Musical Experiences (part one)
Okay, since Paradisacorbasi is interested, here be a post about my musical experience (or lack thereof).
I come from a family of musicians. My Grandfather was a professional piano tuner, and was in a band, so Mom grew up with a LOT of musical instruments in the house. (Consequentially, up until about 5 years before he died, Mom had never seen her father in jeans, but had seen him go fishing in old tuxedo pants. XD ) Mom actually remembers having to do a report for grade school on the subject of how many instruments they had in the house. At one point, there we 8 pianos, 2 bass fiddles, 4 violins, one viola, a flute, percussion sticks, cow bells, a ukulele, and various others that totaled about 48. Her teacher, thinking she was exaggerating, called home, and Grandma thought she'd actually missed a few. O_o
So, of course Mom was forbidden from going into the musical fields when she went into college. 9.9 Regardless of this, she does play - Flute, Piccolo, Clarinet, Guitar, and Piano. She was in the band at school, all the way up through high school, if not into college. So, of course she would have us learn how to play at least one instrument each ("we" being myself and my older brother).
Since our grade school offered lessons in musical instrument starting in fourth grade (no idea why fourth grade was the requirement), we were welcome to apply for it.
My brother started his musical experience with Suzuki Piano lessons; we actually have some of the books for this, still. I can remember mom driving us late at night out to her friend's house, and being kinda bored while he had his lesson. I think I was 3-4 years old; maybe 2. This would have put my brother at around 5 or 6. Alas, no-one asked me if I was interested in learning it, so I didn't learn that method. My brother had enough a few years later, though, when he suddenly yelled, "get me away from this thing!" ^^ I don't believe I was there, since I don't actually remember it. The lessons did come in handy, though - years later, when we had Nintendo, my brother amused himself by figuring out how to play some of the music on the piano. He did the same for the Ultima games or the computer. :)
When he reached fourth grade, my brother elected to learn Trombone. He thought the slide portion of it was great fun, so hey~. :) And of course, in typical brother fashion, he had fun with it - annoying me. For those who don't know, having a Trombone blasting in your ear from less than 4 feet away, at high volume? Hurts. A LOT. I don't know how much those episodes contributed to my hearing loss, but it's likely that got a head start on the rock n' roll. :j
When my time came about, I was given a form on which to write 3 choices for what I wanted to learn. Since Mom played Flute (and Piano and Guitar weren't options, as far as I knew), I had that as my first choice, Clarinet as my second choice, and Trumpet as my third - and I know why I selected Trumpet.
When I was a kid, we had a VHS copy of a series of short films called "Disney's Best." One of the shorts on this video was the 1953 "Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom," which featured a class of birds taught by an Owl. And the subject of the day was musical instruments, and how they came about. And Trumpet was pretty neat. (For those who may never have seen this, [url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjHrmmFIErY'] it's on Youtube.[/url]) This is actually my favorite short - doesn't hurt that its in verse. ;) (This short is also on Fantasia 2000 special features version - alas, I do not have this, and cannot find it. AFAIK, it's gone back into the vault already. :( )
Anyway, those were my selections - as it turned out, I was placed on trumpet for a simple reason: all the other girls who'd signed up wanted to only do either Flute or Clarinet; there were about 6-8 of each already. So, I learned Trumpet. And got back at my older brother in the same method he used to bug me with it. ;) Mutual hearing loss for the win? O_o
Now, there are both good things and bad things with being taught in a large group like we were - for one, you get used to having other musicians playing with you, and can find your cues rather well. Each section did get individual attention, of course - but not enough, looking back on it, to really be useful. I can play music, sure; [i]reading[/i] sheet music? Not so much. I know the basic values - whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, etc, but have trouble getting the timing right, sometimes. And, it's really helpful to me if I can listen to a piece prior to having to start learning it.
Regardless of this, though, I played my trumpet on up through high school. We had band in high school - specifically, marching band. We learned the music, of course, and we also learned how to march properly - which is to say, without bouncing up and down, like more people walk without realizing it. We also learned things like how to take corners, that kind of thing. Our instructor, Pat Coffee (we often thought it would be amusing if someone made a typo for our scheduled and had it read "Coffee, Pot," but it never happened), actually was ambitious enough to have us enter competitions. (My brother had to put up with his predecessor; this was a man who played guitar, and was into rock and roll and such - and tried getting students who had grown up playing classical concert band style to play rock tunes. Needless to say, this didn't work out very well. I find it ironic that this man started at my school, went to our high school, and then back to the grade school we were at.)
