I know there are people from all differant levels so i'm just curious how long everyone has been playing the music.
And also how old were you when you attended your first session and how was it?
Playing music - since 1985
Playing guitar - since 1993
Playing acoustic guitar - since 2004
First trad session - 2000, November (effectively I was 22 at that time). It was fun, even though very chaotic - it was the first session of NUIG Trad Music Society and all sorts of plonkers came in to make the racket. I didn't know anything about this music at that time, so I contributed greatly to the noise.
Started piano in 1944
Cello in 1950
Classical guitar in 1970
Fiddle in 2001
First trad session in summer of 2001 at The Duke of Cambridge (sadly now no longer in existence) in Bristol. Didn't attempt to play; just sat and listened in awe to the several fine musicians there. Didn't start playing in sessions for about a year.
playing since i was 4, playing irish music since I was fourteen. (I was playing a bit of contra music before then, so i wasn't totally new to fiddle music, although i didn't really play much at all.) Attended my first session four years ago though, and have been really into the music since then.
First session -- slow session went well...i knew or picked up loads of tunes, either because i grew up listening to de danann and seamus connolly or because i grew up listening to contra music. the fast session afterwards was way beyond what i could do, so i listened, and decided to come back a year later, which i did.
How long(is a piece of string)? Unfortunately, the length of time you've been playing an instrument is meaningless for several reasons including
a) Some people are more talented than others
b) Some people practice or play less than others, either through choice or circumstance
c)Some people have chosen to play more or one instrument are more or less focused on each of these.
d) Some people have given up music and re-started. Again through choice or circumstance and, perhaps, they previously played a different style.
So, when this question is posed it is often done so that a judgement can be made on a player's ability or a player may boast "I've been doing this since....." or "I've only been playing a fortnight and I already know The Kesh jig" and so on.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I started playing guitar in 1968, mandolin in 1981 and fiddle in 1983. However, I hardly touched the guitar between 1971 and 1979. As for the mandolin, I mostly just played chords until about 1984 when I was distracted until about 1991. As for the fiddle, I scraped out one or two tunes on that but it, thereafter, lay in a cupboard until 1991. As did the guitar, by the way!
It was late 1991 when I started going to the ALP classes in Edinburgh that I became really enthusiastic about playing again. However, as I said earlier, I've never been as focused as I should be on either instruments or styles of ttraditional music. Since then, I've also been playing Octave mandola and tenor banjo(aside from dabbling in a few other things) and like to play a variety of tunes from Scotland, Ireland and beyond. I mainly concentrate on mandolin and fiddle, though.
Re sessions. I first participated in these around 1983 when I "got away" with backing tunes on guitar and mandolin. I could play one or two tunes on the latter. However, I was soon distracted. Firstly by a woman , then by drink when it all went wrong a few months later . By then, I'd gotten out of the habit of playing. Thankfully, I'm now back in the fold and have been for several years.
I played a bit of violin between 9yrs and 11yrs, but then sports took over. Picked up the guitar at 14, got into Irish music at 15, and fiddle at 17/18. Been noodling on other instruments since 16. Am 30.
Though only if you are actually playing with someone. Here, in this strange collection of musicians with no music, I think it bears little relevance.
However, not something to hide: (41 now)
Mandolin aged 13 (I got into my dad's planxty albums. gave up when I got my bazooka)
Bazooka aged 16 (Gave up when the head fell of, about 15 years ago)
Fiddle aged 21 (I wanted to play the tunes)
Viola aged 35 (I think I have always played the viola in my head)
Recorder at 6 with coloured notes (1958)
3/4 Fiddle at 7
Radio Choir at 8
First Session at 15 - well, Doncaster market place was a little decadent in the late 60s, more like Berlin - full of drag, dykes, you name it. They could all sing and I fell into pub piano for free beer and have never touched fiddle since. Singsongs were found in Irish-run pubs but ITM instrumental sessions were a little rare then, but by the mid 1970s we had started one.
I took up PA, joined a band at 20 and have never looked back since.
I have had lots of pupils but I am still learning.
John, i'm not asking the question "how good are you?", I would have probably mentioned these things If that was the question. I just want to know what age everyone started/stopped and their first session experience.
Yes, but you said that you realised that there's people here "from all different levels" so you were "curious" to know when we all started.
Anyway, sorry about that.
However, whenever someone asks me how long I've been playing I often feel that they are about to form some sort of judgement on my ability based on the length of time. In fact, it can make me nervous as I feel that I should be much better after all this time. So, I often feel obliged to qualify matters.
I'd prefer if they just said they enjoyed the music or told me it was a load of crap.
Learning to play an instrument has a lot in common with learning to speak a foreign language. You need time, motivation, dedication and a bit of talent. The point is that your progress is not linear.
OK so I first tried to play ITM 30 years ago. But there will be a lot of players better than me who have only been at it for 3-4 years. The time I started says more about who my musical heroes are. More importantly - I think I started to consider myself as a musician from the age of 13/14.
I didn't mean it to sound like that, sorry. Cool that you live in Musselburgh btw, my family has a house there(on bridgestreet) and I lived there for a year, great place.
Anyway I started playing guitar about 3 years ago, and my perception of accompanying changed when I had my first session next summer of that year and met up with a DADGAD guitarist. A year ago I took out a greek bouzouki from the attic of my grandparent's house in Dundee as had seen the Planxty DVD and wanted to play it the transition from DADGAD to GDAD bouzouki was pretty easy and I stuck to bouzouki so I liked it more, now I play both instrumentals and accompaniment on it and try to copy Donal Lunny as much as possible(not really, I'm trying to develop my own style).
Just up the road from me. Do they play or, at least, enjoy the music? There are a few sessions in Musselburgh and Portobello(not strictly Irish but a mix of songs and tunes) which they might enjoy.
Let's see I'm twenty now and I first started banging on a little keyboard (my mom wrote songs for me) when I was 4-5. Started formalized piano training at 6, violin at 9, switched to fiddle at 11. I picked up the mountain dulcimer around 9 or 10 just for fun and more seriously at 18. I picked up the hammer dulcimer around the age of 13 or 14, and the banjo around 18. My first specifically Irish music session came just this past weekend at 20 and some-odd months, but I've been playing in jam sessions since I was nine on various instruments.
Yikes,,,,almost 43 years.Guitar, fingerstyle tunes and backing. A little on mandolin and whistle but never in public! Started at 11 in 1963. First session 1976, Eagle Tavern NYC.I know they likely hated me, some still do, LOL!
