Can you play an orchestral instrument?

[Guest]

... and do you still do so - in an orchestra or ensemble?

It would be interesting to know whether there are enough message boarders on this forum to form a small orchestra or ensemble.

Apart from that, it would save us all embarrasment from "trying to teach grandma to suck eggs".

Come on now. Don't be shy. Anonymity will be preserved, but it would be nice to have an idea of to whom one is talking, before putting one's foot right in it!.

HS

[cloughie]

... and do you still do so - in an orchestra or ensemble?

It would be interesting to know whether there are enough message boarders on this forum to form a small orchestra or ensemble.

Apart from that, it would save us all embarrasment from "trying to teach grandma to suck eggs".

Come on now. Don't be shy. Anonymity will be preserved, but it would be nice to have an idea of to whom one is talking, before putting one's foot right in it!.

HS

No - have you thought of forming a Portsmouth Sinfonia soundalike from people who can't?

[french frank]

Curious fact: in all my attempts to learn musical instruments, I seem to have avoided 'orchestral' ones: recorder, guitar, piano, 'harp' (no, not that sort of harp!). I did start the violin when I was 11, but our dog put in an objection and the rest of the family voted with him to keep him (and me) quiet.

But a good question from HS - where are the players? I know a few of you ...

[Pabmusic]

I'm afraid that I can't do anything seriously (timpani, percussion, and conducting) since I had a stroke in 2008, but I had a large library (about 400 sets) that I passed to an orchestra in Cheshire. I know that I can get hold of any of those sets again if they might ever be used seriously.

[Nick Armstrong]

I started playing the trombone at the age of 8... It was always the 'social' instrument, whereas the piano was the tougher one, practice and lessons and exams. So I never got very good at the trombone, but it was fun. (Actually, I wanted to play the horn when I arrived at the school - but so did my best friend. They only had one horn and one trombone... I lost the coin toss )

I was weaned particularly in the concert band at school, run by an ex-Kneller Hall trumpeter, so Sousa and Alford marches, Eric Coates, Leroy Anderson etc are in my blood. (Argh I just remembered a ghastly arrangement of 'In a Monastery Garden' ).

I co-founded a brass ensemble at University, and we did Philip Jones type repertoire.

Then as I got more into orchestral music, I started to play with amateur groups. It's been intermittent in the last 10 - 15 years but I 'come out of retirement' occasionally to rehearse and play something special.

The two highlights have been playing 1st trombone in Mahler's 5th and Rachmaninov's 2nd

[Hornspieler]

Curious fact: in all my attempts to learn musical instruments, I seem to have avoided 'orchestral' ones: recorder, guitar, piano, 'harp' (no, not that sort of harp!). I did start the violin when I was 11, but our dog put in an objection and the rest of the family voted with him to keep him (and me) quiet.

But a good question from HS - where are the players? I know a few of you ...

FF

Your post reminds me of a cartoon which I saw many years ago:

It depicted a small boy practising the violin.

In an adjoining room, his father is saying to his mother "He's only had that violin for four weeks and it's out of tune already."

Good morning all.

BTW You can include piano as an orchestral instrument if you can sight-read reasonably well and can watch the conductor at the same time.

HS

[MrGongGong]

I'm (another) lapsed hornplayer but about to start again once my operation stitches have healed

so until then i'm first study percussion in the style of the tray of crockery in Ligeti's Apparitions



(but mainly a composer these days and am writing a piece for a London based orchestra at the moment !)

[salymap]

Like ff I started violin lessons, at about 16, with a relative. I found it so tiringto hold the violin under my chin I gave up. I had a party piece, which I recall with horror, where i played violin and piano alternately. I never had an audience,even the cat rushed out.

I am an experienced Music Librarian but I see you already have one.Good luck with your project HS.

[Pabmusic]

I am an experienced Music Librarian but I see you already have one.Good luck with your project HS.

No, don't get me wrong - for the last 20 years I conducted more than played. I just built up a library that I owned. I'd be a hopeless orchestral librarian, so I never administered it!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oboe mainly. I let it drift for many years, but since buying an amazing new instrument, I find it difficult to put down.

[Serial_Apologist]

At about age 5 my parents bought me a miniature violin. After about five minutes of scraping I put the instrument down forever, announcing, "I think it needs oiling"!

Then my mum, a competent, LRAM-qualified pianist, started trying to teach me piano. This task was then handed on to a Dr Philip Wilkinson, LRAM, ARCO and a rather fine composer, (whatever happened to him??), who discovered I had a good boy soprano voice, and from then on the voice became my principle instrument, leading the school choir through and beyond all stages of voice-breaking and as soloist, until I was submitted at age 13 for a choral scholarship - which I failed due to poor sight-reading skills in the piano playing part of the exam. Only ten years ago I found out, from interviewing a composer for a music magazine, that had I passed, that could have permitted me entry to a leading academy to study composition: seriously missed opportunity.

Since when, without actually "coming out", piano playing has remained a hobby - improvising on blues and standards after a (to me) very derivative fashion - and I have a cupboardful of scores left by my mother, including all the Beethoven piano sonatas, which, *one day*, I might start having a go at, though what's happened to my poor reading skills in a meantime of 48 years, goodness knows.

Bernard Shaw once famously said, "If you can, do; if not, teach". In my case, that would have to be, "If you can, play; if not, write", i.e. reviews, interviews - and that, for all my sins, is what in the end I have managed to do.

S-A

[cloughie]

I did start the violin when I was 11, but our dog put in an objection and the rest of the family voted with him to keep him (and me) quiet.

I also started the violin at 11. What is it about the violin? I have always had a good musical ear but somehow the sound I produced sounded so awful to me, but in the early stages of learning it is so difficult to correct it. Needless to say I didn't conytinue very long - if only someone had said to me at the time 'why not try a clarinet?'. I can play a piano but cannot honestly say I have really truly mastered any instrument.

[Auferstehen2]

Greetings HS from a miserably wet and small Mediterranean island.

What a wonderful question!

As some may know here, at the age of 60ish, I’ve started to learn to play the piano (currently a pretty lousy Grade 3/4).

I’ve never played in an orchestra of course, and equally obviously, never will.

Best wishes to you all,

Mario

[french frank]

It's looking a bit more like a wind ensemble than an orchestra ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I used to play Violin (poorly) and Clarinet (badly) but I earned small but regular payments as a Percussionist. Haven't played anything in public since Christmas 1994, but have occasionally got my violin out of its case. It's excrutiating! (Well, strictly speaking, this is only true when I put bow to string: the instrument itself has a decent sound when I leave it alone!) I can no longer tolerate the high notes in such close proximity. I have borrowed a Viola, which is less harsh: I intend to devote some serious practice once I retire.