There are a few things that you learn about your instrument while doing marching band. For one thing, playing during the winter in a outdoor parade can wreak havoc on your instrument - the finish on my Trumpet is cracked and crazed from the combination of cold and vibration. I have not been able to get this repaired yet, unfortunately. Then again, appearance (in this case) doesn't affect how the instrument sounds, so~.
Now, teacher-wise, I think my best teacher was one called Woody. He was short, slightly balding, and had side burns that turned into his beard and mustache. He was the first one that suggested a slightly larger mouth piece for my Trumpet, as around 7th grade I started having trouble playing. Fuller lips will do that, with brass instruments. He also taught me how to take the instrument apart for cleaning, and how to properly tune it. I liked him. When I was still in grade school, I happened to see a stuffed beaver that looked a lot like him, right down to the expression. Needless to say, I had to have it, and I named it Woody. I think it's up in the storage closet with some of my other toys. :)
There's only one problem with a musical family; there's bound to be someone who is not musical. This would be my Dad. He wasn't fond of hearing us play, well or not. I had a tendency to either play with the window open, play outside, or use a mute. A mute is a cone that fits inside the bell of a brass instrument, and serves to muffle the sound. I got used to not being able to practice in high school regardless of the mute, though. :( Bleh.
Now, there's also something important to mention, here. I may not read sheet music well, but I kept buying sheet music, both in grade school and high school, simply so I could play songs that I'd heard and like. I still have these pieces of sheet music. Pieces include "Somewhere Out There," from "An American Tale," "Rainbow Connection," from "The Muppet Movie," and "Simple Gifts." And I still tend to pick up music books, if they have enough songs that I'm interested in. When I was in Japan, in Fall of 2000, I actively decided to look for band's sheet music books that I could not find at home - Japan is a few years behind America in this regard, so I looked. And succeeded. I have sheet music books for Journey and Heart, which, AFAIK, are still not printed in the US at the moment. My brother, who started playing music before I did, did not keep up with it. To the extent that [i]he can no longer read sheet music[/i]. So, if you don't keep up with it, just like anything else, the skills will fade over time.
I'll be posting more on this topic later, but for now, have to pick up said brother from work. :)
I come from a family of musicians. My Grandfather was a professional piano tuner, and was in a band, so Mom grew up with a LOT of musical instruments in the house. (Consequentially, up until about 5 years before he died, Mom had never seen her father in jeans, but had seen him go fishing in old tuxedo pants. XD ) Mom actually remembers having to do a report for grade school on the subject of how many instruments they had in the house. At one point, there we 8 pianos, 2 bass fiddles, 4 violins, one viola, a flute, percussion sticks, cow bells, a ukulele, and various others that totaled about 48. Her teacher, thinking she was exaggerating, called home, and Grandma thought she'd actually missed a few. O_o
So, of course Mom was forbidden from going into the musical fields when she went into college. 9.9 Regardless of this, she does play - Flute, Piccolo, Clarinet, Guitar, and Piano. She was in the band at school, all the way up through high school, if not into college. So, of course she would have us learn how to play at least one instrument each ("we" being myself and my older brother).
Since our grade school offered lessons in musical instrument starting in fourth grade (no idea why fourth grade was the requirement), we were welcome to apply for it.
My brother started his musical experience with Suzuki Piano lessons; we actually have some of the books for this, still. I can remember mom driving us late at night out to her friend's house, and being kinda bored while he had his lesson. I think I was 3-4 years old; maybe 2. This would have put my brother at around 5 or 6. Alas, no-one asked me if I was interested in learning it, so I didn't learn that method. My brother had enough a few years later, though, when he suddenly yelled, "get me away from this thing!" ^^ I don't believe I was there, since I don't actually remember it. The lessons did come in handy, though - years later, when we had Nintendo, my brother amused himself by figuring out how to play some of the music on the piano. He did the same for the Ultima games or the computer. :)
When he reached fourth grade, my brother elected to learn Trombone. He thought the slide portion of it was great fun, so hey~. :) And of course, in typical brother fashion, he had fun with it - annoying me. For those who don't know, having a Trombone blasting in your ear from less than 4 feet away, at high volume? Hurts. A LOT. I don't know how much those episodes contributed to my hearing loss, but it's likely that got a head start on the rock n' roll. :j
When my time came about, I was given a form on which to write 3 choices for what I wanted to learn. Since Mom played Flute (and Piano and Guitar weren't options, as far as I knew), I had that as my first choice, Clarinet as my second choice, and Trumpet as my third - and I know why I selected Trumpet.
