolitan mandolin, about 1971. Still don't know any of the notes on it either.
Bought a tenor banjo, Christmas 1972, but couldn't play it right handed, and lacked dedication. It is only recently that I discovered scales and things, which makes mandolins, and the guitar, a lot easier, although I do not play the guitar, just to sing to the dog at home.
In 1976 I bought a bodhran, and moved to sunny England, the home of ITM. The rest is history.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I also bought hundreds of whistles over the years, for the basic reason that it a great instrument, sadly lacking these days with all these flutes, and still only cost £3. For financial reasons everyone should start on a whistle, I mean you don't want to spend loads of money on a piano which wee Jonny/Jenny might never play.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I started playing balalaika in Highschool then switched to mandolin for the versatility.I also played fiddle for years.Once, when my fiddle was in for repair, I brought my old mandolin to a session.That was the first time anyone said anything favourable about my playing. I can take a hint .The fiddle stays in the case.
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by McMandolin
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I've always been influenced by literature - a short story by Manly Wade Wellman inspired me to acquire a guitar as a teenager. By the time I was 18 had borrowed a 5-string banjo, two years later I got my own. Whistles, harmonicas, never was much good with them, always had a few. I've been through three mandolins, took me a while to work out what to do with them. Wore out/broke the first bodhran, take more care of the second. Two concertinas now. Gradually upgraded the guitars over the years, built mountain dulcimers, electric instruments for stage use, lately for my daughter. Now into the bouuzouki as the instrument of first choice.
Have you noticed how just about everyone else has also listed avariety of instruments ?
And then there's my SA with her dulcimer, flute, whistles, spoons, jews harp, and washboard..........
# Posted on August 1st 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
When I was about four years old I was wandering around my gramas house and I came across my grandfathers violin. He was a music teacher, but died when I was very young so I never knew him. I tried playing it. It sounded awful obviously as it was way to big for me out of tune, and the bow only had a couple hairs left on it. My grama didn;t play music so she decided to give it to me. My mom then took me to an orchestra concert to show me what the violin and classical music sounded like. I then started suzuki violin and got frustrated that you actually had to learn the instrument and that it wasn;t something you just knew how to do. I stuck with it though even though my progress was slow. My parents do morris dancing and contra dance and sicne I had been little they were constantly dragging me to folk festivals and dances. In highschool I got burned out with classical violin and decided to play the music that has been running around my head since I was first convcieved because of my parents influence. This music runs in my veins. I would be denying who I am as a person if I didn;t play it.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by banana512
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
My first weapon of choice was the flamethrower. It seemed so cool, yet carried the possibility of glamorous self-immolation with it, what with a tank of petrol being on your back, and everything. But not being in the American army in the Pacific Arena in the second world war, the ladies at the Social Security wouldn't give me one (excuse the crude double-entendre).
I soon realised that I was unlikely to be allowed to possess any weapon at all, and that the more I asked for one, the more likely it was that I would find myself incarcerated in a special ward for those more interested in portable weapons of destructions than receiving their monthly dole check.
Now I have my own job, my own independent income, and I can buy the weapons I like.
But to be quite honest, I've completely forgotten what I was trying to buy, and indeed to say.
PEACE AND LOVE!
Ras Tafari
Ottery
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by Ottery
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I started with guitar because my older brother had a garage band (in the middle 60's) and who's cooler to a moldable mind than one's older sibling?
Dabbled with blues harmonica but never very seriously.
Started learning mostly American folk tunes, then I discovered Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. I almost cannot pick up a guitar without trying to work out a finger style arrangement for the piece in question.
Began playing mandolin when I noticed a dearth of them at a folk festival I used to frequent (that & if guitars were a dime a dozen the price was greatly inflated). Discovered that the mandolin's fingerboard patterns are (to me at least) more sensible than the guitar's and that finger style guitar seems more suited to solo or small ensemble performance.
I first consiously heard an hammered dulcimer on the Chieftains "Bonaparte's Retreat" album; Derek Bell playing on the "Rights of Man". I knew then I must learn to play one. It took me a loooong time to actually get one.
All that said the mandolin is my instrument of choice. I've also found out that I had a pair of ancestors, uncles of my father, that had a vaudeville act on guitar and mandolin. Funny, only my brother and myself were at all interested in learning to play any music and this was well before the family history story came out.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by ed veras
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I 'll try anything for a half dozen tunes. Some work out and others don't. I think I stuck with the fiddle because I knew it would take a while, and by the time I could really play I was used to it. I like it now.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Oh, why did you choose it. !!!
