Modern Vespa

It's interesting that we have 2 Daves who build costom ukuleles.

Silver Streak is the other one.

As for myself, I'm doing good to play the radio.
I do have a couple harmonicas, a jaw harp, and a recorder around here somewhere, but never got really good with any of them.

It's what ALL the really cool Daves do!

I used to be able to play the Oboe, about a million years ago.
I own the piano that my father bought for my mother and she treasured all of her life. It is probably horribly out of tune, but it is still in the family.
My son plays the viola and his teacher says that he is quite good, he is trying to make the competition band next year in high school.
My daughter currently is in her first year of band and is playing the clarinet. She stopped the room when she blew the alto sax, but we went with the clarinet for her first instrument to make sure she would stick with it. She practices and is making excellent progress and has superior control according to her teacher, so we will see about that sax sometime soon, I hope.
I can play my daughter's purple plastic recorder and tap out Three Blind Mice on my son's old bells set. My son was taking percussion, but got a new, young, inexperienced, and very rigid teacher in 6th grade and dropped out so he wouldn't have to deal with her-after she called me at my mother's house when my mother had just gotten home from ICU after having a trach and she was actively dying from pancreatic cancer to inform me that my son (who was also still recovering from Mono) needed to practice at home more and she expected him to practice every day "no matter what" I sadly supported his decision to quit band. At the concert last week they had to pull some high school students to handle percussion because the middle school doesn't have enough students taking percussion to fill all the spots. Sorry about the rant there, clueless ivory tower teachers piss me off.
-v

In our living room right now:

Console piano
Antique pump organ
Acoustic guitar
Electric guitar
Electric Bass
Bagpipes
Tenor Sax
Trombone
Clarinet
Oboe
Bugle
2 ukuleles (Kamaka and Fluke)

There might be something else I'm missing. Our son plays everything. He was a band kid. I wanted him to love music. Be careful what you wish for.
I play piano and a little acoustic guitar.

I play the radio. 8)








..use to play the bassoon back in middle school.

I'm surprised no one plays their Vespa horn!

I had an awesome new wooden Selmer B-flat clarinet through middle school and some of high school. Boy, was I proud of that. My best friend and I were usually the only 2 in the whole band with real wooden intstruments. We were also usually 1st or 2nd chair out of the entire group of up to 20 clarinets! Love playing first part.

Sadly, at one point the family moved, and the clarinet was put into non-climate-controlled storage for a while (had I known, I certainly would have raised a stink). I now have a wood-pulp-and-glue clarinet that I got at a discount when a shop was closing. I feel like I went from a Vespa to a Kymco, lol. It's very nice, and much better (in my opinion) than a plastic clarinet, but it still doesn't have that perfect tone to it that a real solid wood one does. I don't play much anymore, so I guess it's just as well. I got very spoiled with that Selmer. But $200 is a much more reasonable amount to pay for something I rarely play now... as opposed to the $600 Selmer I used to play several times a week.

Sorry about your clarinet. My husband played the tenor sax in high school and college. It had been stored in a garage for 20 years and had to have all the pads replaced. That was pretty expensive, but worth it because it was a high quality sax.

The oboe cost used more than $3000. When we were looking to buy, a double reed shop loaned us two, with the idea that the music teacher would help us evaluate them, and we'd buy one and mail the other one back. Having $6000 worth of oboe in the car made me nervous. Also, the UPS people weren't sure how to pack the one we sent back, and when I told them its value, they were nervous too.
As if that weren't enough, we found out that oboes, unlike some instruments, do not increase in value over time, or even hold their value. They're more like a car - they depreciate.

The moral here really is "Be careful what you wish for."

I own a jaw harp that I play occasionally.

I also have a hand-held percussion instrument (looks like framed drumhead) that I bang on all day when I don't wanna work.

A few years ago I became a senior piano beginner and since then have a 51" upright. One of the most enjoyable pieces played on it was by our SDG when he delivered my GTS. I recorded it and wish I could upload it somewhere for you all to hear. Any idea who hosts mp3 files? It is just shy of 2 MB. You sure this is a San Xian? Looks like a kick starter for a cello to me

made this for me son



had some large offcuts at work and thought "wonder if it would be hard to make an electric guitar" ..... not really

I grew up playing the organ. My son recently got me interested in guitar. We also have a piano and keyboard.

The price difference is amazing... you can get a true top of the line guitar for the cost of a piece of crap organ.

I own and play a berimbau as part of capoeira. I also play some of the other instruments associated with it.

Probably dosen't count but to me these are my musical instruments :
Pair of Vestax turntables
Pioneer mixer
A mac with logic installed and a midi keyboard
A shoe box with finely tuned rubber bands

I've got a few projects in logic i need to finish, but finding the time is difficult. Also I've not touch my decks for a few months now due to being busy

here's SDG rippin' it on my upright

Wow. That was great fun.

That was really good!