I have been playing instruments and/or singing off and on for over four decades. I have been focusing on this style of music for a decade or so. I am a slow learner, however, so I still have lots of practicing to do.......
i started the piano, i think i was around 7, but i didn't like it, so i stopped very quickly and didn't paly music for 5 long years(i prefered to dance-classical, modern jazz, irish set dancing, flamenco, etc...)...
But as my father was a fiddle player, there were always a lot of musicians at home, therefore the urge to play music increased terribly for me! my father gave me a tin whistle and i started playing a few tunes on it. I was 9.
Then, i thought it would be quite fun if I could have a concert flute, i loved the sound and all the freaky things I could hear when a fluter played. In 1999(i was 11 then), my father(god bless him, lol) bought me a concert flute, and that's how i really became addicted to music.
I've been to sessions quite a lot of times since then, though i am still scared to death to play, but it's getting better(refer to a very recent discussion i submitted 4 days ago!lol).
Let's see - playing music (sax) from 1975 until about 1988 when I pawned my vintage selmer so my new wife and I could eat.
Started playing mandolin and tin whistle in 88, not seriously, and frittered away a good decade.
Decided to become serious about ITM in about 2001, bought a flute, and have been going to session since about that time. I just recently bought a tenor banjo.
I've also played around with piano and guitar for a bit in the past.
I started playing the whistle a year ago when I was 19. I had been playing flute for 3 years so it was't my first approach in music. I attempted to my first session a year after I started and It was wonderful!! I really enjoyed it!
GHB ~ 1985 to 1991, intensively. I picked up a few whistles somewhere in there as well.
Guitar/Electric bass since around 1990, fairly casually
Recorder, 1991-1995 in an early music group. Along with all sorts of weird capped reed instruments.
I had some extra cash lying aound last winter do to a weird circumstance involving my car. So pretty much on a lark I ordered an Irish flute. I went to my first session last february with a whistle. First tune I played was "Road to Lisdoonvarna." My flute arrived a week later; I took it to a slow session that evening and a "regular" session the week after that. I've been intensely hooked since then.
That's another interesting point, Dave. You've been playing the whistle and flute much longer than the mandolin. However, you should probably be able to play all the tunes you already learned on the whistle etc on the mandolin by now and certainly your repertoire will be much greater than someone who has only been playing the instrument for six years.
So "How long" doesn't really mean that much.
guitar since 1974-age 7 (classical-full size)
electric guitar since 1981
acoustic guitar since 1985
mandolin since 1989
Bouzuki since 1998
Fiddle since 2003
tenor banjo since earlier this year
First session in 1999 (bluegrass-old timey)
First trad session in 2001
1967 - started recorder
1969 - chucked recorder
1970 - started guitar
1971 - try harmonica. Run out of breath.
1974 - try whistle. Go to first session and find that 2 tunes are not really enough. Run out of breath
1975 - started playing mandolin
1982 - mandolin ability peaks and starts to decline
1983 - Inherited a tenor banjo in 1983 when someone left it behind after doing a runner on the rent. Put it in the loft
1992 - took banjo down from loft and put new strings on it when the other mandolin player in the band declined to switch to banjo.
1999 - changed banjo strings again.
I started guitar in 1971 (age 8)--using the Weavers' songbook and reprints from Sing Out. DADGAD only hit me about 1998.
Clawhammer banjo since 1973
Penny whistle 1974 (although I only play it now to annoy Crysania)
Fiddle, 1977
Mandolin, 1979
Tenor banjo, 1980, but only became obsessed about 1993.
I played in sessions and house parties from about 1973 through 1980. The first real sessions I went to were in Durham, NC in 1986-7. Then started back to sessions in 2001.
S'right JohnJ - when you start another instrument, you inevitably begin to transfer the tunes in your head onto the new instrument, so the learning process seems to happen much more quickly, leading to people saying "Gosh you're doing very well for someone who's only been playing (insert name of new instrument here) for 1 month / 1 week / 1 day (delete as appropriate).
I'll be 47 this coming January.
I started on piano when I was 7.
Harmonica and drums when I was 10.
5-string banjo and guitar at 13.
Mandolin and fiddle at 14.
Whistle at 43.
Flute and tenor banjo at 44.
I went to my first session somewhere around 1975.
But the bare facts don't tell half the story. I've played several different genres--rock, bluegrass, blues, old timey, Irish--and concentrated on guitar and 5-string banjo for years at a time, neglecting fiddle, which is my main instrument now. I also took long breaks from music to pursue other interests.
A medical condition held my progress back for many years. It's just been the last 2-3 years that the docs have figured out how to control the inflammation and pain in my hands and fingers, and the new-found freedom and agility has me shaking my head in disbelief at how easy some things come now that were nearly impossible in years past, no matter how I tried.
On the other hand, all those years of flatpicking guitar and mandolin have definitely given me a jumpstart on tenor banjo, at least in terms of being able to rattle out nearly every tune I know on fiddle. Instant repertoire. And the picked triplets are starting to feel almost natural, so I figure I've only got 10 more years to go to sound halfway respectable....
Harmonica – around 1955
Guitar – 1957
Fiddle – 1975
Took up several other instruments between 1976 and 1982
1987-2000 – mostly out of commission from injury
2000 – restarted guitar, still trying to restart fiddle, mostly abandoned other instruments
1976-1987 – played in lots of eclectic, mostly American, sessions
1982-1987 – played in lots of very small Irish parlor sessions (2 – 4 musicians)
Since 2000, I’ve played in maybe a half dozen “pure” Irish sessions
Since being away from playing ITM for so long, I’ve discovered that a lot of the tunes I played twenty-to-thirty years ago are now considered trite or overplayed, so I’m trying to learn a new repertoire and feeling very much like a beginner.
Been playing music since about 1960. Some form of traditional music from about 1966. Irish music since about 1975. First session about 1980 - so I was 24.
Just to prove there's always one - Been playing Guitar and Penny-whistle since 1970, but due to galloping agoraphobia and a loathing of Pubs, have never been to a session. (Well, maybe a couple in Sandy Bells, years ago...)
In 1963 I played a pile of cardboard boxes with two sticks as if they were drums and I was Dennis Wilson singing "I Get Around." When my mom got home she told me to stop making so much racket because it was giving her a headache... and to take those boxes back to the store.
I've been playing the harp for about 6/7 years now, Piano about 9 and piano accordion for 3. I'm 16. I started the whistle when I was 4(and a half!). Went to my first proper session (i.e. outwith my own comhaltas) when I was about 12.
I started the whistle when I was 4(and a half!) and haven't lookes back!
I officially started classical piano lessons at age 9. Before then I played around with the recorder, my grandma's hammer dulcimer, and a little electric keyboard and begged for piano lessons.
Between 13 and 14 I began begging for violin lessons. (a friend let me try her 3/4 and I fell in love.) Also, I really liked the sound of orchestras and fiddling was VERY intriguing.