I was playing guitar, because everybody else did, but being a callow youth and not having a car, I got tired of carrying it around. On day my Uncle turned up with a spare fiddle (he wasn't a player. I looked at that and thought, "Seatrain, It's A Beautiful Day, Blind Faith." Yeah, I'll give it a shot". 3 & 1/2 decades later I'm still trying it out.
Then one day was the magical moment when I realized that all te stuff I'd been hearing all my life was something I could play, or try to play. I've pretty much been playing Irish fiddle ever since.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
how it all started......long story
http://www.chinatogalway.com/how%20it%20all%20started.htm
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by KS
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Janek --- one never knows, do one? ;)
My mom wanted one of her kids to be a symphony musician. As the youngest I got the short straw, and was handed the instrument of her choice. Thus the violin. Luckily I liked it! And when it came to playing fiddle, I chose to do that. (Not hindered by the occasional thumps of my mother turning over in her grave.)
Harp? I wanted to play one for as far back as I can remember. So I chose that one from the start, although my first harp was a gift.
Mountain dulcimer? Another choice of mine. It's just plain fun. Also my husband plays it very well, and he wants us to get a courting dulcimer one of these days.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by sara g
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I was a teenage drummer. Nobody else I knew played the drums so it was a good way to get in any band I wanted! I then taught a friend of mine to play them and he turned out to be much better than I was, so I let him have the drumstool and migrated to the electric bass. Fast forward five years of pretending to be in The Ramones, and one starry night I heard Nick Drake, and (produces hankerchief, dabs tear from eyes) my life was changed forever. I just knew I had to be able to make music like that, so acoustic fingerstyle in weird tunings was the way to go for the next ten years. Then, quite recently, a friend of mine introduced me to some fiddle players who do all the "diddly dee" crap. Next news, I'm playing Drowsy Maggie (don't groan) on a mandolin. Currently entertaining the neighbors with my efforts on the fiddle.
How the hell did that happen?
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by plinkeyplonkey
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
When I was very little I was taken to a pantomime at the pier in Southsea and there was some kind of harmonica variety act - I was one of the kids who got to go on the stage and we were all presented with those little Hohner keyring harmonicas, and told to blow, blow, suck suck blow. Obviously wouldn't happen now - choking hazard, inappropriate wording etc. But I loved that harp and slept with it under my pillow until it got lost. I've always had harmonicas around ever since and love them. But I mostly try and play fiddle at the moment.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by RichardB
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
My dad used to play Chieftains and Bothy Band records when I was a kid. He used to tell me to listen for the bodhrán on the Chieftains LPs. Then one Christmas a bodhrán magically appeared under the tree - I was 7 at the time. Istarted going to classes with the McPeakes and really fell in love with the music then. Going to Miltown when I was 8 helped matters along. I was frustrated that I couldn't play the tunes; I had a Bontempi organ that I could knock out a few jigs and reels on, though. Then my cousin, who had been in a marching band, told me she was packing it in and gave me her accordion! Best thing that ever happened to me, although my friends might disagree. I taught myself how to play it, which is painfully obvious even now. I also learnt some harmonica; originally bought it as a present for a friend in Belgium, but I spent more time playing it than she did!
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Played some whistle when I was 8 or 10, took up classical steel flute at school, then electric guitar at 11. Gave up flute when I was 13 and played guitar more. It was only recently that I re-began listening to the irish music i had listed to years ago. learned a few
acoustic guitar things from my uncle then decided that the bouzouki was cool. I still wan't one. I also want an accordian, but just because they sound so good.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by kjay_bc_box
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
My mother decided to learn recorder with a friend when I was eight. I quickly got my sticky little hands on the instrument and tutor book.
My mother confiscated it ASAP and tried to shut me up with a plastic recorder which was much quieter and wouldn't hit any notes above upper D. I used to seek out the real one. I discovered miserable keys and became a dab hand at playing funeral marches, which I made up as I went along. The tears would pour down my cheeks. It was a lovely sensation. I also made excellent police car noises, imitated the wind in the chimney and pretended to lure an imaginary snake out of a basket with pseudo-oriental noises.
