I don't know what you mean by the first question, but I can answer the second. I usually think of the line - not the individual notes but what the whole sounds like. The only time I go note by note is when I'm first learning a piece.

how many instruments do you play/know how to play?

My primary instrument is the clarinet, but I theoretically know how to play all the instruments in your normal wind band. In practice, I can get a good sound out on all of them, but I'm most comfortable playing trombone, bassoon, alto saxophone, and piano. It's part of the requirements for a band director. You have to know the fundamentals of how to play an instrument before you can teach it.

I used to play the clarinet. I could play four different clarinets.

Which ones? I prefer bass clarinet myself. It's actually what I auditioned on to get into the music school.

Bflat saprano, eflat saprano, eflat alto and bflat bass. Bflat bass being my fav.

Yes! Bass for the win! I've never tried the alto or the Eb though. I've never been asked to, but I'd like to try them. I also want to try out some of the others like the C or D sopranos just to see what they sound like. I really love the sound of the A soprano clarinet. It's a lovely dark sound.

Eb is small. And what pissed the fucking hell out of me about it is that I took the thing home, bought reeds, practiced for a solid month and I didn't get to play it in band. Why? Because I wasn't first chair. When I played the Eb alto I got to play the sax parts and sit with them. It was so freaking awesome.

Yeah, Eb is really hard to play. It's the piccolo of the clarinet family.

Saxophone and the players are generally pretty fun. Today was my last day student teaching at my first placement, and some of the students I'm going to miss most are my saxes. For the most part they were a bunch of sweethearts. Them, the horns, the trombones, the tubas, the clarinets, the . . . Okay, all of them! XD

And the first chair clarinet player sucked at playing it. I got seriously good at it.

LOL. I miss being able to play.

I hate it when the first chair person gets to do all kinds of things even when they're not really qualified.

Is there a community band you can play with? Or a university ensemble nearby? Or is it because you don't have access to an instrument?

I can't play any more because I'm so out of practice. I have my old Bb soprano clarinet. I can't play it worth a damn anymore though.

I see. It's what we've had to bang into our students' heads about practicing. You don't keep up, you'll get behind. Although, if you had the time, you could probably get back into practice. It would just take awhile.

Yeah, and new cork on my instrument as well.

Gah, cork. I swear, I've had to work on more instruments in the past three months than ever in my life, but I am so glad no one needed me to fix a cork. I hate when those go wonky.

Mine have most likely gone wonky through disuse.

Hewwo! o_O is everyone talking about music? for me music is like a one-sided love, seriously, i love it so much but it's so hard to understand, like reading music sheets is hard for me.

I am currently the director of my churches chimes choir.

It's unfortunate that wind instruments get crappier with age while strings get more valuable.

Chimes? I used to love playing handbells. My grandmother's gift to my church after her death was to give the seed money to buy handbells. My brother, aunt, and I used to play with the choir.

@Ga In: Hard how? Confusing?

Originally Posted by Kin-Akari

It's unfortunate that wind instruments get crappier with age while strings get more valuable.

Chimes? I used to love playing handbells. My grandmother's gift to my church after her death was to give the seed money to buy handbells. My brother, aunt, and I used to play with the choir.

@Ga In: Hard how? Confusing?

I don't know how to tune instruments and read sheets. T___T I attempted to learn but I didn't understand. There are so many terms I don't know.

Yeah chimes.

@ Kirin: Yeah, chimes. We had a set of those too. I'm just more used to calling them hand chimes. ^^

@Ga In: Perhaps you just need to take it at your own pace, and go slowly. Any specialty can be overwhelming when you looking at all the stuff you need to know. When did you try learning? Was it in a band class or something?

I call my chimes choir my chimers. *giggles*

Better than the nickname one of our smart aleck members came up with - the Ding Dongs. XD

Or the dingalings. There is a young gentleman in the choir who is autistic.