Anybody double on guitar? Wind synth?

I probably have twenty or so guitars, bass guitars, and one upright bass. Mostly my friends and company play them. I used to fiddle with them more than I do now. And I certainly don't play well enough to claim strings as a double. Don't even ask me how many pianos and organs I have. ;)
 
I play a number of instruments, but picked up guitar about 2 or 3 years ago and absolutely love it.

I have to really budget my time on my various instruments to keep the old chops up, as the guitar could really hog my attention if I let it.
 
saxismyaxe said:
<...>I have to really budget my time on my various instruments to keep the old chops up, as the guitar could really hog my attention if I let it.
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Guitar is hogging my attention right now because it's my newest 'toy' and I have the most to learn on it - not that I don't have a lot to learn on the others ;)

Notes
 
I've played classical guitar for a few decades, rhythm guitar from time to time. I have an old Lyricon, but haven't played it much lately.
 
I started getting into bluegrass a few years ago so I got a banjo and it's slowly coming around. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to play with picks.
My daughter has started guitar so I've been learning guitar along with her.(she's 10 so we know all the Taylor Swift songs;))
 
My dad wanted me to play guitar and sing country music, or else be a comedian. He had given me a .22 single shot rifle from the Western Auto store for my eighth birthday, but I wasn't that good of a shot. When I was 9, he bought me a cheap guitar from the same Western Auto store, along with some 45's that showed how to tune and play it. I learned G C and D7 chords. That made it so I could play 'Yer Cheatin' Heart' and a few other country tunes. He was happy.

When I turned 10, my Mom got me a Boosey and Hawkes alto sax, and a years worth of lessons from the local music teacher (who was a pianist and a violinist). My dad wasn't quite so happy, because it was a long while before I learned Yakety Sax. By then, he had taken off with a gal he worked with, leaving my non-working Mom a bunch of bills and no skills. I kept working at the sax so she wouldn't sell it. She eventually went to work at the hospital after being trained as a Nurse's Assistant.

Through High School, I played rhythm guitar on borrowed guitars. Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Iron Butterfly. The guys always let me in the band not because I was particularly good on guitar, but the fact that I could figure out how to play the tunes. At least I convinced THEM that I could. Actually, I couldn't figure out the voicings, I just got the chords.

Through college and the like, I gave up on guitar. Then, a couple of years ago, I was asked to teach a guitar class at the high school. Soo, I invented a course where I teach music theory and reading music using the guitar. I've had to practice a bit, just to keep ahead of my students.

Frankly, I really don't care for the guitar, but I can manage on it--including reading simple tunes.
 
hakukani said:
I learned G C and D7 chords. That made it so I could play 'Yer Cheatin' Heart' and a few other country tunes.
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Most other country tunes...

The guitar is the ideal instrument. It is portable and can be played solo and to accompany vocals. You can play a guitar in a canoe.
 
Al Stevens said:
Most other country tunes...

The guitar is the ideal instrument. It is portable and can be played solo and to accompany vocals. You can play a guitar in a canoe.
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Ukuleles are more portable.

I was talking to a slack key player the other day when he was visiting our school. He had graduated from there. He said that one of the main differences was that when he went to school everyone carried around their ukes instead of ipods and cell phones.
 
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What I like about the guitar most is that it is a transposing instrument.

I would like to play the sax equally in all keys, but the fact is that my improvisations are best in the keys that I play the most -- and since I've played in guitar bands all my life, that includes concert E and A (I'd rather play in E than Eb and A than Bb).

After years of being in the woodshed practicing scales in every key, moving the guitar a couple of frets and using the same fingering is a kick.

Same for chords. I'm a keyboard hack and can learn parts with my right hand and use the wiggle sticks with my left. But I'm really bad in unfamiliar keys and it takes a lot of woodshedding. Once you learn barre and other moveable chords on the guitar, move the hand a couple of frets and keep the same fingering.

The thing that I find most difficult on the guitar is reading music. I can sight read simple songs in the first position, and I'm working on multi-notes and second position but it isn't nearly as easy as reading music on the sax.

Everything is give and take, isn't it?

But I really enjoy singing and playing at the same time, especially when I can answer my vocal lines with the guitar. It's mostly the skill level of rock/blues/C&W right now, but that's what I play to make a living.

Notes
 
That's the moral equivalent of the string down the bore of the Bb soprano to flatten it enough to become an ersatz A clarinet. I have tried this, experimenting with different sizes of twine, and it actually does work - after a fashion. I'd not recommend this approach to anyone who is at all sensitive to how a horn "blows", however.

(And, try as I would (and I spent the better part of a day working at it without success), I could not get the same approach to work with a bass clarinet. In that instance, the twine sizes that I had worked with on the soprano did not work (i.e., would not bring the pitch down). Of course, by the 1970's, the range of twine sizes available in your neighborhood hardware store were somewhat limited.)

There was also a sliding sleeve clarinet that actually exposed a new set of tone holes under elongated pads, but it didn't work very well the one time I heard one demonstrated.
 
I owned a wind synth, a WX11, but I never used it in any performance. It was fun to play with and I was almost good enough with it to play lines into Finale.

A keyboard was easier, tho.
 
SOTSDO said:
Ah, the capo...last resort of scoundrels...
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Never used one (so I guess I'm not a scoundrel <grin>)

When you learn barre and other movable chords, you don't need a capo. I don't have much use for the open-string "cowboy chords" myself plus adding a capo and then fretting a note above it makes the instrument sharp. Why spend so much time adjusting the bridge to put the neck in tune if you are going to add a capo?

The guitar is a transposing instrument without the capo.

Play a C bop scale, move it up one fret and you have a C# bop scale.

Play an F chord, move it up one fret and you have an F# chord.

That's one of the things that still tickle me on the guitar.

Insights and incites by Notes
 
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