03-12-2024, 01:36 AM
I was trained as a classical clarinetist. Got my first taste of dixieland in a dixieland band in junior high school and then scored first part clarinet as a frosh and solo chair from then on. My senior recital was the three movements of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto by memory, had to be by memory as the notes pass by so fast it's the only way it can be done.
By that time I was also playing sax so as a sophomore I learned tuba and as a senior was classed first chair in all three instruments. My senior recital on sax was the Paul Desmond gem from Brubeck's Take Five.
I also trained myself to be pretty good on recorder and harmonica and then decided to teach myself guitar as I also was a singer. So I got a book and learned the fingering for chords. I got pretty good as well but for one fateful error. By the time I got good enough to really start getting into picking rather than just chords, I realized my error. See, the book I learned from had pictures of the neck in a vertical position, it did not say which way to turn the neck horizontal so being a left handed person I turned it to the right leaving me four fingers to do what one would normally use the thumb for and the thumb for all the picking. It was over for me than.
But my favorite lesson from my musical years was one point I picked up from a frosh college music appreciation class. That lesson was that All sound can be music. Surf, wind, birds frogs, it's all good this lead me to being open to a wide variety of appreciation now fifty years later. Go Newen Afrobeat.
By that time I was also playing sax so as a sophomore I learned tuba and as a senior was classed first chair in all three instruments. My senior recital on sax was the Paul Desmond gem from Brubeck's Take Five.
I also trained myself to be pretty good on recorder and harmonica and then decided to teach myself guitar as I also was a singer. So I got a book and learned the fingering for chords. I got pretty good as well but for one fateful error. By the time I got good enough to really start getting into picking rather than just chords, I realized my error. See, the book I learned from had pictures of the neck in a vertical position, it did not say which way to turn the neck horizontal so being a left handed person I turned it to the right leaving me four fingers to do what one would normally use the thumb for and the thumb for all the picking. It was over for me than.
But my favorite lesson from my musical years was one point I picked up from a frosh college music appreciation class. That lesson was that All sound can be music. Surf, wind, birds frogs, it's all good this lead me to being open to a wide variety of appreciation now fifty years later. Go Newen Afrobeat.
