AW Musicians / Songwriters / Lyricists

[III]

This sticky thread is a place where we can all list our various musical talents and aspirations. Hopefully this will lead to more discussion and collaborative efforts. Feel free to post links to samples of your music / writing here as well.

Oh, and if you’re feeling brave, tell us your greatest dream of what you’d like to accomplish musically. I’ll dive in first:

Acoustic and Electric Lead and Rhythm guitar
Bass guitar
Piano / Keyboards
Percussion (as long as it doesn’t involve using my feet, which were switched at birth with a non-musical baby’s feet)
Sing (passably)
Read / Write guitar tabs, barely read sheet music
Written / recorded / performed original songs

I’ve played lots of venues, but my dream is to one day play in Arco Arena (or any big arena for that matter). I don’t even care if anyone else is there – I just want to plug in and fill up that place with sound.

(samples in sig line)

[Nolita]

Haha. How do you get a lead guitarist to slow down? Put a piece of sheet music in front of him. How do you get him to stop? Write notes on it :P.

Okay, I'll jump in.

If you pour it in a sippy-cup and snap the lid on nice and tight; I can carry a tune .
I know more than 4 chords on the guitar, but beyond that I pretty much suck. Except for that I can pick up techniques pretty well, things like harmonics and hammer ons and pull offs. They come to me easily, maybe I should worry more about lead riffs. Hmmmm...

So the goals are:

1. Learn enough music theory to get the songs in my head out.
2. Learn to play Miserlou all the way through a' la Dick Dale(if I can do that I can do anything).
3. Work up the gumption to share after I learn all I need.
4. Oh yeah and coin at least one official word via my lyrics. I know I can blow "Bootylicious" out of the water!

[Bubastes]

Ok, I'll plunge in:

bassoon (in a past life)
piano/keyboards (in a past life, but I can still muddle my way through with some practice)
drum set (my current passion)

I can read music like a newspaper. Thank goodness for classical training!

Of course, now I play an instrument that relies more on listening than reading, so I'm working on developing a good ear and memorizing music without writing anything down. My iPod is getting a workout.

I can't sing to save my life. When I try to sing, my cats shoot me horrified looks and then start howling.

Current goal: get good enough to become a working musician. Weddings, bars, corporate gigs, whatever. I'm not picky.

Ultimate, crazy, unattainable dream goal: be a musician for Blue Man Group.

ETA: so, do we have enough people for an AW band?

[jst5150]

Acoustic guitar
House/Techno/Trance composer using loops and other sounds
Written and produced original music (including music for AF recruiting commercial)
Lyrics, none of which I've used :-)
Sing
Produce (one CD that accompanied a board game)

[dolores haze]

Play: acoustic guitar, penny whistle, would love to learn the fiddle.

Level: Used to be a lot better before writing claimed all my spare time. I got no blisters on me bloody fingers!

Sing: quite well (or so I'm told). Imagine Sinead O'Connor crossed with Tammy Wynette, and you're in the general area.

Musical history: Was once in a teen, all girl, heavy metal band called "unknown pleasures." We broke up when the lead guitarist's boyfriend dumped her, and took his electric guitar back. We never played a gig.

Claim to fame: Can play all the hooks on Dr Dre's "The Chronic" on a penny whistle. Can anyone else in the world make this claim?

Dream: Finish the songs I started writing.

[rhymegirl]

I am being harrassed to participate here.

What was the question?

Okay, I can play guitar, but just the basics. Nothing fancy.
I can figure out the notes on a piano to put together a song. But I cannot read music. Again, nothing fancy on piano.
I love songwriting. I write the lyrics and the music. (mostly in my head)
I also love to sing. I took voice lessons in my twenties.

I am a member of RISA (Rhode Island Songwriters Association)

GOALS?
I'm trying to get my oldest son to help me make a CD. He is a very talented singer and musician. But extremely busy.

I have a girlfriend who plays drums and piano. We have talked about finding a few other people and starting our own group. She has a degree in music.

[ChunkyC]

Cool thread, Jay.

Okay ... first stepped on a stage when I was 8 years old. My two younger brothers and I sang Irish songs for Saint Patrick's Day. I probably sounded like I'd stepped on a cat, not a stage.

From there, joined the school choir. Had a music teacher in grade 7 who claimed you had to learn to read music because nobody could hear music in their head. Fooled her, I never learned to read, but she always made me the soloist because I knew the tunes better than anyone else. I only had to hear a song a few times before I had it down. (Memorizing lyrics was a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)

Joined my first band when I was 14, started learning how to play guitar shortly after. Spent the next 18 years off and on earning what could laughingly be called a living playing in bar bands.