Around 14 I heard my first harp and my grandparents managed to get one on loan for me.
I heard my first session around 14, but didn't really truly get the courage to join until this past summer.
I started classical violin at age five, more or less stopped playing at 18, *really * stopped playing at 28 when I sold my violins and bought a plucked psaltery; played said psaltery and nothing else for some years (actually, still do); began on harp at about age 39; resumed violin, now as a fiddle, at age 42. (Also had a year of piano lessons and some six or eight years of noodling on guitar in there, but never got serious with either instrument.) I'll shortly turn 45, so have been playing something or other for about 2 months short of forty years, but not always one thing and with various hiatuses.
I started attending house sessions about 18 months ago; I still don't attend pub sessions, and probably never will, as other than a bystander enjoying a few tunes. (Stage fright, and hating to be looked at. 12 years of classical orchestra was not good for me.)
1980 or so - took flutophone lessons from my grandpa
1984 - began learning the concert flute in school
1986 - began learning guitar on my own (with chorus books and chord charts)
1989 - began playing rhythm guitar in the high-school jazz band
1990 - discovered Andean wind instruments on a mission trip to Ecuador
1994 - discovered phenomenal celtic/rock band "Iona"
1997 - met my wife at a coffee house in Oklahoma and began playing with her as a guitarist at gigs
1997 - married my wife and formed a band
1999 - named our first child "Iona" after the band and the island
2000 - to - present - have been collecting, playing, building, and developing skill on various simple-system flutes (from kenas, six-hole cylindrical flutes, Andean pan-pipes of various sizes, etc.)
Never played in a traditional session, would love to hook up with musicians in my area (central Oklahoma) and learn more about Irish traditional music (and Andean folk music for that matter).
1971 - age 15 picked up Dad's acoustic guitar and attempted Stairway to Heaven ( a hit at the time) - haven't stopped playing guitar since - moving through classic rock, bluegrass, blues , jazz, etc and winding up in DADGAD playing ITM ( since 2000)
1983 - bought a cheap mando - still playing cheap mandos
2002 - bought a fiddle of a guy I was backing on guitar - totally hooked now - only play guitar now when people insist ( which most often occurs when I'm playing fiddle)
There was always a piano in our wee house. I got some lessons aged 5-6, from an elderly Miss Higgenbottom, but no sooner had they begun than my parents who didn't like the sound of me practicing (!) and on the advice of Ms H., who advised them that I was daydreaming..*Damn* you and your prolapse, Ms H..put it away, please..the horror, the horror... (6 y.o., fer fx ake ----- btw, I put Roisin [my girl] to violin lessons at around the same age, and watching this so-called teacher droning on about different major & minor myxolidian or whatever scales, and quavers this and strettos that, yeah, I reckon she did a healthy bit of daydreaming as well, to escape from all that inappropriate nonsense.)
Anyway back to me... lengthy hiatus followed filled by the boyhood pursuits of football, fighting, football and street games, then the other activities normally associated with teenhood.
Meanwhle, The Older Brother, who had, all by himself, worked out the playing of rock and roll piano to a respectable level, all of a sudden bought a guitar when he was 17, and made phenomenal and rapid progress. Within a short number of years having done his student course, he was now trying to go pro with a folky rock band. That lasted semi pro for a number of years. Anyway, some of it rubbed off on me. But mostly negatively. So he got pigeonholed as the "musical" one and me the "scientific" one. But I gleaned a few chord progressions and riffs, etc...now forgotten.
Although Drumchapel, like the rest of working class west of Scotland, was and still is, divided along similar sectarian lines as Northern Ireland, there was never sectarian violence outside of the Old Firm prerequisites. So one time, The Brother had borrowed a piano accordian from a friend. This happened to be around Christmas. We had an "Insurance Man" called Willie McBride who was from Donegal, came round to get his payment for his company. This time his face was flushed as he'd ta'en a few wee nips in the various households offering seasonal greetings...of a Saturday morning. He saw he box lying there and with his inimitable blather, asked if he could have a blast. Out came a stream of tunes, and we were all mesmerised, but though they were fast, they were just "Tunes".
I don't think I'd ever known the difference between a jig or a reel, apart from hearing the terms on the White Heather Club, the BBC's flagship trad music show in the 50's/60's...ermm..I'm being sarcastic at this point, you can tell surely?, or within the text of the frequent recitations of our National Bard, Robert Burns, until someone lent me Planxty's The Well Below the Valley. In certain Glesga Yoonie-type circles, it was the album of choice to accompany the furtive rolling of skins containing high quantities of Red Leb, or whatever, whereupon the assembled company would moan such statements of approbation (in a fake Kelvinside-cum-American-cum-Irish accent) as "Hey yeah man, that's a REALLY amazing album, man".
I thereafter took to tormenting the aforementioned Planxty advocates with my own newly learned brand of tin whistle playing. I have now made it an industry, which these days includes some other instruments of terror, the flute and button box. Tee-hee.
Aged 4, I began to make coherent noodlings on the piano, and was sent to my first lessons at 5.
Aged 8, I stopped lessons with my 3rd teacher, due to my unwillingness to practise.
Aged 9, I turned down free violin lessons at schiil in favour of private guitar lessons, with which I made very little prgress and gave up withon a few months.
Aged 13, after being given free reign over the piano for 5 years, I resumed lessons.
Aged 14, I was press-ganged by my piano teacher (also an accordion teacher) into learning piano accordion.
Aged 15, I took up the guitar again, making a little more progress. At 17, I got round to buying my own guitar.
Aged 18, I embarked upon a quest to discover 'folk music'.
Aged 19, I took up mandolin and whistle.
Aged 21, I gave up the whistle in favour of the mandolin, gave up the mandolin in favour of the guitar and started to focus on Irish traditional music.
Aged 22, I took up the mandolin again.
Aged 23, I took up the whistle again.
Aged 27, after a close-call with a circular saw, I shelved the mandolin and took up the harmonica. After a couple of weeks, I learnt to play the mandolin 3-fingered and gave up the harmonica.
Aged 29 and 11 months, I took up the fiddle.
Aged 31 and 10 months, I can play some tunes well enough on the fiddle to convinced non-trad-initiates that I can play.
I turn 32 in January.
Incidentally, Will Harmon is exactly 15 years older than me, and has been playing the mandolin 20 years longer than me. He started on the mandolin the year before I was born. Just some interesting observations, of no consequence whatsoever.
Whistle and Mandolin since 2003, Whistle has pretty mcuh become Flute and Mandolin will soon become Tenor Banjo as I am about to trade my Mandolin for a TB as I never play any more because it hurts my fingers too much because it is soo tight and I have large hands. My first session was about a year ago and I have only been to a Whistle gathering since but that will change in exactly a week there is a session in the town next to mine that just started up.
