How many of you “make” “music”, and why?
 

Inspired by a post somewhere in (I think) this forum, which I remembers as saying why go to the bother of practising, mastering the difficulty of a musical instrument when you can get your performance tweaked to perfection electronically these days.

The words “make” and “music” can be defined as widely as you like (I’m not looking for an argument on what is or isn’t music here). Do you practice or go for electronic tweaking, or neither. What do you get out of it?

I’ll put my answer in a separate post.

After a few bean burritos and a six-pack of Bud, I'm quite musical...........

Bassist here. It's a unique sort of fulfillment; it's not "fun" like playing a game, but it's a certain kind of joy. Gives life additional meaning somehow. Hard to say!

These days I practice pretty often because I'm building some chops, but part of my connection to my instrument is how little practice I actually need. I have an ear for it so I think it's very easy! There are bassists out there who wank around and play a lot of busy parts, slapping and popping and such and I never enjoy that. I just want to be the foundation to a song, have a nice tone, contribute my part. If I wanted to be out front with a huge ego I'd be a guitarist. :D

right.

as is true with many other things in life, it's more about the journey than the destination. the pleasure I take from releasing the emotion through the music is more important to me than the end result. making music with other players feeds itself, and gives you the sense of completion that justifies the time spent practicing. you need to practice, howoever to get to where you can begin to play with emotion instead of just follwing the 'scripted' noted that are included in whatever song you're playing.

liken it to painting. you could use an overhead projector to just trace some great work, and come up with a beatiful painting, but why bother?

I play clarinet, including a stint as a music major at a university with a pretty good music school. Ultimately I switched from the performance track to music history, and then dropped out of grad school to get into the IT racket, but I've continued to play.

The thing I've been most interested in is playing in orchestras. There's just something about the experience... like UT says, it's hard to say. On the best nights, it can be a religious experience. It's nice to have solos--I had a really nasty one at the last concert, in April, and judging from the comments, I must have played the hell out of it, but I personally don't really remember it. But I also have a really great appreciation for just playing along as part of the group, creating something that turly is greater than the sum of the parts.

I've played guitar since I was 10 (I'll be 48 in September). When I started, it was because I was planning for my future and figured it would be useful in getting laid (yes, I thought about that a great deal when I was 10).

In my late teen years, it became a form of expression for me when I started writing a few songs. Throughout, though, it has been a means of elevating my mood and transforming my state of mind.

Something happens when I play. I don't know what it is, but once I've had the worst day in the world, a couple of hours of band practice makes me feel like the king of the world.

The other aspect of my musicial experience is recording and making a "permanent record" of the things I play. Although I rarely record my own material, helping to bring my collaborator's creations to life through arranging, engineering, mixing, etc over the past decade or so has given me a new respect for the skill of those who do this professionally, and just how much work goes into the things we take for granted on the radio and in our music collections.

The final key of this is the one that no one talks about much...ego. There's no bigger rush than to have people applaud a performance, or tell you that something you wrote or recorded or played on affected them in some positive way. Ego strokes make me purr... :)

I hope to improve my drumming and keyboard skills in the coming years, because my hands are becoming so arthritic and painful that playing my guitars and bass is becoming very difficult, and my proficiency is suffering. Whatever happens, though, I will make some kind of music, somehow, some way.

I went pro in 1997, and it’s been paying my bills ever since. I play keyboards, do some songwriting, and a fair amount of production work. I’m the guy who puts crappy players in the computer and corrects their playing. I’m also the guy who gets hired to come in at 8 in the morning to replay the keyboard part that the drunk guy in the band spent 6 hours trying to play at 10pm last night. I’m the reason the music industry sucks, but I’m OK with that.

There are just too many reasons why I do it, and they’re all fairly entangled. When you first start to take gigs in LA, someone will pull you aside and explain the 4 reasons to take a gig:

1) The music is great
2) The hang is great (other musicians on the gig)
3) The money is great
4) The career move is great (big name artist)

When you first start out, you’ll take anything, and everything. As you get a little more of a grip into the industry, you can be more selective, and you start to make decisions based on how many of the 4 reasons are in effect on a gig. Maybe it’s a great career move and great money, but no hang and no music – playing on the Hillary Duff record, for example. Those gigs are like a musician’s 9 to 5 job but with better pay. Some gigs are great music, and a great hang, but they pay poorly – like sitting in a big band. Those are fun, but career killers if you take too many.

