Who of you has "music" as a hobby?

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Fasulye, Apr 25, 2014.

  1. Josquin

    Josquin Member

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    Oh my god, Mozart's oboe concerto sounds hilarious on the contraforte! :D I have known this instrument for some time now, but I've never heard anybody play an oboe concerto on it.

    So, as for the original question: music isn't only my hobby, it's my passion! I studied musicology at university, which is basically the history and the systematics of music. I play the bassoon and some basic piano and recently I started taking singing lessons.

    I have always wanted to receive music lessons when I was a child, but unfortunately my parents decided we didn't have any money for that. As a consequence, I got my first real music lessons when I was 19. From that time on, I have been pursuing music wholeheartedly and often wondered what might have been if I had had the opportunity to practise music from early age on. I probably wouldn't have studied something as theoretical as musicology, but become a professional musician or even conductor. Well, now I'm a scholar and working on my PhD thesis about a special kind of church music in the 16th century. It's okay, but I'm only really happy when I'm making music.

    I have also written some minor compositions, which probably aren't very good but give me a lot of satisfaction and joy. There are piano pieces, chamber music for wind instruments, and also some orchestra pieces. Most of them only consist of an exposition, because I never managed to go beyond that, but I like them nevertheless.

    Being a musician has always been my dream and although I had to strive for it coming true, I'll always follow it because I know this is my true calling in life.
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  2. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Hahahahahaah that instrument is HILARIOUS LOL. I've never seen or especailly heard such a funny instrument in all my life haha. I think that Benedict Epplesheim is a good comedian hahaha

    Sorry, contraforte, but your sound is like farting LOL... :D

    Josquin, what a pity that the music intrsument lessons were too expenisve and you didn't learn when you were a child :( Of course you can learn now, but I know also that it's not the same. I think that it's little bit like the languages: you can learn when you're any age, but it will not be native, only when you're a child can you learn it natively. The music is the same, and gymnastics and for sure many things.

    Your compositions are only the exposition, why? or maybe it's not necessary to write a development or conclusion now? I don't know, but I can't imagine that the rules are strict now like in the 18th century. I suppose conclusion yes, or it would stop so suddenly that all the people wait for the next note haha. :D I've never composed and I'm absolutely useless with improvisation also :confused:. I must have the music and read it. One time I posted a video on youtube where I've played the piano. Iversen has watched it, and some others but then I've deleted it.

    You are a musician, no doubt, you know very, veyr, very much about it. Which 16th century's church music?
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  3. Josquin

    Josquin Member

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    Thanks, Caniche!

    Yes, it's a pity my parents couldn't afford any music lessons for me. I don't know what would have happened if I had got them. It's true you can still learn a lot when you're grown up, but if you learn it as a child it's like second nature to you. Learning as an adult takes more time and may just not have the same results. Anyway, I keep going because I want to catch up with what I've missed out on.

    My compositions only have an exposition because developments are the most difficult parts to write. It's easy to invent a theme or even two or three of them, but the problems arise if you want to change them. You need to have a good idea of harmonics and modulating for that. As I have never been taught in composition (I'm a self-taught composer) I just don't have the musical means for writing developments and finishing the things I started. It's not difficult to start a piece. Finishing is the problem.

    I do know a lot about music, because I listen to insane amounts of music each day and because I studied musicology at university. However, knowing facts about music is not the same as being able to make music. Those are quite different things. Anyway, my thesis examines musical settings of the Song of Songs from the Bible. It's interesting, but I think any topic starts getting boring when you have been working on it for several years...
  4. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    LOL! Actually, that description would apply more to the contrabassoon.

    The recording quality in that Mozart oboe concerto video is not very good, but it did show the agility of the horn. The Contraforte can be made to sound pretty sweet, see if you like this better,

  5. Iversen

    Iversen Member VIP member

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    That instrument is quite interesting - the problem is to get it accepted in the orchestras and by 'recognized' composers. As for Grove's dictionary I'm the happy owner of an edition in 20 volumes. I actually started out reading them from A and up, but only got got to somewhere near the end of B. And of course there were hundreds of composers from A to B whose music I never have heard and probably never will hear, but my tape collection from the early 90s contains music by 982 composers so I have done my best to get a broad basis. OK, I like music by Mozart and Beethoven and Brahms and other sacrosanct names from the standard repertoire, but just as I don't think that learning a few languages is enough I don't want to restrict my listening to the 'big' names.

    And speaking about names: I'm not surprised that Josquin has worked professionally with music and even written some himself - you have to spend some time with ancient music to even know that there once was a real living composer with that name. But as far as I know the notion of sonata form wasn't even invented in his time, and when it was used slightly later by people like the Gabrielis the sonatas weren't in the sonata form.
    Last edited: May 15, 2014
  6. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    How does learning the 'language' of music compare to the language learning we do here ? Does composing music feel in any way similar to writing in a second language ? Can improvisation be compared to 'advanced fluency' ? And so on. Can anyone recommend a good grammar ? :)
  7. hrhenry

    hrhenry Member VIP member

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    A lifetime ago, before IT work and then switching to a translation career, I worked as a professional musician. Or, I should say, tried to. I briefly worked in the jingle business and found I really didn't like it, so I moved into IT work when an opportunity presented itself, then finally started working as a translator after that.