I do learn fast so for my relavite short time playing I am very good. I am able to play reels a full speed along with some of my favorite recordings. I have also tried other instruments but Flute, Whistle, and soon TB are my main.
1972 - started Flute ( silver ) and recorder
1973 - started soprano sax
1986? - started wooden flute and whistle
2005 - started shakey eggs ( at last I found the instrument which suited me best )
I must agree with John J here - it's all relative! I know mature folks who have 'owned' an instrument for nigh on 40 years but can still only play a handful of tunes - badly & I know young whippersnappers in their teens who are already showing off the sort of brilliant technique & ability that I will only ever be able to dream off.
Played guitar since 1971. Banjo since 1976. Fiddle since 1991. Now I play the fiddle. Started on guitar then banjo but won't go back. It's been since 1991.
The first Irish session I went to was about 1993, and we played publicly on St Patty's day 1996.
Right now I've pretty much got Irish contaminating my old time playing and old time contaminating the Irish.
I also agree with John's a,b,c,d.
I had started classical piano about 4-5 years ago, dropped it a year ago-now starting up again-but i do mostly billy joel or some ragtime or classical.
Then I took up Fiddle 1 1/2 years ago, but for the first half year-didnt do much-then I started up again.Now I know about 50 tunes. When I say that people freak out.
I started Irish Piano/Piano Acompianment about a little less than a year ago.
Now I compete and play in sessions a lot with both fiddle/piano.
WHat is very strange is that I can never remember anything-except music. I can remember exactly how of play all of my irish tunes, christmas tunes, and some classical tunes, and the lyrics of all the billy joel tunes. But I can never remember where I left my fiddle.
Been playing piano by ear since I was 2 in 1950 ; started lessons at 8 until I left school at 16 with Grade 6 (and still unable to play scales/arpeggios or sight read well)
Tried various other instruments over the years: guitar, banjo, mandolin....
Took up accordion at age of 35; English concertina at 40; Theremin at 55. Next project - cello if I survive the winter.
started tin whistle 11 years ago when i was 6. took up piano when i was 10 but had to give it up 2 yrs later when my teacher moved away. took up the fiddle at 11, banjo at 13, flute (for paddys day band purposes only!!!) at 14.....gave up on banjo and play just fiddle and whistle now aged 17!!! i took part in my first session during the summer and enjoyed every moment of it!!!
Theremin, ftpig? As in, "Far's the bin min?" "There min."
OK, I know it' s that woo woo thing in Good Vibrations that you wave your hands around. I've seen a styl-o-phone in a session but never a theremin. Where did you get it min?
It's a fact that you know you've been playing long enough when you start meeting people who've been playing half as long who are twice as good.
In 1980, I decided I wanted to play the concertina, but my parents found the idea rather embarrassing, or maybe they thought I was joking. In 1981, I begged them to let me learn the fiddle, but they refused, saying I was wasting my time. Finally, in 1985, I was able to sneak off to piano lessons that I didn't have to pay for, and they couldn't do a thing to stop me. By this time, I was eight years old already and had lost precious time, so the race was on. 1986, joined the school choir to study the dynamics of mob harmony, 1987 joined an all-male anglican church choir in order to test my theory that untempered testosterone would cause an unaccompanied vocal ensemble to go sharp quicker than a mixed group. After many months, I was eventually proved wrong, and the realisation that my life's work had failed led me to drop the piano. Months later, I was at my lowest ebb thus far... I allowed myself to be bullied into taking up the Euphonium. And so the dark days of brass tack began. At last. when I was taking part in a clandestine, off the books raid on a rebel militia camp, I stepped on a cymbal in their heavily mined orchestra pit, and the resulting explosion tore my euphonium to bits. I emerged unscathed, but after the shock had worn off, I realised my life was a lie, I couldn't go on like this. I would have to leave the brass section behind me... but where to go? I was 14 years old when I first laid eyes on the sassy, sexy flute player on the other side of the band... I vowed the first moment I saw her that one day, she would be mine. Unfortunately, all I got was her flute.
After various forays into orchestras, jazz bands and woodwind quintets, I eventually switched to Irish flute two years ago, and it's been downhill ever since!
for the record, pushing 35 odd years _starting with organ (at home) and classical guitar (at school), then pretty much self-taught acoustic, electric and bass guitars
and along the way touched on piano box, double bass, mandolin and percussive odds and ends _and still a bit shy on the vocals
How long have you been playing?
How long have you been playing?
I know there are people from all differant levels so i'm just curious how long everyone has been playing the music.
And also how old were you when you attended your first session and how was it?
Phil
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by ecidralla
Re: How long have you been playing?
Playing music - since 1985
Playing guitar - since 1993
Playing acoustic guitar - since 2004
First trad session - 2000, November (effectively I was 22 at that time). It was fun, even though very chaotic - it was the first session of NUIG Trad Music Society and all sorts of plonkers came in to make the racket. I didn't know anything about this music at that time, so I contributed greatly to the noise.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by EastPole
Re: How long have you been playing?
Started piano in 1944
Cello in 1950
Classical guitar in 1970
Fiddle in 2001
First trad session in summer of 2001 at The Duke of Cambridge (sadly now no longer in existence) in Bristol. Didn't attempt to play; just sat and listened in awe to the several fine musicians there. Didn't start playing in sessions for about a year.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by lazyhound
Re: How long have you been playing?
playing since i was 4, playing irish music since I was fourteen. (I was playing a bit of contra music before then, so i wasn't totally new to fiddle music, although i didn't really play much at all.) Attended my first session four years ago though, and have been really into the music since then.
First session -- slow session went well...i knew or picked up loads of tunes, either because i grew up listening to de danann and seamus connolly or because i grew up listening to contra music. the fast session afterwards was way beyond what i could do, so i listened, and decided to come back a year later, which i did.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by heth
Re: How long have you been playing?
How long(is a piece of string)? Unfortunately, the length of time you've been playing an instrument is meaningless for several reasons including
a) Some people are more talented than others
b) Some people practice or play less than others, either through choice or circumstance
c)Some people have chosen to play more or one instrument are more or less focused on each of these.
d) Some people have given up music and re-started. Again through choice or circumstance and, perhaps, they previously played a different style.
So, when this question is posed it is often done so that a judgement can be made on a player's ability or a player may boast "I've been doing this since....." or "I've only been playing a fortnight and I already know The Kesh jig"
and so on.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I started playing guitar in 1968, mandolin in 1981 and fiddle in 1983. However, I hardly touched the guitar between 1971 and 1979. As for the mandolin, I mostly just played chords until about 1984 when I was distracted until about 1991. As for the fiddle, I scraped out one or two tunes on that but it, thereafter, lay in a cupboard until 1991. As did the guitar, by the way!