-- My primary instrument/skill is electric lead guitar
-- I can play bass in a pinch, can chord a bit on keyboards, and I'm a decent enough drummer that I could probably play drums in a band with some rehearsal, but I wouldn't amaze anyone except perhaps my dearly departed mother.
-- I sing well, though I know I don't have one of those unique voices that makes one truly stand out from the crowd.

Most prestigious gig would have to be opening for a recording act (The Blushing Brides) at a place called Le Spectrum in Montreal. First and only time I got to play on an honest-to-gawd big time concert stage.

Biggest thrill in music would have to be jamming in a bar with Amos Garrett, the guy who played that slinky guitar solo on Maria Muldaur's Midnight at the Oasis, and having him turn to me after a few songs and telling me I was good. I nearly fainted dead away.

Best band I was ever in was called Burness, after the singer I replaced. We did stuff by Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes, UK, Gentle Giant, Supertramp -- loved that band, but I was in a bit over my head and it didn't last. Nearly blew out a testicle every night singing Roundabout.

Brushes with greatness:
-- played a bar a few months after RUSH, their poster was still on the wall. They weren't a major recording act yet, but it wasn't long.
-- met Gary Glitter (our keyboardist was his cousin and he came to one of our practices).
-- got drunk on tequila with Dewey Martin, the drummer from Buffalo Springfield.
-- played in a band with Kris Abbott of Pursuit of Happiness fame.

Goals:
-- wanna jam with Jay, Ray, and anyone else from here who'd be into it. I don't really have any musical goals anymore, I only fell short on the major dream of being the lead guitarist of a famous rock band, but did get to tour the continent for the better part of two decades. I can't complain about that.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I am not a musician, but I've been interested in music all my life.

As a child I was forced to take piano lessons for many years and even gave recitals at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.

But then I rebelled and didn't pay an instrument of any sort for a couple decades.

Now I have a few guitars and I noodle on them, but I am not very good at it despite having taken lessons off and on for a number of years.

I'm forcing my son to take trombone, because now that I look back on it, I should have kept up with it.

[JRH]

Hi,

I'm Jim Hoye, and some of you may have seen some of my Lyrics and Song Links on this Forum.

I am NOT a Musician, (at least in the Performance sense, although I can play both the Guitar and Keyboards, at least well enough to work out melody lines and Chording for my Songs and I have taken 30 quarter hours of Music Theory at my local Community College)

I was active in the John Lennon Song Festival Songwriting Forum for over four years, (until they closed it down) and have had a fair degree of success in Song Contests over the years, including 15 Honorable Mentions or better in various Song Contests in the early 80s and 7 HMs in the JLSC in the last decade, and 2d Prize Country in the 2003 Billboard Song Festival, and I firmly believe that writing successful Songs takes equal degrees of skill in writing/creating Music and that of writing Lyrics, because both
are Crafts that require specific types of knowledge, dedication and perserverance to master, and I believe that underestimating the importance of either dimininshes the strength of the Songs that one can write.

The same can and should be said for Performance skills but they have a different focus, and can exist independently even though all those skills take an important part in a song's ultimate success.

My primary strength is as a Lyricist and I'll be more than happy to do what I can to help everybody here write the best lyrics they can either by answering specific questions or by posting some essays I've written on related subjects.

Good Luck to all in your endeavors.

Jim Hoye, (JRH)

[Stew21]

I don't have any music abilities, I just wanted to say that Jay turned my words into a song and it sounded awesome!

[III]

Originally Posted by Stew21

I don't have any music abilities, I just wanted to say that Jay turned my words into a song and it sounded awesome!

(shhhh! that was gonna be the ringer in the contest!)

[Stew21]

it wasn't lyrics. it was the poem I wrote for III for my AW people poems.

[Serena Casey]

Have a guitar, haven't learned how to play it yet, other than some basic chords.

Have a keyboard, can't play it.

I am a decent singer, and I love to sing, but I'm not the next Celine Dion.

I've written a few songs, lyrics only, which is lots of fun, but it would be funner if I could put them to melodies

I think I would shrivel up and die without music.

