Jack of all trades, master of none here. Typical singer-songwriter I suppose.
Guitar is my main instrument. I guess Neil Young’s kind of (accoustic) guitar playing is what I grew up with more than anything else. Not a very good lead guitarist. I can do some convincing funk guitar (I hope, check my upcoming Funky Fever, if I dare to put it up for bashing). Which leads to the other instrument : drums. I can play them well enough that a band actually wants me to be their drummer, so it can’t be that bad. The band plays at low volume with influences from folk, blues and jazz. To enable playing at reasonable volumes I’ve taken to using a Cajon with a kick pedal (which I play turned round with teh heel of my foot), a high hat and a few cymbals. Quite basic, not too fast or fancy. I’m not recording drums: my studio is quite small and I don’t have enough inputs, so I use Addicitve Drums for that. Sometimes I do record some percussion instruments. I once sang in a professional salsa band for a while (in the days when nobody new what salsa was), until it became too embarrissing to sing in a langauge that I don’t speak… But I learnt a bit about using latin rythms and percussion instruments.
I love bass guitar but find it to be a surprisingly difficult instrument to master. You have to keep it simple but incredibly tight and consistent. Each note counts, no sloppy playing allowed. And that’s what makes it difficult. I’m a bit too sloppy for bass.
Other than that, I play some very basic keyboards (with a lot of editing after tracking), a bit of harmonica and one or two other instruments I have lying around.
Oh, and of course I sing. Do’nt like my voice much, it’s too nasal. And I have never learnt to use it correctly, I tend to force my voice in the higher registers. A handicap in popular music is that I can’t reach that far into those higher registers. No Jimmy Page, or Neil Young for that matter. But I have little trouble with Leonard Cohen. So if you need a bass backing vocal, I’d be glad to help out
I can so relate to this. I love to play the bass too, and it really is demanding. If it’s not right, the whole song/mix is doomed! I always knew this, of course, but it wasn’t until I started playing bass a few years ago for my home recording that I came to appreciate its role in even more fundamental ways. And it was amazing how quickly I started doing the “chicken neck” move while playing…! Almost immediate…
Absolutely Dave! If I was ever critical of bass guitarits in my past I would publically like to say I’m sorry
But you left me behind with the “chicken neck” move. I’m not familiar with the idea, and couln’t find any reference on the internet. I know chickens are able to keep their heads in one position whilst the rest of their body sways in all directions, But how does that relate to playing the bass? Maybe I do it too but not aware of it? Is that like preventing using open strings?
It’s the jerky head-bobbing thing that I see a lot of rock bass players do… the guy who seems to have it down cold is Billy Talbot, from Neil Young’s band Crazy Horse. In the Rust Never Sleeps movie, he is jammin it constantly… I can’t find a good clip on youtube from the film except for this trailer. The link is at 1:03 and momentarily after it starts you’ll see him move across the shot from left to right, chicken-neckin’ it big time…
Soon as I started playing some bass, my head just started doing this involuntarily…!
Now I get it. Its not what you do with your bass, but what you do with your head
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Maybe thats why I suck at playing bass: I just havent got the head bobbing right.
This will be quick as I don’t do much well. I’m a hobbyist who likes to write words and compose music, and being a loner have been forced to sing and use a lot of midi mostly, and record mix and master with no help. I have been blessed to have collaborated with a handful of talented musicians over the years who have helped me sound a lot better than me by myself. I have written and recorded over 200 songs, most suffering from abject severe to almost demo mix quality, but I think I’m getting closer in my old age. I enjoy this site, so filled with mixes of talents of every sort.
I actually have a collab band formed right here in Collaborate, the Interstellar Fur Traders. The project is an 11 song sci-fi rock musical, and we have not released anything yet although we have made a lot of progress, but it is taking longer than expected. Ah, good thing we are our own bosses. I am happily expecting us to finish this year. But here is an example of @ingolee and I called No Turning Back. http://indierecordingdepot.com/uploads/default/original/2X/6/6cd4339e6902a156d01fbff05cdc76122e7b563c.mp3
I’m Blair
I play guitar (my main instrument), bass and can hack on drums. Although with the amount I practice these days, I kinda hack on everything. Can’t sing to save my life, and hope I’m never put into a situation where I actually have to sing to save my life. Have mostly hovered around playing rock n’ metal most of my life but my musical interests are all over the place. Collaboration with folks would be a blast… it’ll force me to actually practice cheers!
Thanks @holster. I will definitely play along if I can get the guys in the band to do it. Whenever I use programmed drums it never sounds good. I was going to give Fever a try but just didn’t have the time.
Thought I’d add my super extensive list of talents to this thread! I can play guitar and bass at a moderate level and, well I guess that’s it. So maybe not so super or extensive. Also I’m fairly terrible at recording, only one way to go for me…up!
Not really sure what style my music falls in to, it’s been compared to the melodic RHCP style (not their funky stuff). I’d agree with that I suppose, some songs might sound Californacation-ish or Road Trippin’- ish. They’ve definitely been a big influence on me. You’ll hear some samples as I progress to the Bash section of the forum!
I collaborated with another member of this community once and came up with a song I really like, who knows, maybe another one sometime?
It ain’t poultry, it’s Nanderthal. 