It was late 1991 when I started going to the ALP classes in Edinburgh that I became really enthusiastic about playing again. However, as I said earlier, I've never been as focused as I should be on either instruments or styles of ttraditional music. Since then, I've also been playing Octave mandola and tenor banjo(aside from dabbling in a few other things) and like to play a variety of tunes from Scotland, Ireland and beyond. I mainly concentrate on mandolin and fiddle, though.
Re sessions. I first participated in these around 1983 when I "got away" with backing tunes on guitar and mandolin. I could play one or two tunes on the latter. However, I was soon distracted. Firstly by a woman
, then by drink when it all went wrong a few months later 
. By then, I'd gotten out of the habit of playing. Thankfully, I'm now back in the fold and have been for several years.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Back for a while
Re: How long have you been playing?
I played a bit of violin between 9yrs and 11yrs, but then sports took over. Picked up the guitar at 14, got into Irish music at 15, and fiddle at 17/18. Been noodling on other instruments since 16. Am 30.
S
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by snorre
Re: How long have you been playing?
I agree that the length of time someone has been playing can be a distraction. I agree with John's a, b, c and d.
Though if I can refer people to a discussion I started earlier:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/7959
it can have some relevance.
Though only if you are actually playing with someone. Here, in this strange collection of musicians with no music, I think it bears little relevance.
However, not something to hide: (41 now)
Mandolin aged 13 (I got into my dad's planxty albums. gave up when I got my bazooka)
Bazooka aged 16 (Gave up when the head fell of, about 15 years ago)
Fiddle aged 21 (I wanted to play the tunes)
Viola aged 35 (I think I have always played the viola in my head)
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: How long have you been playing?
Recorder at 6 with coloured notes (1958)
3/4 Fiddle at 7
Radio Choir at 8
First Session at 15 - well, Doncaster market place was a little decadent in the late 60s, more like Berlin - full of drag, dykes, you name it. They could all sing and I fell into pub piano for free beer and have never touched fiddle since. Singsongs were found in Irish-run pubs but ITM instrumental sessions were a little rare then, but by the mid 1970s we had started one.
I took up PA, joined a band at 20 and have never looked back since.
I have had lots of pupils but I am still learning.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: How long have you been playing?
We had sessions at our house for as long as I can remember and I started playing the box and join in as soon as I was old enough to hold it!!!
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by mikemcdaid
Re: How long have you been playing?
John, i'm not asking the question "how good are you?", I would have probably mentioned these things If that was the question. I just want to know what age everyone started/stopped and their first session experience.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by ecidralla
Re: How long have you been playing?
Whistle and flute at the Exile of Erin, Manchester, in 1972.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by LastToFinish
Re: How long have you been playing?
Yes, but you said that you realised that there's people here "from all different levels" so you were "curious" to know when we all started.
Anyway, sorry about that.
However, whenever someone asks me how long I've been playing I often feel that they are about to form some sort of judgement on my ability based on the length of time. In fact, it can make me nervous as I feel that I should be much better after all this time. So, I often feel obliged to qualify matters.
I'd prefer if they just said they enjoyed the music or told me it was a load of crap.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Back for a while
Re: How long have you been playing?
Learning to play an instrument has a lot in common with learning to speak a foreign language. You need time, motivation, dedication and a bit of talent. The point is that your progress is not linear.
OK so I first tried to play ITM 30 years ago. But there will be a lot of players better than me who have only been at it for 3-4 years. The time I started says more about who my musical heroes are. More importantly - I think I started to consider myself as a musician from the age of 13/14.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by kuec
Re: How long have you been playing?
I didn't mean it to sound like that, sorry. Cool that you live in Musselburgh btw, my family has a house there(on bridgestreet) and I lived there for a year, great place.
Anyway I started playing guitar about 3 years ago, and my perception of accompanying changed when I had my first session next summer of that year and met up with a DADGAD guitarist. A year ago I took out a greek bouzouki from the attic of my grandparent's house in Dundee as had seen the Planxty DVD and wanted to play it the transition from DADGAD to GDAD bouzouki was pretty easy and I stuck to bouzouki so I liked it more, now I play both instrumentals and accompaniment on it and try to copy Donal Lunny as much as possible(not really, I'm trying to develop my own style).
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by ecidralla
Re: How long have you been playing?
Just up the road from me. Do they play or, at least, enjoy the music? There are a few sessions in Musselburgh and Portobello(not strictly Irish but a mix of songs and tunes) which they might enjoy.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Back for a while
Re: How long have you been playing?
Let's see I'm twenty now and I first started banging on a little keyboard (my mom wrote songs for me) when I was 4-5. Started formalized piano training at 6, violin at 9, switched to fiddle at 11. I picked up the mountain dulcimer around 9 or 10 just for fun and more seriously at 18. I picked up the hammer dulcimer around the age of 13 or 14, and the banjo around 18. My first specifically Irish music session came just this past weekend at 20 and some-odd months, but I've been playing in jam sessions since I was nine on various instruments.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by musicfan
Re: How long have you been playing?
Yikes,,,,almost 43 years.Guitar, fingerstyle tunes and backing. A little on mandolin and whistle but never in public! Started at 11 in 1963. First session 1976, Eagle Tavern NYC.I know they likely hated me, some still do, LOL!
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by irisnevins
Re: How long have you been playing?
Long enough that I should be better than I am.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Ottery
Re: How long have you been playing?
I have been playing instruments and/or singing off and on for over four decades. I have been focusing on this style of music for a decade or so. I am a slow learner, however, so I still have lots of practicing to do.......
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: How long have you been playing?
i started the piano, i think i was around 7, but i didn't like it, so i stopped very quickly and didn't paly music for 5 long years(i prefered to dance-classical, modern jazz, irish set dancing, flamenco, etc...)...
But as my father was a fiddle player, there were always a lot of musicians at home, therefore the urge to play music increased terribly for me! my father gave me a tin whistle and i started playing a few tunes on it. I was 9.
Then, i thought it would be quite fun if I could have a concert flute, i loved the sound and all the freaky things I could hear when a fluter played. In 1999(i was 11 then), my father(god bless him, lol) bought me a concert flute, and that's how i really became addicted to music.
I've been to sessions quite a lot of times since then, though i am still scared to death to play, but it's getting better(refer to a very recent discussion i submitted 4 days ago!lol).
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by lucie
Re: How long have you been playing?
Let's see - playing music (sax) from 1975 until about 1988 when I pawned my vintage selmer
so my new wife and I could eat.
