Switching preferred instruments

[rfurtkamp]

Sometimes you find what works for you and roll with it.

If you'd told me twenty years ago I'd be doing guitar synth, I'd have broken your nose.

[psychic vampire.]

Twenty years from now you'll be doing synth guitar(?)

[rfurtkamp]

Twenty years from now if I'm still alive anything is possible.

I'll be Jabba the Fucking Hutt by then.

[friendship]

I agree with what you are saying. It was just weird, as i never really set out to make this change, or consciously decided i wanted a change of musical scenery. It seems to just be the direct end result of fucking around on music alone and in a new band doing music i love but never played in a band context before. And lately i have been playing bass in a cover band and fucing around with stringed instruments and amps feels dull in comparison. But everyone here is right, it certainly never felt like the end of the world, and it will probably just be a phase, or finding a different/more natural way of conveying what will end up being the same ideas. Just weird to experience for the first time. I have almost always had synths and guitars and drum machines around, but life just changed a little. Oh well.

Drum machines, though?

Not all of our interests are formed on a conscious level. It's okay to find yourself interested with something you wouldn't have expected. If your heart is responding to drum machines, roll with it. It's not a less creative a tool than any other, because tools aren't creative; people are, and it sounds like it's been very productive for you.

[OddKnowledge]

It's not a less creative a tool than any other, because tools aren't creative; people are

I feel like my journey through different instruments has been natural over the years, but i feel like no matter what i'm playing, i always sound like myself.

[HighDeaf1080p]

I just got Vuja De.

No matter what instrument I'm playing, I never sound like myself.

[friendship]

bro do u even transcend the ego-construct of the self

[Eivind August]

bro do u even transcend the ego-construct of the self

10/10

[UglyCasanova]

bro do u even transcend the ego-construct of the self

TOO FUCKING FUNNY. Sig'd!

[HighDeaf1080p]

bro do u even transcend the ego-construct of the self

Hahahah. Apparently not. Firmly rooted in my id, here.

[Invisible Man]

Narapoia: the feeling that you're always following someone, or that people are always out to help you.

I hear what people are saying, but the tool does change the way we do things. Seems a little disingenuous to say that it doesn't matter what we play...the sharpie/pencil analogy is a good one, but the qualities and limitations of a tool can do a lot to define the way something is produced. I change my drum kit around sometimes just so I'm unable to fall into the same 'licks' that I might otherwise play. I'm trying not to sound 'like myself.'

Anyway, I don't disagree, I just think that it might be an ILFism to say the things we use don't matter, then obsess over those things in 98% of our threads. Guilty as charged. But moving from bass to drum machine like PV means you've got to think about building block of music in new ways. Switching from bass to guitar seems like a different kind of thing than re-framing your approach to music.

Not trying to be a dick or contrarian, just thinking out loud.

[HighDeaf1080p]

Seems a little disingenuous to say that it doesn't matter what we play...

Totally comfortable with hypocrisy here...no matter what I play, I still suck.

[psychic vampire.]

First of all, thank you Invisible Man, you're maybe picking up a lottle more of the conversation i was chasing. In college i was a printmaker, and yes my subject matter was pretty consistently informed by myself, but even within etching, aquating and intaglio and drypoint and sugarlifts and spit bites do wildly different things, visually. But then you move over to woodcut and it's a totally different thing with a totally different aesthetic and everything. By the time i was making lithographs and silkscreens I could have just been another artist. The pencil/sharpie analogy is funny and accurate to a point, but i would be a totally different visual artist if i tried to use sharpie to convey the ideas I usually reserve for the finest tip pen I can find.

But this is all an aside, also. The question i originally intended was more along the lines of: "Has a drastic and sudden change in preferred instrument changed the way you approach your music? Has it changed the style of music you play? How has it realligned your views?"
Seems like most people here feel it hasn't changed much/anything, which is interesting, if not the opposite of what i expected.

bro do u even transcend the ego-construct of the self

But it did give me this.

Seems a little disingenuous to say that it doesn't matter what we play...

Totally comfortable with hypocrisy here...no matter what I play, I still suck.

And this is true for me too. Glad we can share the company.

