What other instruments do you play?

[Atom Schmitt]

Ugh, the picks, yes. I use a different pick for acoustic too, so on a given night, I've got like 10 different picks sitting on my PSG and the transitions are tough because we try to do 90% of them without pausing for much more than a beat between songs.

[Clete Ritta]

I consider myself primarily a guitarist professionally (acoustic and electric), but also make a little playing piano, pedal steel, mandolin, bass, harmonica, alto sax and dobro on occasion.

I bought a pocket trumpet and a fiddle a few years ago. I play those at home terribly when nobody is around. Usually just long enough to reinforce that I will never play either proficiently. It mostly helps when Im tired or frustrated with pedal steel, and after that cacophony I can then enjoy practicing making sweeter sounds on the pedal steel guitar again.

Clete

[Dave Boothroyd]

Not to make this a kit boasting list, this is just just a list of the devices that I regularly use to make music.

8 string console steel.
Small acoustic guitar with pickup
Jumbo acoustic Guitar
Solid body electric guitar
Archtop electric guitar
Archtop 12 string electric guitar
Archtop bass guitar with active pickups
Fretless bass guitar
Mandolin
Melodeon
Bombarde
Treble and Tenor recorders
Penny Whistle
Hand drums (Djembe, Bongos, Clay drum etc.)
Keyboards
Piano
Kit drums (in a very limited way, and live only, never on recordings)
Lead and harmony vocals.
Mac and PC computer music programs

Cheers
Dave

[Steve Hotra]

I started off singing years ago ( able to sing lead and harmony)

My first instrument was a Slingerland 4 string tenor banjo. Took lessons and then went to guitar.. never looked back.

I mainly play out as a vocalist and lead guitar player.

Keys/piano come next.

Pedal steel is my newest adventure! This is where I am spending a lot of my time rehearsing.

Mandolin is last but not least.

[Steve Hotra]

To answer your query more fully, Patrick, I still own all of these but the sax and the ukelele, plus another grand-dad's violin that I have never messed with. For a solo product I put together fifteen years ago I sang and played everything but the tenor sax - which was handled with uncommon genius by Mr. Dan Fincher - and programmed some drums and other horns that I could not otherwise pull off alone.

I performed on sax and flutes with our latin show "Felicidades" in the mid-1970's, until our bass player joined the Hare Krishna, at which time I bought his gear and reverted to being a bassist. Since then I have always worked with superb horn players and have been satisfied to listen to them go. While I was playing bass and steel with the songwriters' workshop "Sky River" in the late '70's I was also playing bass with the Marylhurst Symphony and our drummer was the timpanist. Talk about eclectic...

The trombone I only fool with a bit at home now but I do occasionally work up enough tuba chops to haul around a sousaphone on the 4th of July Other than the steel I play a bit of keyboards and guitar now and then but rarely on stage, once in a while the flute makes it to a gig, but if there's a dollar for a bass player I'll be there for you and ready to play most anything, just tell me the key and play

I really enjoyed weaving the piano and steel with the B3 and bass on this one back in 1996 http://www.pdxaudio.com/lesson.mp3

Hope you enjoy...

Nice sound clip Dave... thanks for sharing!

[chas smith]

Yours truly, playing my instrument, The Towers, titanium rods and plates at a concert. They range in height from 55" to 109" and are all mathematically "friendly".


This is the newest instrument, bertoia718, and it hasn't had the "beauty work" done to it. That being, powder coat the stand, pearling and probably annodizing the plate/resonators. There's around 64 square feet of resonator surface. The "instrument part" is 7' tall with 48 rods tuned to a 14-tone scale and there are 48 aluminum resonators also tuned to a 14-tone scale. The rods are inconel 718. The round plate came from a turbine, of some sort.

[Paddy Long]

Pedal Steel
6 string guitar
Dobro
Backing vocals

[Alvin Blaine]

I've cut back to just taking a pedal steel, lap steel, dobro, banjo, mandolin, an old Martin D-18, couple of teles, a few button accordions, and a couple of Fender amps to the gig. Maybe occasionally harmonica and trumpet & trombone, but that's only if I know someone is going to do a song I can use them on.