Started playing mandolin and tin whistle in 88, not seriously, and frittered away a good decade.
Decided to become serious about ITM in about 2001, bought a flute, and have been going to session since about that time. I just recently bought a tenor banjo.
I've also played around with piano and guitar for a bit in the past.
Eric
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Jayhawk
Re: How long have you been playing?
I started playing the whistle a year ago when I was 19. I had been playing flute for 3 years so it was't my first approach in music. I attempted to my first session a year after I started and It was wonderful!! I really enjoyed it!
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Matt_Celta
Re: How long have you been playing?
GHB ~ 1985 to 1991, intensively. I picked up a few whistles somewhere in there as well.
Guitar/Electric bass since around 1990, fairly casually
Recorder, 1991-1995 in an early music group. Along with all sorts of weird capped reed instruments.
I had some extra cash lying aound last winter do to a weird circumstance involving my car. So pretty much on a lark I ordered an Irish flute. I went to my first session last february with a whistle. First tune I played was "Road to Lisdoonvarna." My flute arrived a week later; I took it to a slow session that evening and a "regular" session the week after that. I've been intensely hooked since then.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: How long have you been playing?
Whistle 20 years 1 month 11 days.
Flute 9 years 6 months 27 days.
Mandolin 6 years 3 months 2 days.
Banjolin 5 years 6 months 11 days.
I was 25 when I first went to the session I currently go to.
That was about 22 years ago.
The session was cold - both in temperature and in nature.
Why do you want to know?
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: How long have you been playing?
That's another interesting point, Dave. You've been playing the whistle and flute much longer than the mandolin. However, you should probably be able to play all the tunes you already learned on the whistle etc on the mandolin by now and certainly your repertoire will be much greater than someone who has only been playing the instrument for six years.
So "How long" doesn't really mean that much.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Back for a while
Re: How long have you been playing?
guitar since 1974-age 7 (classical-full size)
electric guitar since 1981
acoustic guitar since 1985
mandolin since 1989
Bouzuki since 1998
Fiddle since 2003
tenor banjo since earlier this year
First session in 1999 (bluegrass-old timey)
First trad session in 2001
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by zoukmike
Re: How long have you been playing?
I've been playing music for about 22 years. Been playing Irish music (penny whistle) for 2 1/2, bodhran for about a year or so.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Crysania
Re: How long have you been playing?
1967 - started recorder
1969 - chucked recorder
1970 - started guitar
1971 - try harmonica. Run out of breath.
1974 - try whistle. Go to first session and find that 2 tunes are not really enough. Run out of breath
1975 - started playing mandolin
1982 - mandolin ability peaks and starts to decline
1983 - Inherited a tenor banjo in 1983 when someone left it behind after doing a runner on the rent. Put it in the loft
1992 - took banjo down from loft and put new strings on it when the other mandolin player in the band declined to switch to banjo.
1999 - changed banjo strings again.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Bren
Re: How long have you been playing?
I started guitar in 1971 (age 8)--using the Weavers' songbook and reprints from Sing Out. DADGAD only hit me about 1998.
Clawhammer banjo since 1973
Penny whistle 1974 (although I only play it now to annoy Crysania)
Fiddle, 1977
Mandolin, 1979
Tenor banjo, 1980, but only became obsessed about 1993.
I played in sessions and house parties from about 1973 through 1980. The first real sessions I went to were in Durham, NC in 1986-7. Then started back to sessions in 2001.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by dwdeacon
Re: How long have you been playing?
S'right JohnJ - when you start another instrument, you inevitably begin to transfer the tunes in your head onto the new instrument, so the learning process seems to happen much more quickly, leading to people saying "Gosh you're doing very well for someone who's only been playing (insert name of new instrument here) for 1 month / 1 week / 1 day (delete as appropriate).
Bren - you're due a string change next year then.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: How long have you been playing?
I'll be 47 this coming January.
I started on piano when I was 7.
Harmonica and drums when I was 10.
5-string banjo and guitar at 13.
Mandolin and fiddle at 14.
Whistle at 43.
Flute and tenor banjo at 44.
I went to my first session somewhere around 1975.
But the bare facts don't tell half the story. I've played several different genres--rock, bluegrass, blues, old timey, Irish--and concentrated on guitar and 5-string banjo for years at a time, neglecting fiddle, which is my main instrument now. I also took long breaks from music to pursue other interests.
A medical condition held my progress back for many years. It's just been the last 2-3 years that the docs have figured out how to control the inflammation and pain in my hands and fingers, and the new-found freedom and agility has me shaking my head in disbelief at how easy some things come now that were nearly impossible in years past, no matter how I tried.
On the other hand, all those years of flatpicking guitar and mandolin have definitely given me a jumpstart on tenor banjo, at least in terms of being able to rattle out nearly every tune I know on fiddle. Instant repertoire. And the picked triplets are starting to feel almost natural, so I figure I've only got 10 more years to go to sound halfway respectable....
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: How long have you been playing?
Harmonica – around 1955
Guitar – 1957
Fiddle – 1975
Took up several other instruments between 1976 and 1982
1987-2000 – mostly out of commission from injury
2000 – restarted guitar, still trying to restart fiddle, mostly abandoned other instruments
1976-1987 – played in lots of eclectic, mostly American, sessions
1982-1987 – played in lots of very small Irish parlor sessions (2 – 4 musicians)
Since 2000, I’ve played in maybe a half dozen “pure” Irish sessions
Since being away from playing ITM for so long, I’ve discovered that a lot of the tunes I played twenty-to-thirty years ago are now considered trite or overplayed, so I’m trying to learn a new repertoire and feeling very much like a beginner.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: How long have you been playing?
Been playing music since about 1960. Some form of traditional music from about 1966. Irish music since about 1975. First session about 1980 - so I was 24.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by kris
Re: How long have you been playing?
Just to prove there's always one - Been playing Guitar and Penny-whistle since 1970, but due to galloping agoraphobia and a loathing of Pubs, have never been to a session. (Well, maybe a couple in Sandy Bells, years ago...)
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: How long have you been playing?
In 1963 I played a pile of cardboard boxes with two sticks as if they were drums and I was Dennis Wilson singing "I Get Around." When my mom got home she told me to stop making so much racket because it was giving her a headache... and to take those boxes back to the store.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: How long have you been playing?
I've been playing the harp for about 6/7 years now, Piano about 9 and piano accordion for 3. I'm 16. I started the whistle when I was 4(and a half!). Went to my first proper session (i.e. outwith my own comhaltas) when I was about 12.
I started the whistle when I was 4(and a half!) and haven't lookes back!
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Rosh
Re: How long have you been playing?