The ideal gig has all four, and when you get one, you hang on with both hands, and some teeth.

Now that I’m reading back, I realize that these are the reasons why I take a gig, not why I make music. I guess there are two reasons. The first is that it’s something I’m good at, and I love doing things that I’m good at. It’s deeply satisfying. The second reason is this – it’s no secret that I believe in a creator. When we imitate that act of creation by making our own artistic works, we participate in an act that, in some ways, is sacred. I’m not talking about religious art, or things that are meant to be morally uplifting. All creative acts are an homage to the first creative act, and we participate in that when we make music.


-sm

Ah another clarinet player. Granted I haven't played since high school, but I understand what you were saying in that last paragraph.

Whenever we played a concert (either for the school or on location), it *was* a religious experience. We were the best concert band (and jazz band) in Baltimore County at the time, and we knew it (marching band left a lot to be desired lol). Even if we sounded like crap during pratice, we managed to come together and kick ass during the concerts.

Ah the memories...:)

For some reason I cannot get past this. I've talked to you, listened to your CD, even seen your pictures! Almost 50 does not jive with my mental image of you. 35 maybe.

dont feel bad.
http://www.markwenzel.com/smokingjacket.jpg
that's how I had him

This image does a pretty good job of dispelling any possible misconceptions about my appearance:

http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?threadid=3823

Cool, you'll always be early thirties to me tho. Wondering how I missed that thread, it's almost a year old! Juju being there shoulda been my first clue I guess.

Used to play clarinet. Tried to learn the guitar...didn't work out. The only instrument I play these days is the skin flute.

I was the lead singer of a band for a short time. I keep threatening to re-emerge as a spoken word artist, but keep putting it off. I may have found my calling as a DJ though...

The only instrument I play these days is the skin flute.

TOOO EASY !!!!!!;)

I play the French horn (have done on and off since I was eleven) and Flugel horn, the anglo concertina (since about 1999) and I sing.
By preference I am a fourth horn player, providing the bass notes in a horn or woodwind chord and I love being the foundation of it all. Circumstance (absence of an orchestra or wind band and presence of a brass band locally) forces me to play Flugel and I’m getting my head (and chops) round this gradually. Flugel can get a lot of solos to play but that’s not what drew me to it, the bandmaster told me what to play! I’d be happier lower down in the band …
I took up the concertina because I was looking for a small, party-animal of an instrument with which to join in the impromptu ceilidhs which sometimes sprang up around here. They happen less often now, but I sometimes go and take part in folk sessions. The singing splits into two, either early music (sacred or secular part songs, small group, preferably one voice to a part), or I have a couple of songs which I do at folk sessions.
In my twenties I went through a period of not making music at all and when I started again I discovered just how much I need to make music. Music provides nourishment to my soul and when I began playing again I felt is as an enrichment of my self, without which I get mildly depressed and continually out of sorts. For me it is getting involved in the music itself, or joining in with others, which matters more than public performance. If a song or piece is going really well in front of an audience I am oblivious of them, and can sometimes become aware of them with a jolt in mid-flow, which is rather a shock and I try to get back into the music. Practising, with others or not, gives me the experience of effortlessly “living in the moment” which it would be nice to be able to do all the time – shutting out the brain-chatter which partially distracts me all the time from the moment.
I couldn’t live without it. I tried and it was grim.

Limey, I lived in England for a year because katkeeper - mom, to me - got married to a gent who had a fellowship grant to live there and compose music for brass bands. He worked with the Grimethorpe Colliery, which I guess is the band everyone knows.

Yup, that and the Black Dyke Mills Band. I've only fallen into brass banding by default and don't know much more than the ordinary joe about the whole scene.

Righteous.
Mandolin. I've been too busy to play with my Masters courses and all. I need to make time. For me, its about being an integrated human being. life, love, work, learning, creation, play, art, spirit, family... That's an incomplete thought that I need to work on when I don't have four assignments due in class.

I am a maker of music rather than a musician ...

Before anyone gets any ideas about my playing only something like a "chicago typewriter" ...

Lemme see ...

Piano
Organ
Guitar
Clarinet
Tenor Saxophone
Trumpet
Recorder (soprano and tenor)
Xylophone (and other melodic percussion, including vibraphone and marimba)
Asst Hand drums (frame drums and bodhran)
Native American Flute
Bamboo flute

I have played a digeridoo several times, but don't yet own one.

Oh, and I sing too.