[maestrowork]

I:

- play keyboard, but not very well; classical guitar, but not very well

- can totally compose on a computer using only a keyboard and state-of-the-art software -- I guess the computer is a godsend for someone like me who can't really play live instruments to save his life

- sing (and I must say... very well and professionally) I've sung on stage (Light Opera and broadway, Jazz, as well as pop) as well as professional chorus (Pittsburgh Opera)

- I am what you may call a melodyist -- my forte is composition and melodies, and I can do some arrangements. I have written about two dozens songs, but only a few actually had lyrics.

- I don't consider myself a lyricist. I'm more a Rogers than a Hammerstein. Although I'm poetic, I don't consider myself a poet and I really do think I suck as a lyricist. I'd rather leave that for someone else with more talent.

- I won an honorable mention in a songwriting contest when I was 15.

[misslissy]

I have been involved with choirs all my life singing Soprano in front of church, in musicals, in choir class, pretty much every time I had a chance to. I've studied piano for seven years and I have a really good eye for sight reading. I write my own lyrics that always have a melody in my head and sometimes I record them, with the melody, just so I can remember it, because writing notes is a pain for me, even though I can do it, I need it to be quiet for my tweaking and it takes a while sometimes for that.

[Danger Jane]

I started learning piano when I was nine, then stopped when I picked up violin at eleven, and I want to learn cello and maybe electric bass, but I have issues with tendinitis and violin alone causes me enough issues...so gotta wait till I get stronger.

I've played some sick concerts with my school orchestra, from San Francisco to New York, and we've won some very nice honors over the years.


I can read music just fine and sightread decently, and I can compose competently. Probably going to take courses in that in college.

[RG570]

I was forced into piano at a young age and gave it up before too long. I didn't play anything until I was 18 and bought a guitar. After that, I did nothing, absolutely nothing, but play and teach myself theory and practice. Played in two metal bands that were miserable failures until I gave up metal and went back to teaching myself more theory. I can read, though I don't really like to. Now I play jazz and the classical guitar, and any Rush song worth mentioning. I also have a knack for the bass, but this doesn't happen often because I don't own one right now. In between jobs I gave guitar lessons, which is kind of fun.

I would like to get back into a band, but I keep putting it off, thinking that I need to get better before trying that again. I'd also love to be able to understand creating drum loops and such, because I want to do some more experimental music, which may or may not involve the guitar.

[Kiester]

This topic may have come on this part of the board Gazillions of times, but I aint never seen one soo...here goes.

I am currently learning electric guitar. I'm a few weeks in and can play about 5 chords....a bit sad.

I can also play a bit of harmonica, accordion, tambourine and blocks .

[ChunkyC]

Check this thread, which is the topmost sticky thread in this forum.

[III]

Originally Posted by ChunkyC

Check this thread, which is the topmost sticky thread in this forum.

Thanks Charlie - I've merged the threads.

[P.H.Delarran]

I played the violin for ten years during school and still play on occasion, hoping to one day (soon) join an ensemble of some type.
I have some familiarity on the piano-enough to play the top note in a duet during sing-alongs and almost keep up.
I read music.
I've written a few lyrics.

[gerrydodge]

I played the French horn for one month and my parents very nearly booted me out of the house. My best friend growing up, on the other hand, went to Juliard for both high school and college.

Hey all,

I have been playing drums/percussion for 12 years. I have been in a few bands that did some traveling around New York. Filmed a documentary on musicians trying to get into the business(which Never Aired). I was the head drummer at my old church and am Now the Head percussionist at my new church. I also have written a few songs and I sing fairly well. Music is a huge part of my life. I was raised to love all kinds of music, from country to hip hop. and I pretty much love it all, and have it all! One of my old bands recorded a few cd's just independent stuff. I was drumming and playing my African hand drum

My musical Goals are: Learn to play piano better, Write more songs, and hopefully play with some of the best in the industry(Gospel)

I write lyrics for Russ Deane on SoundClick.
I will also write for anyone who will ask nicely
or pay greatly!

Amy Nicholson

[althrasher]

I am a music education major.

My primary instrument is trumpet, which I just won a concerto competition with that I'm going to perform with my university's wind ensemble. I can play both lead trumpet in jazz and with a classical style, but I can't read lead sheets or improv .

I also play flute, horn, and can play a little piano (had to take Piano Proficiancy.) Oh and I sung soprano in my high school's chior and still sing a lot--my strength is with a Broadway style, but I can sing clasically or in a chorus as well.

My musical goals are to teach middle school band, become the best trumpet player I can, and learn to play the clarinet and saxophone (next semester!)

Sorry if I rambled--if I can be any help to anyone let me know!