When I was a kid, we had a VHS copy of a series of short films called "Disney's Best." One of the shorts on this video was the 1953 "Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom," which featured a class of birds taught by an Owl. And the subject of the day was musical instruments, and how they came about. And Trumpet was pretty neat. (For those who may never have seen this, [url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjHrmmFIErY'] it's on Youtube.[/url]) This is actually my favorite short - doesn't hurt that its in verse. ;) (This short is also on Fantasia 2000 special features version - alas, I do not have this, and cannot find it. AFAIK, it's gone back into the vault already. :( )
Anyway, those were my selections - as it turned out, I was placed on trumpet for a simple reason: all the other girls who'd signed up wanted to only do either Flute or Clarinet; there were about 6-8 of each already. So, I learned Trumpet. And got back at my older brother in the same method he used to bug me with it. ;) Mutual hearing loss for the win? O_o
Now, there are both good things and bad things with being taught in a large group like we were - for one, you get used to having other musicians playing with you, and can find your cues rather well. Each section did get individual attention, of course - but not enough, looking back on it, to really be useful. I can play music, sure; [i]reading[/i] sheet music? Not so much. I know the basic values - whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, etc, but have trouble getting the timing right, sometimes. And, it's really helpful to me if I can listen to a piece prior to having to start learning it.
Regardless of this, though, I played my trumpet on up through high school. We had band in high school - specifically, marching band. We learned the music, of course, and we also learned how to march properly - which is to say, without bouncing up and down, like more people walk without realizing it. We also learned things like how to take corners, that kind of thing. Our instructor, Pat Coffee (we often thought it would be amusing if someone made a typo for our scheduled and had it read "Coffee, Pot," but it never happened), actually was ambitious enough to have us enter competitions. (My brother had to put up with his predecessor; this was a man who played guitar, and was into rock and roll and such - and tried getting students who had grown up playing classical concert band style to play rock tunes. Needless to say, this didn't work out very well. I find it ironic that this man started at my school, went to our high school, and then back to the grade school we were at.)
There are a few things that you learn about your instrument while doing marching band. For one thing, playing during the winter in a outdoor parade can wreak havoc on your instrument - the finish on my Trumpet is cracked and crazed from the combination of cold and vibration. I have not been able to get this repaired yet, unfortunately. Then again, appearance (in this case) doesn't affect how the instrument sounds, so~.
Now, teacher-wise, I think my best teacher was one called Woody. He was short, slightly balding, and had side burns that turned into his beard and mustache. He was the first one that suggested a slightly larger mouth piece for my Trumpet, as around 7th grade I started having trouble playing. Fuller lips will do that, with brass instruments. He also taught me how to take the instrument apart for cleaning, and how to properly tune it. I liked him. When I was still in grade school, I happened to see a stuffed beaver that looked a lot like him, right down to the expression. Needless to say, I had to have it, and I named it Woody. I think it's up in the storage closet with some of my other toys. :)
There's only one problem with a musical family; there's bound to be someone who is not musical. This would be my Dad. He wasn't fond of hearing us play, well or not. I had a tendency to either play with the window open, play outside, or use a mute. A mute is a cone that fits inside the bell of a brass instrument, and serves to muffle the sound. I got used to not being able to practice in high school regardless of the mute, though. :( Bleh.
Now, there's also something important to mention, here. I may not read sheet music well, but I kept buying sheet music, both in grade school and high school, simply so I could play songs that I'd heard and like. I still have these pieces of sheet music. Pieces include "Somewhere Out There," from "An American Tale," "Rainbow Connection," from "The Muppet Movie," and "Simple Gifts." And I still tend to pick up music books, if they have enough songs that I'm interested in. When I was in Japan, in Fall of 2000, I actively decided to look for band's sheet music books that I could not find at home - Japan is a few years behind America in this regard, so I looked. And succeeded. I have sheet music books for Journey and Heart, which, AFAIK, are still not printed in the US at the moment. My brother, who started playing music before I did, did not keep up with it. To the extent that [i]he can no longer read sheet music[/i]. So, if you don't keep up with it, just like anything else, the skills will fade over time.
I'll be posting more on this topic later, but for now, have to pick up said brother from work. :)