I officially started classical piano lessons at age 9. Before then I played around with the recorder, my grandma's hammer dulcimer, and a little electric keyboard and begged for piano lessons.
Between 13 and 14 I began begging for violin lessons. (a friend let me try her 3/4 and I fell in love.) Also, I really liked the sound of orchestras and fiddling was VERY intriguing.
Around 14 I heard my first harp and my grandparents managed to get one on loan for me.
I heard my first session around 14, but didn't really truly get the courage to join until this past summer.
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by TJ
Re: How long have you been playing?
I started classical violin at age five, more or less stopped playing at 18, *really * stopped playing at 28 when I sold my violins and bought a plucked psaltery; played said psaltery and nothing else for some years (actually, still do); began on harp at about age 39; resumed violin, now as a fiddle, at age 42. (Also had a year of piano lessons and some six or eight years of noodling on guitar in there, but never got serious with either instrument.) I'll shortly turn 45, so have been playing something or other for about 2 months short of forty years, but not always one thing and with various hiatuses.
I started attending house sessions about 18 months ago; I still don't attend pub sessions, and probably never will, as other than a bystander enjoying a few tunes. (Stage fright, and hating to be looked at. 12 years of classical orchestra was not good for me.)
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by sara g
Re: How long have you been playing?
1980 or so - took flutophone lessons from my grandpa
1984 - began learning the concert flute in school
1986 - began learning guitar on my own (with chorus books and chord charts)
1989 - began playing rhythm guitar in the high-school jazz band
1990 - discovered Andean wind instruments on a mission trip to Ecuador
1994 - discovered phenomenal celtic/rock band "Iona"
1997 - met my wife at a coffee house in Oklahoma and began playing with her as a guitarist at gigs
1997 - married my wife and formed a band
1999 - named our first child "Iona" after the band and the island
2000 - to - present - have been collecting, playing, building, and developing skill on various simple-system flutes (from kenas, six-hole cylindrical flutes, Andean pan-pipes of various sizes, etc.)
Never played in a traditional session, would love to hook up with musicians in my area (central Oklahoma) and learn more about Irish traditional music (and Andean folk music for that matter).
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by jasonlburnfield
Re: How long have you been playing?
Phew this will test the memory!
1971 - age 15 picked up Dad's acoustic guitar and attempted Stairway to Heaven ( a hit at the time) - haven't stopped playing guitar since - moving through classic rock, bluegrass, blues , jazz, etc and winding up in DADGAD playing ITM ( since 2000)
1983 - bought a cheap mando - still playing cheap mandos
2002 - bought a fiddle of a guy I was backing on guitar - totally hooked now - only play guitar now when people insist ( which most often occurs when I'm playing fiddle)
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by geoffmc
Re: How long have you been playing?
There was always a piano in our wee house. I got some lessons aged 5-6, from an elderly Miss Higgenbottom, but no sooner had they begun than my parents who didn't like the sound of me practicing (!) and on the advice of Ms H., who advised them that I was daydreaming..*Damn* you and your prolapse, Ms H..put it away, please..the horror, the horror... (6 y.o., fer fx ake ----- btw, I put Roisin [my girl] to violin lessons at around the same age, and watching this so-called teacher droning on about different major & minor myxolidian or whatever scales, and quavers this and strettos that, yeah, I reckon she did a healthy bit of daydreaming as well, to escape from all that inappropriate nonsense.)
Anyway back to me... lengthy hiatus followed filled by the boyhood pursuits of football, fighting, football and street games, then the other activities normally associated with teenhood.
Meanwhle, The Older Brother, who had, all by himself, worked out the playing of rock and roll piano to a respectable level, all of a sudden bought a guitar when he was 17, and made phenomenal and rapid progress. Within a short number of years having done his student course, he was now trying to go pro with a folky rock band. That lasted semi pro for a number of years. Anyway, some of it rubbed off on me. But mostly negatively. So he got pigeonholed as the "musical" one and me the "scientific" one. But I gleaned a few chord progressions and riffs, etc...now forgotten.
Although Drumchapel, like the rest of working class west of Scotland, was and still is, divided along similar sectarian lines as Northern Ireland, there was never sectarian violence outside of the Old Firm prerequisites. So one time, The Brother had borrowed a piano accordian from a friend. This happened to be around Christmas. We had an "Insurance Man" called Willie McBride who was from Donegal, came round to get his payment for his company. This time his face was flushed as he'd ta'en a few wee nips in the various households offering seasonal greetings...of a Saturday morning. He saw he box lying there and with his inimitable blather, asked if he could have a blast. Out came a stream of tunes, and we were all mesmerised, but though they were fast, they were just "Tunes".
I don't think I'd ever known the difference between a jig or a reel, apart from hearing the terms on the White Heather Club, the BBC's flagship trad music show in the 50's/60's...ermm..I'm being sarcastic at this point, you can tell surely?, or within the text of the frequent recitations of our National Bard, Robert Burns, until someone lent me Planxty's The Well Below the Valley. In certain Glesga Yoonie-type circles, it was the album of choice to accompany the furtive rolling of skins containing high quantities of Red Leb, or whatever, whereupon the assembled company would moan such statements of approbation (in a fake Kelvinside-cum-American-cum-Irish accent) as "Hey yeah man, that's a REALLY amazing album, man".
I thereafter took to tormenting the aforementioned Planxty advocates with my own newly learned brand of tin whistle playing. I have now made it an industry, which these days includes some other instruments of terror, the flute and button box. Tee-hee.
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by Nick Splease
Re: How long have you been playing?
Aged 4, I began to make coherent noodlings on the piano, and was sent to my first lessons at 5.
Aged 8, I stopped lessons with my 3rd teacher, due to my unwillingness to practise.
Aged 9, I turned down free violin lessons at schiil in favour of private guitar lessons, with which I made very little prgress and gave up withon a few months.
Aged 13, after being given free reign over the piano for 5 years, I resumed lessons.
Aged 14, I was press-ganged by my piano teacher (also an accordion teacher) into learning piano accordion.
Aged 15, I took up the guitar again, making a little more progress. At 17, I got round to buying my own guitar.
Aged 18, I embarked upon a quest to discover 'folk music'.
Aged 19, I took up mandolin and whistle.
Aged 21, I gave up the whistle in favour of the mandolin, gave up the mandolin in favour of the guitar and started to focus on Irish traditional music.
Aged 22, I took up the mandolin again.
Aged 23, I took up the whistle again.
Aged 27, after a close-call with a circular saw, I shelved the mandolin and took up the harmonica. After a couple of weeks, I learnt to play the mandolin 3-fingered and gave up the harmonica.
