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Post subject: How I started doing music. How about you? What prompted you?
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 8:59 pm
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:07 pm
Posts: 604
I was listening to the Temptations, Smoky and the Miracles, Chuck Berry, Elvis, The Dubs, the Flamingoes, all the fifties stuff. So about the time I turned about 21 or so we started singing a-Capella on street corners on the Jersey Shore. The group I started with was just Rod Hood my best friend, and Lambert Chauncy Smith, another local friend. I was the high tenor, Hooder was the second tenor, and Lambert was the baritone. We had no lead singer so all we did was three part harmonies imagining the leads. Some of our friends would sit in from time to time and sing lead.

One day the premiere a-Capella group in town the Soundmasters broke up, and we hooked up with the high tenor Fat Smit, Hooder was again the second tenor and my (now) brother in law Jimmy (fat) Smith was the best high tenor, so I dropped down to baritone. Lambert had hatted out of town for some mysterious reason, and we never saw or heard of him again.

Later on Fat Smit's brother the late Kenny Smith came on as lead singer.

One day Kenny disappeared and went off to the Height Ashbury scene to see what was happening there, leaving us without a lead singer. We kept on going however with some pretty awesome sit ins from North Jersey. But we all missed Kenny.

One summer day Kenny comes walking up the street with Hendrix style hair. His eyes were all bugged out and he whips out this blue vial of "Qwsley" he called it, we had been doing some 'erb a little bit but nothing serious at the time. So we all looked at each other and wondered what had happened to our good bud out there in California. (It did not take long before we all looked and acted like Kenny). Who by the way was one of my most favorite people I ever met in this life (RIP amigo).

The story of how I started playing guitar is as follows; One day we decided to take a road trip inland to visit a friend who had moved inland. In the back seat with me was the late Jay Suhm another baritone who seconded as the bassman in the Soundmasters after I joined and who had preceded me in the Soundmasters some years before.

Jay took out this bag of pills that had a peace sign on one side and he said I have some "Owsley" here. Who wants to do some? No one? Then I will do it all myself. So I took one of the blue colored ones. I guess we were on the road for an hour or so to the house we were going to visit. As I was peeking, Jay sneeked up behind me and clapped a set of headphones on my head. On the Stereo was playing Crossroads by the Cream. At the time I was listening to the Temptations and the do wop groups of the Northeast. Motown and all that stuff.

That night I heard music like I never heard it before. The guitar work seemed to be in motion. It moved from place to place in time with the groove like I never heard music before. (even though I had heard the thing on FM previously). I was still not convinced to change my preference to the Rock scene at the time, since I was a member in good standing to the a-Capella scene.

The very next morning I went out and bought a Stella Guitar which I tried to play for a few weeks, then I bought my first Telecaster from a friend and a Blackface bassman from one of the second hand music stores in the area. It was not long before I quit the Soundmasters after trying to get them to learn an instrument, which they just did not want to do.

So after about 46 years or so, here I am still pickin happily, and I never looked back on the a-Capella scene, and never missed it even a little bit.

Nowadays I can make finished productions all by myself without any other humans involved, using backing track generating programs, or inputting the BT's in MIDI through a MIDI keyboard and rendering it to audio using samples and synths.

I absolutely love making music even if it is never ever heard by any other human......

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dbm
If it sounds good it is good.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... tent=music


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Post subject: Re: How I started doing music. How about you? What prompted
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:04 pm
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Amateur
Amateur

Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:13 pm
Posts: 108
Something now that kids nowadays can't do. When I was a kid it was in the 60's and good music was what my older brothers listened to then. My oldest brother bought an acoustic guitar during the hootenanny years. He left it home when he joined the service. I was bored bored at home during the summer and a guitar was in the room, so I learned to play the Beatles. I was about 7 or 8 yrs. old. Never would have learned it if video games were made.


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Post subject: Re: How I started doing music. How about you? What prompted
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 12:20 pm
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Amateur
Amateur

Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 8:40 pm
Posts: 107
Slow day today so I'll play.

Where do I start. Another child of the 60's here. As a young child I was surrounded by Country & Western, both my Dad and my Grandma were huge fans. Dad had served in the Marines during Korea and was a fan of Waylon, Willie, and the boys, grandma was more old school and would listen to the Grand Ol Opry. We moved out of Chicago to a little farm town, and then later moved to Phoenix, and then back and forth over the course of my life. So never had a shortage of both the Country and the Western influence.

As the mid 60's took hold I was into Buddy Holly and the likes and the first wave of British Invasion bands, but still C&W held me close. Then I went camping with a few of the neighbor kids and like DBM had a mind altering experience. Rubber Soul played in a dessert canyon just changed everything I knew.

As a player I knew a few cowboy chords at that time, but fancied myself a singer. A few years later Uncle Sam offered me a nifty green suit and off I went. While in the service I hooked up with an amazing guitar player in my barracks This guy was the real deal and convinced me that I would make a great bass player. I then continued to play bass in about every kind of R&R outfit you can imagine, from folk to alternative to metal, and everything in between. Fast forward to the Christmas of 1990 my newly sober little brother bought me a shiny new American Strat Plus and nothing has been the same since.

For the next few years I woodshedded like a madman, of course raising a passel of kids at the same time cut down on my practice time, but eventually I got pretty good. I have been told I am a steady, inventive rhythm player and that I have a distinct lead style ( probably from so many years of bass ).

I am now an empty nester and have the time ( and money ) to pursue my music. The best part is I like to play anything from ol' Bocephus to Shiny Toy Guns, but give me a good old blues beat and I will find a way to make ya smile!

-Harry


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Post subject: Re: How I started doing music. How about you? What prompted
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:30 pm
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:07 pm
Posts: 604
I learned all my licks from improvisation. I learned the alphabets (scales and how to use them against the changes) The chords I learned playing some covers, earlier on, and later on I found out how to build the chords from the scales I was using, which was a real eye opener, and from there I began writing, usually the chord progression would be the start of the tune, and then the lyrics, then the backing tracks, and from there the recordings. Since I never played many covers after the 60's bands I was in, I could never find other musicians to play my stuff, all most of them wanted to do was cover tunes.

So I learned how to make backing tracks from MIDI and convert them to audio using samples and synths into analog tape. Later on as computers got stronger and more powerful I began doing digital recordings, then I found the composition programs Band In A Box and Jammer Professional. And even later on I began using already created MIDI's to learn some cover tunes. You'd be surprised at just how good you can do using pro created MIDI's especially if you know how to manipulate the MIDI data into a nice modern recording app.

Now I am thinking of breaking out my acoustic guitar and going back to some of my earliest recordings which were mostly all created in my van on surf trips out west. One day I will have to relearn all of them well enough to rough in the rhythm guitar to a click track, and then put the vocals to them. Since most of what I play now is single note stuff on well set up electric guitars, there are going to some sore fingers and hands in my studio for months at at time if I begin that project.

_________________
dbm
If it sounds good it is good.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... tent=music


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Post subject: Re: How I started doing music. How about you? What prompted
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:58 am
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Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2013 11:11 am
Posts: 9
I'm youngest of six,born in the seventies.
Music was always heard in our home in the seventies,each elder sibling with different tastes, ranging from The Sex Pistols to 10CC and everything inbetween.
Dad was Ella Fitzjerald,Shirley Bassy and big band.
I went to night school with dad when I was very young,dueting on the cornet..
My musical influences took a turn a bit later on life with Kiss,Iron Maiden,Thin Lizzy.

We all still like our music,i was just the one who did something about it :lol:


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