    I was trained in classical music. My parents started me off very young - pre-kindergarden, and I studied it through university as my first degree in piano performance.

    It is solely a hobby now.

    R.
    ==
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  8. Iversen

    Iversen Member VIP member

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    BiTsar asks: how does it feel to compose a piece of music? Well, it start´s with an idea - maybe a theme, maybe a sound, and then you may contr4ast it with another idea, and from that point on you can start erecting some scaffolding that gives the whole thing a shape. Along the way you will probably change that shape totally (and your original idea could actually disappear because it doesn't fit into the building project any more). I remember that when I had decided upon the instruments for orchestral music I would make a short score of maybe four or five staves and write the more prominant lines down there with an indication of instrumentation and possibly a line or two representing the background. And when I was sufficiently sure of the instrumentation and overall form I would start writing the complete score on sheets with all the instruments. I still have a lot of photocopied paper stored somewhere with sets of 3 or 4 or 5 staves and even some leftover sheets with all the lines for a whole orchestra. But I am not going to take up this hobby again.

    I suppose this process is fairly close to the way an author would set out to write a book. But like authors composers are supposed already to know their subject materials - i.e. know how the instruments sound, their range, notational conventions etc. There is definitely some hardcore rock bottom learning to be done, but just as the author of a novel shouldn't spend time on looking words up in a dictionary all day long, a composer must know for instance which strings a violin has got. And how to write the line reserved for a viola, or how to notate a transposing instrument like a F ...
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  9. garyb

    garyb Member

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    Another amateur musician here... I play guitar, mostly electric but a bit of acoustic and I recently bought a classical as well. I play in a couple of metal bands. I used to play keyboard, started at around 11, but then I discovered guitar and it took over. I'd like to get back into keyboard/piano at some point in my life but I'm in no rush; I'm also keen to learn to sing but as always time is limited.

    I suppose music is like languages for me in that it's something I have very little natural talent for but enough interest to keep me passionate. And to answer the question on the similarities of language and music, I suppose the main thing that both have in common is that they're a collection of different but related skills as opposed to a single skill, so there are lots of different things that you have to work on in order to reach a good level. If you have half an hour to spend on music you could spend it working on technique, or on theory, or on improvisation, or on learning existing pieces, or on composition, the list goes on... And with a language, it could be grammar, listening, watching TV/film, reading, writing, conversing, pronunciation, you get the idea. And different people learn different skills more easily than others: think language learners with a good accent but bad grammar and vice versa, musicians with excellent technical skill but little creativity and vice versa.
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  10. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Wow - lot's of musicians here. Very inspirational.
  11. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    Do you play an instrument ? If not, which do you think would you choose.*

    *If stranded on a desert isle with nothing more than your Anki decks and enough food to eat.
  12. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Yum…anki decks. I tried to learn guitar, but quit. The main reason was that it took a lot of time, but it also hurt my hands/fingers/wrists in an unhealthy carpal tunnel kind of way. I thought about taking up keyboards instead, but friends told me that it's just as hard on the hands as guitar. I've heard of health issues associated with blowing instruments too. So I'm going remain a listener I guess.
  13. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    I read the posts of a few people talking about their hernia surgeries on a trombone forum and that scared me off of taking up the bass version of that horn. My brother had a big hunk of flesh surgically removed from the back of his neck which he got from carrying a heavy sousaphone around in high school and college. My brother insists oboists can literally go crazy from the pressure of blowing that thing but I think that's horse puckey from a low brass player. Oboists do sometimes go crazy trying to get a reed that plays well and lasts more than a few days.

    Your preferred listener status reminds me of this damned ringing in my ears: music is downright dangerous.
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  14. Fasulye

    Fasulye Member VIP member

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    Near-by where I live there is a private music school and also this year I took part in their summer workshops again. I really love this music school and I go to the concerts of their pupils but I really have no chance to take music lessons there. (Too expensive! :() They have a choir which currently has 25 members (only 4 men) and I took part in a rehearsal which went fine. They have a modern pop - orientated song - repertoire and they sing in German, English and French. I asked the conductor which voices the are looking for and she told me that they are still looking for soprano and alto voices for the women. This would suit me perfectly. This choir has a rehearsal one evening per week, but the costs are 32,00 EUR per month. It's completely chanceless for me, as I will never be able to afford that. :(
  15. Pierre-Emmanuel

    Pierre-Emmanuel New Member

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    I used to compose and record but now I mainly improvise on the electric guitar and play Georges Brassens on the acoustic guitar. Lately though I've been neglecting my guitar and spending most of my time learning languages. I suppose it's normal to go through different phases during life. I don't regret putting more time into language learning and less into guitar playing - both are edifying activities.
  16. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    I certainly have a musical background, but the hobby kind of faded out. I have training in voice, piano, and guitar. Once performed in a driveway with a band and got the cops called on us :p
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  17. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    I regret calling them, but that crying wah-wah pedal of yours was just a tad annoying, don't you think ?
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  18. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    That wasn't the guitar, that was me.
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  19. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    You rock!
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  20. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    Dude, this is gorgeous,



    Furthermore, if you ever came to my house I'd take down the "No Stairway to Heaven" sign. Thanks for posting the links.
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2014
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