I don't have access to a lot of the above instruments, so "formerly played" is more correct. My clarinet is badly in need of repadding, but I can get it to make noise. I have my guitars (one folk one classical) in a closet, lovingly stored away, probably warping as we speak.

I do find a lot of joy in musical expression, however, given my work schedule, I don't think my neighbors have the same understanding of the need to bust out in some drumming at 3am as I do ...

Practicing is a huge part of enjoying the music for me. If you think of ability and technique on the instrument as a scale from 1 to 100, I try not to take anything “public” that’s any higher that about a 60. That’s means I have to practice my ass off to have another 40 percent in reserve over anything I’m trying to perform. For me, that’s the comfort zone – where I have complete control over the music, and am free to use it expressively.

It used to be a bitch, but I switched to a new teacher about 3 years ago, and gained a whole new perspective on practicing. It used to be a grind to do 2 hours a day – now it’s a breeze to do 3-4 as time allows.

-sm

I was first introduced to the magic and power of music when I was 5 and sat at my first piano. I remember watching a man play and admiring the way his fingers danced across the keys; it was amazing to my bewildered child's eyes. I copied the basic exercise he was performing and discovered I had an ear for it, never had any lessons just taught myself to play - I still have that same piano at my mum's house. The enjoyment was in 'catching up' to a melody - I believe they are there to be found and the best musicians are those that can hear them. It gives me pleasure to hear a song I like and reproduce it, I also write my own songs when I have the time and you just know when a tune feels right, like you've found it. Or it's found you.

I am also learning to play guitar. I am learning from a friend who plays in a band, so not a teacher as such but nevertheless I am under instruction. It annoys me to say that as I wanted to think I could pick it up with the ease with which I mastered the piano. But my 21 year old mind is clearly not as agile as 16 years ago, and understanding the structure of the guitar is taking some time to master, although my 'ear' remains untouched - which my friend says is the only thing that cannot be taught.

'Making' 'music' is an immensely satisfying process of discovery, and the high production values that surround music these days kind of spoils that self-taught, musical flair that is so inspirational. It feels contrived and modelled and detracts from the real sound of the music - a real voice, real instruments, just real. Just a reflection of everything else in this world that is remastered, reproduced, regurgitated, whatever. Where are beginnings, originality, flaws? There is a Japanese word 'wabi' that refers to a beautiful, distinctive flaw in something which is otherwise perfect. It needs to be there. It's part of the whole. With constant retouching and editing, I can't help feeling that modern music has begun to lose its wabi.

oh well I play guitar and a little bass (and have taken shots at both the banjo and mandolin... unsucsessful.. so far anyway.. i'll try again in a few months.. an on going battle :)) )

but I started when I was around 15-16 as some sort of attempt to express the emotions my hormonally wracked body was going thru.. and there just weren't words to explain it.. it's still kinda the same, but throughout the years it has become both a.) a relaxing thing to do and b.) since i KNOW i will never master the instrument it's kind of like a parable for life.. the journey not the destination and all that... and also there's something about writing a new song... it's just... I don't know if I could explain it, it's creating something.

and it's good for free beer!

heh and in all the bands i've been in, i never managed to get laid from that alone.. (usually too wound up after a show to be anything close to charming )

if you get really bored, the last band I was in (three years ago?) some of our stuff can be found at

http://www.garageband.com/slurry

(and yeah the singer isn't so good.. heh nor is the music really)

I re-read the thread just now and I have to say that sm's point about creation is striking to me even though I DON'T believe in a creator. I've been thinking about that point since he made it and I ALSO believe that CREATING is the most important thing we can do as people. Bringing new things to the world is the greatest thing we can do for it.

I thought about that a lot when I started my business, which is a whole different creation process; my dream has always been to bring something new to the world and guide it along in such a way that it winds up, net, improving all our lots in life somehow. Business creation shares something with artistic creation in that way.

It's also why I'm not personally interested in playing in a cover band. It's still meaningful, but not as meaningful as if you create something from scratch.

Does anyone else see music as a process of discovery rather than creation? As in the music, melodies, rhythms already exist, it is just a matter of finding them?

Well, there's nothing new under the sun. The relationships, harmonic functions, rhythmic structures, they already exist and are in operation. We create new ways to thread them together.

The colors already exist. The painter just decides where to put them on the canvas, but that's certainly a creative act.

-sm

That answered my question perfectly.

kick ass. That means I'm 1 for 375 and gaining ...

-sm