For my ninth birthday my distraught and deafened father got me a beautiful 50 year old guitar-shaped mandolin and tutor book from a junk shop - presumably the quietist instrument he could find. I played the same mandolin for 27 years (with the same strings for 12 of them because I didn't know you could buy new ones) but I moved into a particularly damp house and its neck went like a banana in 1989.
I never knew anyone else who played a mandolin - or had much idea what to play on it other than nursery rhymes for whatever child was around and Auld Lang syne at New Year - till in 1983 I heard the strains of the Trumpet Hornpipe in the now defunct Royal Oak on Pickford Street in Macclesfield and round the corner found a felt cutter called Peter (an excellent musician and singer) picking happily away. "So that's what you do with them!" I cried (I didn't really, but I might have).
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by LowProfile
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Listening to Matt Malloy with the Chieftains in Toronto, I knew that the flute was for me.
# Posted on August 2nd 2005 by Maple
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
I was sent to piano lessons at the age of about 8 or 9.
Looking back the teacher was as inexperienced at teaching children as I was at learning piano. He started by teaching the details of notation, key signatures white/black notes scales etc. I got terribly frustrated at working out where these pesky black notes should be used instead of the nice white ones. Gave up after a few months.
35 years later (!) a friend I sang with lent me a melodeon - wow an instrument with no black notes, and as I worked the bellows it felt as if it was breathing. I was hooked instantly.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Theo Gibb
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Great stories!
I'd learned electric guitar to the stage where I could play the blues, to the point of being able to do that thing where the guitar plays along with and plays off the vocals.
Then at an ITM session a friend encouraged me to have a go on his bodhrán. I found I had the knack of playing it. I could follow the tune and play off it, support it, like playing blues guitar.
So the bodhrán sort of picked me. I've tried playing rhythm guitar for the Irish stuff but the bodhrán does it for me. We usually have a couple of good guitar players anyway.
But I love it when that thing happens that's like you're surfing and riding a good wave and you know it could all go arse-up any second. And it doesn't!
It's OK. I'm alright..it must be something I ate.
\())
# Posted on August 7th 2005 by greenman
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Well, when I 6 my mum decided that we were both going to learn the piano. I hated it and didn't practice very much - 8 years later, I'd made about the same amount of progress that most people make in two or three.
Then, in grade 8 music class, we were supposed to choose a string instrument to learn. I didn't want to play the same instrument as everybody else, or need a moving van to carry it around, so violin, cello, and bass were out of the question, leaving viola.
I started taking private lessons when I had to drop music class, and my teacher was a fiddler. She taught me classical stuff, but every now and then she would get all of her high-school students (five of us) together and teach us fiddle tunes. They were a lot of fun to play.
# Posted on August 8th 2005 by Toresica
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Fascinating subject - must be the first time I have read just about every bit (and extra praise to Ottery for the flamethrower)
As for me -
Piano - because my Dad was a brilliant pianist and taught me basic 3 chord specials when I was 3. I used to sing 'Kitty of Coleraine' to my granny who questioned the appropriateness of a very little girl singing such a song.
Piano Accordion - because it's the nearest thing to a portable piano. Apart from the Rolf Harris Stylophone (don't knock it, they're fun!!)
English concertina - because it's lighter to carry than an accordion and because having learned one reed instrument that's the same whichever way the bellows are going, and Anglo or meodeon would have been more difficult.
Am now learning the Theremin - just for the hell of it.
Ever since watching the Marx brothers I wanted to play the harp, but could never afford one. Maybe one day - I'm only 57, there's time...........
PLayed guitar and banjo in teens but not very well, also clarinet very badly in school orchestra. Luckily I was able to give the clarinet (nice old wooden one) to one of my sons who plays it brilliantly.
But as for real weapons, where the acid tongue won't reach, I recommend a carving knife.
# Posted on August 8th 2005 by flying tigerpig
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Walking down a street in Edinburgh on Sunday, heard the sound of a flute coming from a pub, popped my head in the door and there was Cathal, the man himself.
Had a lovely tune or six with him...............magic.
# Posted on August 9th 2005 by curlew
Re: What made you pick your weapon of choice?
Fantastic stories. Thank you to everyone for sharing. Keep 'em coming!!
# Posted on August 9th 2005 by No Cause For Alarm