Aged 29 and 11 months, I took up the fiddle.
Aged 31 and 10 months, I can play some tunes well enough on the fiddle to convinced non-trad-initiates that I can play.
I turn 32 in January.
Incidentally, Will Harmon is exactly 15 years older than me, and has been playing the mandolin 20 years longer than me. He started on the mandolin the year before I was born. Just some interesting observations, of no consequence whatsoever.
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: How long have you been playing?
Whistle and Mandolin since 2003, Whistle has pretty mcuh become Flute and Mandolin will soon become Tenor Banjo as I am about to trade my Mandolin for a TB as I never play any more because it hurts my fingers too much because it is soo tight and I have large hands. My first session was about a year ago and I have only been to a Whistle gathering since but that will change in exactly a week there is a session in the town next to mine that just started up.
I do learn fast so for my relavite short time playing I am very good. I am able to play reels a full speed along with some of my favorite recordings. I have also tried other instruments but Flute, Whistle, and soon TB are my main.
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: How long have you been playing?
1972 - started Flute ( silver ) and recorder
1973 - started soprano sax
1986? - started wooden flute and whistle
2005 - started shakey eggs ( at last I found the instrument which suited me best )
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by gian marco
Re: How long have you been playing?
I must agree with John J here - it's all relative! I know mature folks who have 'owned' an instrument for nigh on 40 years but can still only play a handful of tunes - badly & I know young whippersnappers in their teens who are already showing off the sort of brilliant technique & ability that I will only ever be able to dream off.
So - Age / smage - it don't matter how long!
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: How long have you been playing?
P.S. MG - I'm convinced everyone else wishes I just playerd 'my' music in my head!
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: How long have you been playing?
Like some others, long enough so that I should be better than I am!
Trombone from age 10-14
Guitar from 16 to a few years ago
whistle since 1997
flute since 1998
fiddle since 1999
Age 32 now
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by meemtp
Played guitar since 1971. Banjo since 1976. Fiddle since 1991. Now I play the fiddle. Started on guitar then banjo but won't go back. It's been since 1991.
The first Irish session I went to was about 1993, and we played publicly on St Patty's day 1996.
Right now I've pretty much got Irish contaminating my old time playing and old time contaminating the Irish.
-dogma
# Posted on November 20th 2005 by dogmageek
Re: How long have you been playing?
The first music I ever played- the Monday after the Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show. I was not quite 13 and Dad brought home a guitar.
First ITM and session- this past summer (age 54)
# Posted on November 20th 2005 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: How long have you been playing?
I also agree with John's a,b,c,d.
or some ragtime or classical.
I had started classical piano about 4-5 years ago, dropped it a year ago-now starting up again-but i do mostly billy joel
Then I took up Fiddle 1 1/2 years ago, but for the first half year-didnt do much-then I started up again.Now I know about 50 tunes. When I say that people freak out.
I started Irish Piano/Piano Acompianment about a little less than a year ago.
Now I compete and play in sessions a lot with both fiddle/piano.
WHat is very strange is that I can never remember anything-except music. I can remember exactly how of play all of my irish tunes, christmas tunes, and some classical tunes, and the lyrics of all the billy joel tunes. But I can never remember where I left my fiddle.
# Posted on November 21st 2005 by CELTICCHEF83
Re: How long have you been playing?
Been playing piano by ear since I was 2 in 1950 ; started lessons at 8 until I left school at 16 with Grade 6 (and still unable to play scales/arpeggios or sight read well)
Tried various other instruments over the years: guitar, banjo, mandolin....
Took up accordion at age of 35; English concertina at 40; Theremin at 55. Next project - cello if I survive the winter.
# Posted on November 21st 2005 by flying tigerpig
Re: How long have you been playing?
started tin whistle 11 years ago when i was 6. took up piano when i was 10 but had to give it up 2 yrs later when my teacher moved away. took up the fiddle at 11, banjo at 13, flute (for paddys day band purposes only!!!) at 14.....gave up on banjo and play just fiddle and whistle now aged 17!!! i took part in my first session during the summer and enjoyed every moment of it!!!
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by siobhánmc
Re: How long have you been playing?
long enough
but not as long enough
jesus, it could be even longer . . .
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by lisaniska
Re: How long have you been playing?
How refreshing to read Lisaniska's contribution. Made me feel foolish for bragging along with everybody else!
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by flying tigerpig
Re: How long have you been playing?
Usually when people ask that question I say
"Oh about 30 minutes...."
I started playing fiddle in 1970, and have been trying to quit ever since.
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: How long have you been playing?
Theremin, ftpig? As in, "Far's the bin min?" "There min."
OK, I know it' s that woo woo thing in Good Vibrations that you wave your hands around. I've seen a styl-o-phone in a session but never a theremin. Where did you get it min?
It's a fact that you know you've been playing long enough when you start meeting people who've been playing half as long who are twice as good.
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by Bren
Re: How long have you been playing?
In 1980, I decided I wanted to play the concertina, but my parents found the idea rather embarrassing, or maybe they thought I was joking. In 1981, I begged them to let me learn the fiddle, but they refused, saying I was wasting my time. Finally, in 1985, I was able to sneak off to piano lessons that I didn't have to pay for, and they couldn't do a thing to stop me. By this time, I was eight years old already and had lost precious time, so the race was on. 1986, joined the school choir to study the dynamics of mob harmony, 1987 joined an all-male anglican church choir in order to test my theory that untempered testosterone would cause an unaccompanied vocal ensemble to go sharp quicker than a mixed group. After many months, I was eventually proved wrong, and the realisation that my life's work had failed led me to drop the piano. Months later, I was at my lowest ebb thus far... I allowed myself to be bullied into taking up the Euphonium. And so the dark days of brass tack began. At last. when I was taking part in a clandestine, off the books raid on a rebel militia camp, I stepped on a cymbal in their heavily mined orchestra pit, and the resulting explosion tore my euphonium to bits. I emerged unscathed, but after the shock had worn off, I realised my life was a lie, I couldn't go on like this. I would have to leave the brass section behind me... but where to go? I was 14 years old when I first laid eyes on the sassy, sexy flute player on the other side of the band... I vowed the first moment I saw her that one day, she would be mine. Unfortunately, all I got was her flute.
After various forays into orchestras, jazz bands and woodwind quintets, I eventually switched to Irish flute two years ago, and it's been downhill ever since!
# Posted on November 22nd 2005 by Q
Re: How long have you been playing?
for the record, pushing 35 odd years _starting with organ (at home) and classical guitar (at school), then pretty much self-taught acoustic, electric and bass guitars
and along the way touched on piano box, double bass, mandolin and percussive odds and ends _and still a bit shy on the vocals
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by lisaniska