Musical accomplishments

[Blinded No More]

Discuss your musical accomplishments here, as in, challenging songs you can play on an instrument, songs you wrote, ect.

I'm not that musically talented... the only instruments I can use are the keyboard and my voice, but I'll share 2 accomplishments I find decent:

Memorized the lyrics to Sonata Arctica's "Draw Me" and can sing it well in the key of the instrumental version

Coming closer to being able to play Power Quest's "Prelude To Destiny" on keyboard. (And I can nail the high-pitched vocal wail at the end)

 

[Kingface]

I can't contribute much to this thread, mainly because I don't play any instruments and have not found the time to try and learn one yet, but your comment about being able to "the high-pitched vocal wail" made me think God I wish I actually could actually have an even slightly decent singing Voice and I would especially would love to be able to have one of an high-pitched nature!

 

[MetalCodd]

I used to be able to play the tune from the old Hovis adverts on the piano without actually looking at the piano.

Er...that's pretty much it.

EDIT: I used to be able to do a half-way decent Etta James impersonation (well, the first couple of lines of the song on the Diet Coke adverts). It was murder on my throat but it did go down well at parties.

 

[Philomelle]

Well. I survived four years of piano lessons during elementary school, and graduated from the Alfred's kids books to the "serious" cream-colored ones with the black borders.

Since then I've played around with learning some Nightwish or Sonata Arctica songs but never learned one all the way through. :/ I can't contribute much to this thread either, haha.

 

[Blinded No More]

I can't contribute much to this thread, mainly because I don't play any instruments and have not found the time to try and learn one yet, but your comment about being able to "the high-pitched vocal wail" made me think God I wish I actually could actually have an even slightly decent singing Voice and I would especially would love to be able to have one of an high-pitched nature!

Well, my voice isn't all that high-pitched, it's actually pretty deep. But somehow I can do some decent falsetto wailing like Alessio from PQ or Tommy from ReinXeed.

 

[1928]

I'm a pianist entering a university, studying music composition and theory. I play several other instruments, but keyboards and piano are my primary.

Whenever I'm not feeling too lazy I'll start arranging songs for piano (usually power metal), but even if that happens, I almost never get around to finishing them, which is my worst habit. Oh well.

I can also do a bit of singing, but I'm a bass. *tuba sounds go here*

 

[fraserwatt1990]

On the keyboard my biggest achievement so far seems to be buying it, I suck pretty badly. Agh, gunna go practice now!

 

[Symphony]

Nice idea for a thread.....always interested to hear about musicians of all levels.

Interested to hear more about your studies too 1928!

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

Well I play electric guitar/accoustic/12 string/banjo/bass self-taught and have for about 5 years but am strictly a novice who really needs to practice regularly Latest accomplishment I guess was learning Falconer's 'A Quest for the Crown'

 

[mr NOT]

Sang classic as a kid (forced), wasn't my thing so to the anger of my parents I started singing in metalbands Latest band was Black Knight www.blackknight.nl , a band known here in the region (Netherlands) we won a few battle of the band like contests and when we were about to kick ass in a wider region my boss sent me to Kazakhstan for a year so I had to choose, work or music. Chose work and never regretted it. My best friends play in a band called the Name www.thename.nl and mind shade www.mindshade.nl where I help out with the music and recording mainly for the first named. I love to sing, but bandmanagement is more my thing. I love to think out new formats, marketing ideas and brainstorm about what direction the future takes music to and how to act to that.

 

[Andiferum]

Widdly widdly screeeee.

 

[Cello]

I do growls and a little bit of (bad, off-key) singing (for which I'm looking to take lessons, once I get some money in again) in a melodic death metal band and our biggest achievements have been winning the studio prize (a free day in a professional studio), we're recording a demo/long EP in May and we've organised our own little metal evening (with us playing together with several other regional bands) several times in different small venues Can play a bit of drums, but other than that I'm horrible at any instrument

 

[kogasu]

I've been playing guitar for about three maybe four years. I taught myself and I practice pretty much every day. I'm not very good though. I can cover some songs, some metal some rock but almost not many complete songs hehe so I'm pretty meh at it. I just try to shred a lot in the most unintelligible and horrible fashion possible.