[backwardsvoyager]

Narapoia: the feeling that you're always following someone, or that people are always out to help you.

I hear what people are saying, but the tool does change the way we do things. Seems a little disingenuous to say that it doesn't matter what we play...the sharpie/pencil analogy is a good one, but the qualities and limitations of a tool can do a lot to define the way something is produced. I change my drum kit around sometimes just so I'm unable to fall into the same 'licks' that I might otherwise play. I'm trying not to sound 'like myself.'

Anyway, I don't disagree, I just think that it might be an ILFism to say the things we use don't matter, then obsess over those things in 98% of our threads. Guilty as charged. But moving from bass to drum machine like PV means you've got to think about building block of music in new ways. Switching from bass to guitar seems like a different kind of thing than re-framing your approach to music.

Not trying to be a dick or contrarian, just thinking out loud.

nah, you're right. i think people are talking about different things to an extent, though. the instrument itself will always change the process of producing music in some way, and that change will be drastic in the case of switching from something like guitar to drum machine.
my point is that the tool used isn't important in the way that being able to use said tool comfortably is. 'sounding like yourself' no matter what, is kind of a vague thing to say, and probably applies more to people who stick entirely to instruments with similar input limitations (that of the western chromatic scale, for example).

the way in which working with a different instrument changes your musical output, stylistic attitude etc. is gonna vary a lot from person to person, i think. when i play i'm not sure i really chase a particular sound or try and limit myself to a certain form too heavily so my attitude and method of exploration doesn't change in a way that i can really acknowledge or pay much mind to when changing instruments. i cling to what gives me a sense of connectedness and non-specific creative energy, but if i was the type of person that switched instruments out of desire to better fit within a given context, for example, i could see that having a much greater effect.

[HighDeaf1080p]

totally changed everything for me, every time I switched.

Starting with trumpet, I was young, but was very serious about it. I started at age 7...and because it was trumpet, everything was about the melody. The melody of the song was it, and who cares what the rest of this nonsense is, that's only there to support what I'm playing.

Moving into piano, because I was coming from trumpet, I based everything on a very melody-centric view. The melody in my right hand was king, and all the rest of the music just hinged off of what I was playing...as I kept the melody smooth and with emotional content, the rest of the music just took care of itself...what I was doing in the left hand, or other parts of the right hand, or with my feet was just mechanical support for that melody. My piano instructor loved it because the music had flow, and she felt that I "got the point" of every song I learned...but that's all I was doing. Learning songs. Learning to read music and regurgitate it. My sophomore year in college, as I was playing on the piano in the dorm lounge, a friend of mine said, "you have got to write a song with me...I'll go get my guitar." I quickly informed him that I could no more write a song than fly to the moon. I told him that I was reciting music from memory, but had never played something I didn't pull from sheet music before hand.

He scoffed and pushed me to write a song over the next 3 minutes, which blew my mind. Within a month I had gotten an electric bass and was writing music with him.

Electric bass was the first time I had looked at music as something that I was creating from within, instead of reading from written music. Because it was bass, I was quickly learning the building blocks of chord progressions, and how to create tension and release, and play outside of the box. I almost couldn't turn off the faucet of music that was pouring out of me, and several of the songs I play to this day were written during that first 6 months with electric bass.

When I left college and lost partners to play with, I stayed dormant for quite a while...then decided I should take up a solo instrument. Piano wasn't going to fit in my small apartment at the time, so acoustic guitar was the thing. I approached guitar like I approached piano. My guitar instructor was puzzled at the way I played piano on my guitar. It led him to push me into jazz chord/melody playing which I love to this day. Getting sucked into Jazz theory has been the most addictive and enjoyable thing I've yet touched on in music. I am now backing off and touching more on improvisation and creativity on the fly, within a framework system.

While I am not sure it was the instruments themselves that made me see music differently, the changing within me as I took to each new instrument forced me to see music from another direction. On guitar, I never play anything but original music or at least original arrangements and interpretations of existing songs. I have no desire to "reproduce" having gotten that out of my system in 12 years of piano. Maybe I'm not giving the instruments enough credit, but I always saw this as a personal journey that used different instruments as a thought catalyst.