Do you play other Instruments than Guitar?

Funny story. One day last year, Toby Myers came to my place and he was checking out some of my guitars. I asked if he wanted to plug in, which he did, and I suggested we jam to a Mellencamp song. I asked my wife to video it, and she did.................without ever putting me in the video. :(

Anyway, without any visual proof................that is me on my drums. :rolleyes:

 
Funny story. One day last year, Toby Myers came to my place and he was checking out some of my guitars. I asked if he wanted to plug in, which he did, and I suggested we jam to a Mellencamp song. I asked my wife to video it, and she did.................without ever putting me in the video. :(

Anyway, without any visual proof................that is me on my drums. :rolleyes:

I’m sure you looked something like this...
stevedrums.jpg
 
Hmm, a few things "not guitar".

I started playing mandolin because someone in my band said "hey Steve! We need some Mediterranean / Greek sound to this soundtrack song we are doing!" Figure it out!

I had played a tiny bit of mandolin years and years before, but it was a lousy "gourd" toy one. So it wasn't like it was a hidden talent that I knew about.

So I did some stuff, and the song made the soundtrack (short semi-documentary "The Flying Greek"), with the mandolin very prominent.

Since I was now a "mandolin player", I was asked to brush up on some stuff, so I could play it regularly at our Irish Pub gigs. Apparently I'm now a pretty good (but not a "classically trained" / classic Irish session) mando player.

Then on our first CD, I wrote a song where someone said "this needs banjo! It's your song, so you play it! It's an Irish Tenor 4-string, tuned the same as a mandolin, so it will be easy." OK, so now I'm a banjo player, also playing occasionally at the monthly Irish Pub gig - but not a classically-trained bluegrass clawhammer guy or anything. I must be OK, though, no-one tells me to maybe try the mando instead...

I just picked up a 5-string banjo, tuned in a typical bluegrass fashion. Tuning is different, and so are the chord shapes, so it is going to be an interesting challenge.

I also play bass - seems like a logical extension of guitar. Not Geddy Lee skill level, but not just G G G G G G G G C C C C G G G G D D C C G G G G root note 16-bar blues either. I can even play (fretless) stand-up double-bass.

Drums are a weird one - I don't think I'm all that technically proficient (that drumroll technique escapes me), but I have fun and can keep a very steady beat with lots of interesting fills. Even some odd time signatures like 5/4 are OK if I pay attention. (3/4 and 4/4 are easy peasy, of course.)

I dabble in keyboards/piano, but really I don't know what I'm doing.

Harmonica is something else that I'm "good enough" at to emulate Neil Young. And bizarrely some atmospheric stuff I had done was also used as an isolated track (from a much bigger song) in a (different) short film soundtrack.

I guess I'm at the point where any fretted stringed instrument is easy enough to learn, given some time. Fiddle, on the other hand...no. I have no good technique for that.
 
I picked up guitar first because of my dad. He played in some local bluegrass bands. He was essentially self taught, and taught me what he knew. So on guitar I don't really know what I'm doing, but there normally aren't too many complaints.

However when I was old enough to join the school band I did. We go to the thing where the local music store has brought a bunch of instruments and we get to see which one we want. I'm looking around like "none of these are played in a real band". Then I see a snare drum. Instant love. In high school I was part of several honor bands including the State Fair Band. Got a partial scholarship to a university. Played there for a couple of years, before dropping out. So I do know how to play percussion. To the point I don't mind being called a percussionist. As I've played it all from timpani to mallets. I'm best on battery and a drum kit, but can wing it on most things.

A side note is when I was in the High School Band there was a kid a couple of years younger that was super eager to learn drums. Got good pretty fast, but never learned to play a kit. So I could always use that as a trump card when he got to feeling cocky. Well after I graduate and move on, he goes on to a major college drumline and marches DCI a couple of years. Learned to play kit. Eventually became my bro-in-law. Def can plan circles around me now, but can't play a guitar. ;) He's also now my ex bro-in-law be we still chat. He's been teaching his kids drums. I'm pushing for mine to play guitar. For now. Haha.

But yeah some of my best memories are from my drum playing adventures.
 
I started out playing Cello from 3rd grade through my freshman year of college. I borrowed one for a song on an album an old band put out. I can still play and have been wanting to pick one up, but I always end up buying guitars instead. I picked up bass in 10th grade to play in the jazz band and continued on with that as my primary instrument for a long time (up through 2014) save for a short stint playing guitar in high school. I've also always been enamored with the drums. I got steady enough that one of my old drummers would have me play his kit during some sound checks to see how his drums sounded FOH. I'm a bit rusty, but when our current drummer can't make rehearsal I sometimes fill in to work out new material. The good news is my 14 year old is a drummer so we got an electric kit awhile back and on Saturday we got an acoustic kit. Now I don't have any excuses. I've dabbled a bit with the uke, but haven't taken enough time to get proficient.
 
