Musical gardeners?

Anyone here play a musical instrument?

I'm about as musical as an angry flock of rooks :) I love to screech on the penny whistle and have a good go at throttling a guitar. I'll even sing when I think I can't be overheard by anyone I know, until the cats in the locale all go missing for a few hours but I enjoy it (I'm the only one who does incidently!). I badly need one on one lessons before my neighbours all start singing the Bad Baa Blues.

Anybody got any tips for a tone deaf musician or should I stick to gardening? ;) Any stories to share?

Two good songs for you could be "Baa-Baa Black Sheep", or "The Sound of Silence" ;-)

Practice makes perfect Baa, just keep at it, trying something new each day, after going through some of what you know. If you have a wee microphone, tape yourself as often as possible, and you can hear what mistakes you are making. It doesn't have to be of any quality (the mic. that is, not the music). That way you can then iron the wee mistakes out, and become really super brilliant !!!

Don't give up

Wintermoor

LOL yes and Silence is Golden has also been suggested amongst other things ;)

Thanks for your advice, now I just need the courage to hear myself on tape LOL.

I'll bet you have a ton of stories to tell!

I have loads of stories, but none of when I was playing the drums, well I have, but I would be publicly stripped of my secateurs, and barred from DG forever if I printed any of them here ;-)

*blush*

Wintermoor

ROTFL!

I'll bet ;)

Baa.....I had to laugh..Reminds me of when my DH & I were counselors to a YF group. When we would sing the kids called me Edith. lol Now if you are old enough and remember "All In the Family", Archie Bunker? REmember the show opened with Archie & Edith singing "Those Were the Days". Well.....Need I say more???????

I can't carry a tune in a bucket. I do play a little piano, 'VERY LITTLE'. Just enough to make me dangerous and to amuse myself.

I played what they called the tuba (bass horn), in high school. I wasn't very good at that either. THe horn was just about as big as me. I'm 5'1".

Oh, Baa, I love to sing! Kenny says I do rather well, but he's biased, you know. ;) But if he and I both enjoy it, then I do it, but mainly just around us two. It's a wonderful stress reliever ~ perks me right up after a hard day or when we're on long trips. It sort of energizes you. I can vouch for Wintermoor's advice to practice. If you don't know all the words and nuances of the song, it's hard to sing it. Once you get it down pat, you can belt them out with no problem! Get the words and tune memorized so well you could sing it with your eyes closed and do just that ~ let the thoughts, emotions and feelings the words give you flow right out your mouth. Oooooh, feels so good!

I have a beautiful, brand new Washburn guitar that sits in the corner. I keep threatening to pick it up and learn how to play it one of these days. Every time I see a guitar, I feel this pull towards it, knowing what beautiful sounds can come from it and wanting so badly to make them myself. One of these days...

Yes, Baa, I do quite well on one instrument, my almost new boom box! Oh, and I was known as a fine juke box artist in my salad days. I could always hit the right key. As for voice, it's sad that my warblings have never been preserved. I have effortlessly transposed entire albums without benefit of any equipment but my own vocal cords. Why, I even sing in my sleep. "I sleep alone, where once you tumbled". Some people think the line is "I walk alone, where once we wandered."

Baa, you've hit a "high note" (bad joke) with me. Music..my first love!! I play piano, organ, teach both, sing, direct, and played clarinet and bassoon in high school. My Daddy has a saying that some people "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket". Now I don't think he was referring to gardeners and their buckets. But I do hum while I'm in my gardens. It helps pass the time when I'm weeding. "T" :)

I sing great at the top of my lungs at 4 a.m. rolling down the back roads with the windows down ... well, at least the cows don't go stampeding away as I drive on off to work! I'm trying to scrounge some $ together to buy a used piano so I can offend more than just bovine ears!

LOL Naturegal

I can just imagine that tuba! I've never seen All in the Family I'm afriad, it must be one of the very few US programmes that didn't make it to our telly.

Aimee

What's a boom box and how would you play it?