I also play bass and I just recently got into keyboard. I can play only a few pieces of songs though. I of course had to start out with the intro to "Black Diamond" by Stratovarius and then I went on to others including "Far Away" by PQ. I can play the solo ok but probably with the worst technique ever done on anything. I'm still taking lessons for that. I'm also trying to get my own band off the ground but it's not working out very well. I've written many songs for it though. Some power metal, some traditional heavy metal and some even death and thrash metal hehe. They aren't that great either and they're almost all unfinished. heh

Along with that, I also write my own songs for just random purposes. It's all pretty much electronic music that's more focused on melody than beats and some symphonic-y sounding music too. I'm not really that into electronic music though unless it's like ambient or I happen to accidentally hear an electronic song and has a nice melody. You see, it would all be heavy metal songs if I had the right equipment for it but I have no recording equipment so it's just this hehe. It's obvious I still have a lot to learn about music though hehe. Also, I don't actually play any of the music like on a keyboard or anything except for one song. The rest was just written by me and I used a sequencer to play it.
http://kogasu.newgrounds.com/audio/

 

[1928]

Nice idea for a thread.....always interested to hear about musicians of all levels.

Interested to hear more about your studies too 1928!

Well, I'll have you know I've sat around at school throwing around the chords to Hold On To Love and Children of the Dream lately, which almost always segues into a rendition of Van Halen's Jump with me singing, complete with the key solo

I'm actually curious about your background as a pianist, Steve - do you have a favorite composer, etc.? Beethoven is my man

 

[Symphony]

Well, I'll have you know I've sat around at school throwing around the chords to Hold On To Love and Children of the Dream lately, which almost always segues into a rendition of Van Halen's Jump with me singing, complete with the key solo

I'm actually curious about your background as a pianist, Steve - do you have a favorite composer, etc.? Beethoven is my man

Nice dude!

Good question actually.....love the almost "pop" sensibilities of Mozart and the lyrical approach of the likes of Debussy, Mendelssohn and Chopin but also the more hard hitting styles of Shostakovich.

But like a lot of metal guys......J.S Bach is probably pretty near the top of the pile for me!

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

Nice dude!

Good question actually.....love the almost "pop" sensibilities of Mozart and the lyrical approach of the likes of Debussy, Mendelssohn and Chopin but also the more hard hitting styles of Shostakovich.

But like a lot of metal guys......J.S Bach is probably pretty near the top of the pile for me!

In the same vein as that, Paganini is the man.

 

[1928]

Nice dude!

Good question actually.....love the almost "pop" sensibilities of Mozart and the lyrical approach of the likes of Debussy, Mendelssohn and Chopin but also the more hard hitting styles of Shostakovich.

But like a lot of metal guys......J.S Bach is probably pretty near the top of the pile for me!

Very nice! Bach, Chopin, Mozart... cliché choices, but they're also way up there for me, Bach especially. Had to play one piece by each of those three for my uni audition, actually. Love the pure emotion that Chopin has, and Mozart's just incredibly fun to play. I have a special place in my heart for Bach, as Jens Johansson is basically the metal version of Bach in terms of sound and technique (that and it sounds like Bach on speed), and I'm a total Jens fanboy

 

[fraserwatt1990]

Aside from getting a teacher (won't have the cash to do that until I'm back home in the summer) what kind of things would you recommend for a beginner keyboardist to do. I have a basic understanding of theory already from playing the guitar

 

[Andiferum]

Scales, arpeggios, chords and coordinating 2 hands at the same time, I guess?

 

[1928]

If you know the notes, learn all your basic major/minor scales. Practice them one hand at a time, then two hands at a time, one octave up and down. Once you're comfortable with that, try two octaves (quarter notes for one octave, eighth notes for two octaves). Make sure to use proper fingerings...

Then try chords. Arpeggios are a bit tricky for the beginner but well worth trying once you figure out the fingerings. Of course we could get into a whole other world concerning technique and whether to play from the fingers or arms...