Football's Future Musicians

[Dome]

2 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

Are you guys hobbyists, playing in bands, writing originals, learning covers, etc?

 

 

I played in the school pep rallies mostly when I was younger... had two friends that played guitar and we would jam for a few hours a month. Probably 100 sessions over the years. One of those two friends was a song writer and I’ve played a few of his originals, that was a neat experience. 

I‘ve done a couple small gigs, but never as part of a group, always as a fill in when the drummer couldn’t make it. That was a long time ago though, I haven’t kept up any of my musical connections over the years. Nobody is asking me to fill in nowadays lol

[MikeT14]

4 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

This is very cliche, but honestly: it's never too late. It's one of the most rewarding and mentally stimulating things anyone can do. If you were going to pick up an instrument, what would your first choice be?

Would just love to play some acoustic guitar

[titansNvolsR#1]

6 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

This is very cliche, but honestly: it's never too late. It's one of the most rewarding and mentally stimulating things anyone can do. If you were going to pick up an instrument, what would your first choice be?

If I could play an instrument, I’d want it to be the banjo. 

[Daniel]

7 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

This is very cliche, but honestly: it's never too late. It's one of the most rewarding and mentally stimulating things anyone can do.

Second.  I am also 33, and the wife and I are looking for used pianos right now.  I learned basic piano in college, but am amateur and out of practice.  She wants to learn more herself.  If you're trapped indoors, channeling your creativity into a new medium can be fun and therapuetic.

2 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

Would just love to play some acoustic guitar

You can get cheap ones pretty easily at used music stores.  Get a chord book or video and something else on basic music theory and it's easy to learn.

1 hour ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

If I could play an instrument, I’d want it to be the banjo. 

I have a friend who is learning the banjo right now.  She's having fun with it.  Lots of banjo players in the backwater part of Tennessee I'm from all around.  Doesn't hurt that the Dottie West Music fest was in my hometown every year.

[Heimdallr]

2 hours ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

If I could play an instrument, I’d want it to be the banjo. 

I would actually recommend a banjo is a starting instrument, especially for string instruments. It most commonly uses an "open" tuning which means if you hit all the strings without changing any notes, it'll play a chord. You can also use open tuning on a guitar, but it isn't the standard. 

Also, bluegrass songs are generally fairly straight forward from a musical point of view, making it easy to jam and get into a band without extensive musical knowledge.

[Heimdallr]

Anyone have any experience composing, arranging, or just are theory nerds? 

I did a bunch of composing and arranging back in high school for our orchestra. My favorite was arranging Nothing Else Matters from Metallica for chamber orchestra, with a bomb cello solo. 

[JDBrocks]

On 7/31/2020 at 10:52 PM, Heimdallr said:

Anyone have any experience composing, arranging, or just are theory nerds? 

I did a bunch of composing and arranging back in high school for our orchestra. My favorite was arranging Nothing Else Matters from Metallica for chamber orchestra, with a bomb cello solo. 

I don't do much composing - mostly midi stuff when I was doing some backing track work for an online interval workout startup (it didn't pan out, but I did get paid 🤷‍♂️)

What software did you use for creating arrangements?

[JDBrocks]

On 7/31/2020 at 10:50 PM, Heimdallr said:

I would actually recommend a banjo is a starting instrument, especially for string instruments. It most commonly uses an "open" tuning which means if you hit all the strings without changing any notes, it'll play a chord. You can also use open tuning on a guitar, but it isn't the standard. 

Also, bluegrass songs are generally fairly straight forward from a musical point of view, making it easy to jam and get into a band without extensive musical knowledge.

Interesting note - Keith Richards is a closet banjo player, and frequently had a telecaster tuned to open G with the low E string cut off to simulate playing a 5 string banjo.

[JDBrocks]

On 7/31/2020 at 7:14 PM, MikeT14 said:

Would just love to play some acoustic guitar

I can recommend the Martin LX-1 as a great sounding guitar to learn on. We bought it for my son as it's a smaller bodied guitar, but is also the model that Ed Sheeran plays, and my son loves Ed Sheeran. It even sounds really good with the stock electronics that come with it. I have seen them used on Reverb for as low as $250, which is way better than paying 200 for a newer, lower quality beginner's instrument, IMO.

I hope you pick one up! It's an endless source of fun, inspiration, conversation, and sometimes frustration  

[Heimdallr]

30 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

I don't do much composing - mostly midi stuff when I was doing some backing track work for an online interval workout startup (it didn't pan out, but I did get paid 🤷‍♂️)

What software did you use for creating arrangements?

I always used Sibelius for composing 

[Shanedorf]

On 7/31/2020 at 8:52 PM, Heimdallr said:

Anyone have any experience composing

I don't, but I had a room mate in college who did and I noticed he didn't write a lot of it down, he just played
So I asked him about it and he said:

" I don't need to write it down, I see it and then I play it"

Does that really happen with composers or was he just effing with me ?

[Heimdallr]

2 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

I don't, but I had a room mate in college who did and I noticed he didn't write a lot of it down, he just played
So I asked him about it and he said:

" I don't need to write it down, I see it and then I play it"

Does that really happen with composers or was he just effing with me ?

If it is a single instrument, that really isn't composing.. that is just playing. Tons of people play from memory. Composing is more about orchestration.

 

[JDBrocks]

10 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

I don't, but I had a room mate in college who did and I noticed he didn't write a lot of it down, he just played
So I asked him about it and he said:

" I don't need to write it down, I see it and then I play it"

Does that really happen with composers or was he just effing with me ?

What did he play? As @Heimdallr said, if he wasn’t writing this down then he was probably an extremely gifted instrumentalist, but wasn’t doing a lot of composition.

I wish that I had done more theory work in school. I understand modes and scales, But don’t really have an ear for adding strings or horns to songs. When I hear them I love and understand what’s happening, but when I try to do any of that stuff it sounds cheesy to me. It probably is cheesy, but maybe I’m self conscious because I’ve never really pushed myself to do orchestration outside of a band setting. 
 

In fact, I dropped a couple of guys early on, and my band is now a trio. Simplifying songs was a good thing, but also a challenge in its own right. There’s a lot of space to fill with only 3 instruments.

[Shanedorf]

3 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

What did he play?

piano/keyboard and he arranged pieces for his 5 member garage band.
They didn't like doing covers, so they wrote their own lyrics and he composed. I got a front row seat at their shows only to realize that being the room mate of a musician wasn't interesting/ enticing to young women - you had to actually play to get some post-show action.
 

[JDBrocks]

4 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

piano/keyboard and he arranged pieces for his 5 member garage band.
They didn't like doing covers, so they wrote their own lyrics and he composed. I got a front row seat at their shows only to realize that being the room mate of a musician wasn't interesting/ enticing to young women - you had to actually play to get some post-show action.
 

That's awesome. I've been married since 22, and met my wife on the first day of college. Being the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter doesn't always work that way either haha!

I do a lot of the same - I write chord changes and give guidance, so I suppose that's composing. Orchestral/concert composition is such a cool gift though. I'm always floored by those that can create film scores.