Wingnut

I feel a strong pull to the guitar too, my brothers wouldn't teach me to play as a teenager. They were too busy frightening my friends by showing off their latest composition, or should that be compostition ;)

Sledder

My grandfather played clarinet in a band (way back when the Big Bands were popular!). The piano looks so complicated, is it difficult to learn?

LOL Kmom!

I'm not the right person to ask if a musical instrument is difficult. I of course say no...but then again I also realize that it takes practice practice practice just like anything else. In my many years of teaching I've had students that were very talented and some that just didn't care. Right now I have a student that has the talent of my big thumb but tries ever so hard. "T" :)

When I was a kid, I got to take piano lessons upstairs from the showroom at Steinway Hall, which I suppose, is about as good as it gets. If all those New Yorkers could see me now, living out in the sticks, grubbing in the dirt, they would really scratch their heads.
Anyway, I was untalented, hated the practice and made very little progress over the years and quit. Now, 40 years later, I have taken it back up again. I just pick a piece I LIKE and practice it alone until I get it right and then I play it for my husband. I am currently working on the Blue Danube, which we both love. I have actually gotten some to sound pretty darn good.......

Woodspirit, I think that's the key ~ picking something you like to practice on. The only songs I know all the way through are ones I really like.

when I was in high school I played the clarinet in the marching band. Huffing and puffing along in the hotest part of the summer in those wool suits,and the Fat stock show parade in Houston TX, in the coldest winters ever. but I did it. I also love to sing and did ok until I had to get dentures, They don't fit properly, so it don't sound the same. When it's just me, I catterwall away. my favorite song to play (my way) was when the saints go marchin' in. we lived in the country and I would march down the road to practice.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement to continue frightening small children and domestic pets with my catawalling and tuneless strumming!

Keeps me out of trouble anyway ;)

*giggle*, Baa! You go, girl! I've often thought I'd buy some earplugs to hand out once I start learning guitar myself ~ might be the humane thing to do. ;)

Baa, your singing and guitar strumming cannot possibly be as frightening and painful as a first month clarinet player! My poor dog would sit next to me as I squealed and screatched away, a look of pain and determination on his face! Maybe he thought I was in pain, also, and he had to stay near to comfort me?! A more loyal dog I have yet to see.

Sledder, it must be wonderful to be able to enrich people's lives by giving them the gift of music. I can't carry a tune, and my marching was way better than my clarinet playing, but the richness and depth it has given me is irreplacible. (BTW, Sledder, how did you manage to switch back and forth between single and double reeded instruments without destroying your embusher (sp - can't spell in english, certainly can't spell in french!))

Baa, I hope you enjoy the heck out of your guitar and your singing! I'm not sure how complex piano playing is - I took a semester in college, but only got as far as some scales and some simple Bach stuff (I think he wrote it for his kids?). I had problems coordinating the left and the right hands (still do; I'm amazed I ever learned to touch type). And, being that I played clarinet and flute first, I had this thing about forgetting that the left hand is written in bass cleff as opposed to trebble cleff, and then things would come out sounding really strange! So I guess that all I can attest to with the piano playing, is that it was easy to play pretty lousy, but it was fun, none-the-less!

Take care, all. Enjoyed this thread - brought back some good memories!

Can't carry a tune, but love to sing none the less, lol..I play piano, organ and a little flute..I also have a guitar, but after many years have never learned to play it..Maybe someday..
Larkie

Since I damaged my vocal chords I can't sing anymore, the problem is that although I sound like I am tone deaf, I really hear how bad it is and cannot abide the horrific sounds I make. So even the Cows have no fear of hearing me sing! But I can tap my feet and clap my hands to the beat...although most of the time I am rather off beat...So the only real musical instrument I can play is the Stereo.

zanymuse Ha,Ha,Ha, I also play the stereo, as well as the cd player, cassette player and the radio. I might add, rather well!if I do say so myself!:)

Can't sing, I can't even whistle very well. I am a constant hummer. I actually had to put the camcorder away because everytime we watched those vacation pics all you hear is "hum, hum de hum" LOL!