That is a cool object. 8)

Snare drum and bells kit (left over from youngest daughter)
Alto sax (left over from eldest daughter, although I played alto/tenor/bari for a few years.
A couple flutaphones. Oh, they're called recorders, now...
Horner blues harmonica (C)
Thorens professional chromatic harmonica
Maui Xaphoon (Bamboo sax)
A really old zither
Jew's harp
A couple kazoos

Hurdy-Gurdy.

I have three of them, different styles.

See mine here:
http://www.dragonflybridge.com/HurdyGurdy/

Hear one here:

Wow!

What a fabulous instrument, and just an amazing object to look at.
Of course I'd heard of the hurdy-gurdy, but had no idea what one actually sounded like, tilll now that is. Thanks!



By any chance, are you the guy Donovan sang about?

1968 song by Donovan "Hurdy Gurdy Man":
Donovann did not have a clue what a hurdy-gurdy was or sounded like.

He named the song for another band he knew called Hurdy Gurdy, whose band members were friends of his. Don't think this band knew about hurdy-gurdies either.

Looking at it casually, it appears to be very complex (mechanically), at least in comparison to the more familiar stringed instruments (assuming it's a stringed instrument).

I'll have to do a little research on it to ejoomicate myself a little better.

They're quite beautiful, at least the three you have are. They look like a cross between a Fulton steamship and a plectrum dulcimer...I mean that in a good way.

8)

thanx mate ... wish hed play it a bit more .. hes decided he wants a bass now

Hurdy-gurdy?

Yep, a stringed instrument. Two of mine have 6 strings, one has 7 strings, but you can get ones with up to 10 srings.

One type instrument can have 2 or 3 melody strings (the ones played by the keys) tuned in unison or tuned an octave apart.

The remaining 4 or 5 strings are drone strings, playing a continuous note like on a bagpipe (keys do not affect the drones). And to complicate matters, 1 or 2 of these drone strings can be a trompette (dog, or buzzing string) which makes a buzzing sound like a bee when the handle crank is turned properly.

Very complex instruments compared to a guitar, but once set up and tuned properly, a beautiful sound, truly unique sound like no other.

Good example, listen to this song:
http://www.dragonflybridge.com/HurdyGurdy/Songs/LikeSnowTheChimney.mp3

2 1976 Fender Telecasters made a month apart. They are oem but they sound like night and day only nicer.
91 Ovation Adamas 12 string
89 Epiphone 6 string.
98 Gold Tone elec. Banjitar
98 Yamaha keyboard
many tin whistles
07 Flextone plus
and my pride and joy..
82 Mesa Boogie Mark 2 b with the post effects mod.
Currently I am playing Celtic Pub music with the Banjitar having lots of fun. 30+ gigs lined up so far untill after march..

Kewlness! Hurdy-gurdies have been around since Renaissance times. I have met a couple of folks in the Society for Creative Anachronism who play them. Here's a painting by Bosch which shows one of the earliest examples of Hurdy-gurdy with a buzzing bridge:

Unfortunately, it appears to be an instrument of torture in the painting.....I would have thought that hell was full of banjos.

I had a speech problem as a child,
So my grandmother sent me a harmonica over from England.

Got quite good at it, Played for numerous bands in my youth,
Jammed at many a party and boose can in Toronto.

Had to give it up though, Smoking got the better of me.

Just muck around on a Midi piano now.

In grade school I played string bass and violin.

Dave

Basses, upright and acoustic and resonator, fretted and fretless.

Finally, here's a picture. Oh and I, too, have a Michael Kelly Dragonfly!

Fender Fat Strat
Epi Les Paul Standard
Peavey Raptor EXP
Cort Earth 200 Acoustic
drums
didjeridu

Fender Telly and Strat. Gretsch Country Gentleman, Sears (Danelectro) Silvertone, Martin D1, Some weird counterfeit Gibson, King 3B Tenor Trombone with F attachment, D. Naill Bagpipes, Buffet C Saxaphone (very rare)

Many, many drums:

1955 Gretsch Roundbadge Blue Sparkle
Late 1950's Gretsch Round Badge Player kit (jelly bean kit refinished and rewrapped)
1966 Rogers Red Onyx
1966 Rogers Black Onyx
1970 Slingerland Blue Onyx
1980 Gretsch Red Rosewood Stain
2008 Ludwig Champagne Sparkle
2008 Ludwig Black Beauty Snare

A few pics

I play guitar and write songs for a band called Candypants.

We're working on a song called "Let Him Ride", which is about how you can't stop somebody from doing what they love to do.

Voxx Phantom air guitar, with lots of fuzz.

Hey, we need people to listen to our music!

Support live bands in your area.



Heck, support live bands in my area!

Bass, spoons, stylophone.

Looks like one of our gigs! Woo Hoo!!

Didgeridoo

I started playing the fiddle at the age of 54 and after 3 years am so glad I finally took the plunge.

www.mikeelzeysguitarstudio.com

Guess you could tell from the website........ah?

[url]www.mikeelzeysguitarstudio.com[/url]