My primary instrument is the guitar. I've played electric guitar, acoustic guitar, classical guitar, and 12-string guitar, and the patterns and fingering are pretty much the same. I've tried playing a 4-string bass guitar, and it's not too difficult because the intervals and tuning are common to a 4-string 6-string guitar. Whenever I pick up Advice on Mandolins, the most challenging part is how small the darned frets are. That said, I got a tenor guitar in 20-plus years of playing guitar that is tuned just like a mandolin, and the chords were the easy part. It was the same as just learning a new obscure chord on the guitar. Playing licks was much more complicated because I seemed to have automatic processes, and the patterns didn't intersect remotely.
 
It might be a stretch to call it "playing," but a couple of months ago I picked up a Moog Matriarch analog synthesizer. It is too much fun sitting down with that and seeing what sounds will come out of it. Hours vanish...
 
On the weekends I play bouzouki in a punk/thrash/Industrial/Indie/metalcore Greek Rembetiko band called the Flaming Gyros. Our upcoming single is called "Highway to Hellas".




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Your description of the music and the band name made me laugh out loud.
 
Haha! I had a similar experience that will demonstrate what a numbskull I am.

I had an interview with a recruiter for a certain Ivy school that I had absolutely no business even considering, and had no chance of getting into.

The interview took place at his gorgeous, ornate home that was done up kind of like a medieval manor house. Obviously, he’d knocked it out of the park in terms of success.

I, on the other hand, was a most unimpressive candidate, and with each answer I gave, I could see the recruiter kind of looking at me like, “What is this kid even doing here?” Nor did I blame him for thinking that; I didn’t know, either. It was my parents’ idea because I’d tested well on the college entrance exams.

At one point in the interview, I noticed that the guy had a beautiful pipe organ in a special room near the living room. Three manuals, real pipes, full bass pedals, the whole, real, deal. I made the mistake of saying, “Wow, that’s an incredible instrument!”

He said to me (no doubt thinking I could play something from Bach on it) “Oh, do you play the organ?” The look on his face said, maybe the kid has musical talent and that’s why he’s here. And I said, yes, I played in a band.

“Then you must play for me, I insist.”

What I should have said was, “No thanks, it’s not what you’re expecting, it’s a rock band.”

But I really wanted to play the damn thing! So he walked me over to it, and fired up the electric pump that sent air through the pipes, and said, “Please play!”

So...I messed with the stops, and got a sound, and commenced playing “Green Onions,” the old Booker T. and the MGs song. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the guy kind of had his head cocked to one side, with one of those, “There’s definitely something wrong with this kid” expressions. But I was having fun on this giant pipe organ, and it was nice and LOUD. Green Onions, cranked to the max on a real pipe organ! I mean, how many chances do you get to play Green Onions on a real pipe organ?

“Um, can you play anything else,” he said. I mean, the voice was glum.

Sure thing!

I then played House of the Rising Sun, complete with organ solo.

Sounded killer. To me.

Not to him.

He had a really, really disappointed look on his face. I knew he wouldn’t let me play the intro to In A Gadda Da Vida, which would have been next on my hit parade, and which I really wanted to hear on that organ! I decided to spare him that experience, and spare myself the look of utter disapproval, and stood up to go.

Both he and I knew that his school and my so-called brain weren’t a match, though he politely finished the interview, said, “Well, that was a really...um...interesting interview,” again with that expression on his face that said this kid is an idiot, and handed me the application to fill out.

I pretended that I had a chance in hell of going there and thanked him and took it, and when I got home, I secretly crumpled it up and threw it into the trash.

One day my parents asked me, “Whatever happened with that Ivy League school? Did you ever hear from them?”

And I said, “Nope! They never got back to me.”

Which was true, of course. ;)
Les, that story is priceless. Here again, as I sit here getting caught up on this forum, I'm laughing out loud visioning that scene. That should be in some movie somewhere.
 
I can drum the hell out of my knees when sitting down, or the steering wheel or center console in the car. I should find some small triggers I could attach to me and feed signal into a mixer or computer. There was a guy on Shark Tank who had a suit of triggers for various drum sounds. Great idea but a bad business investment (not a broad enough market I guess) an the tank gurus passed. I'd have bought one.
 
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