[Alvin Blaine]

Yours truly, playing my instrument, The Towers, titanium rods and plates at a concert. They range in height from 55" to 109" and are all mathematically "friendly".


This is the newest instrument, bertoia718, and it hasn't had the "beauty work" done to it. That being, powder coat the stand, pearling and probably annodizing the plate/resonators. There's around 64 square feet of resonator surface. The "instrument part" is 7' tall with 48 rods tuned to a 14-tone scale and there are 48 aluminum resonators also tuned to a 14-tone scale. The rods are inconel 718. The round plate came from a turbine, of some sort.

Chas, those are some of the coolest instruments. Man I really want to build something like that.

[chas smith]

Chas, those are some of the coolest instruments. Man I really want to build something like that.

Alvin, for me, building instruments, including guitars, and composing music that uses them, is about the most enjoyable and satisfying thing I do. Usually I start with an idea of a sound that I want, and then I try to build something that will do that. I've been doing it long enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to get and sometimes there are the surprises when it does more and, at the moment, I'm looking out the window at one that really didn't work.

They also can be a little pricey. bertoia718 has 100' of inconel 718 1/4"rod, that cost me $10/foot. The Towers have around 60' of 1 1/4" titanium 6-4 rod that I got surplus from Lockheed, that your tax dollars subsidized, and I want to thank you for that. The 18 titanium plates, that were surplus from Titanium Joe, cost me around $12,000 and add to that the stands with powder coat... did I mention that these things can get a little pricey...

[Michael Johnstone]

Yeah Chas is the ginchiest. Where he comes up with that stuff is beyond me.I count myself lucky to have him as one of my very best friends.You should see his steel guitar collection - it's the largest collection of desirable classic instruments I know of.
As for myself - besides pedal,non-pedal steel & dobro,I play standard guitar,enough bass to get by and most of the mandolin family of instruments.That is to say mandolin,mandola and octave mandolin.I also struggle with 16 hole chromatic harmonica and have a few of those I like to play old standards on.

[Johnny Cox]

Bass, sort of.

[Jody Sanders]

Guitar, bass, and swinette. Jody.

[Bent Romnes]

Bent,
If it involves a pig and a rubber band, it is the same instrument.

Erv somewhat the same...swine-ette involves the pig and two horse's hairs, plucked with your teeth

[Chuck Blake]

Stelling RedFox 5 string banjo
Blonde Engleharth Upright Bass
Fender Electric Bass
Gibson Era F60 Dobro

And of course my newest love of my life

GFI SD10 Pedal Steel

[Allan Jirik]

I used to play dobro and some mandolin but now only banjo and pedal steel. That's all what little talent I have can handle.

[Mark Daniels]

I'm a bit of a gear nerd so I like to see what everyone else plays. Those metal instruments are wild!

I played violin in orchestras when I was a kid then left school and bought a Fender Strat. Some friends of mine had already been playing guitar for a few years and so I went to bass and found I preferred it there. I still play guitar though.

I went from a 4 string bass to a 6 string fretless and then to a 7 string which is my main bass. I have a 9 string as well, which is a 7 with an extra high and low string, so not that much of a jump.

I sing and can play drums and double bass as well.


Basses:

Sei Offset Flamboyant 7 string
ACG Recurve Singlecut 9 string
James Tyler 4 string
Conklin GT7 (converted to fretless)
Jackson 'Kip Winger' bass
Kala U-Bass
Dingwall Combustion 5 (which may be being sold to finance a better steel!).

Acoustics:
Taylor GS
K Yairi DY88 12 string
Ovation Elite 12 dtring
Takamine EF261s

Electrics:
Jackson PC1
Charvel 475 Ltd Ed.
Cort NZS-01
Washburn WG-587 7 string
Epiphone LP Jr (modified)

Others
1920's banjo mandolin (belonged to my Grandad).
Kala KA-CEM tenor uke
Kala ASLAT tenor uke
Oscar Schmidt concert uke
Artisan C6 lap steel

[Douglas Schuch]

Pedal Steel (newbie): Stage One

Harmonica: Bushman Delta Frost's and Hohner Special 20's

Cuica: last one got too rusty...time to replace.

For those who do not know what a cuica is, it's a Brazilian friction drum, sounds like a whining dog sort of (it comes from African lion-calls, mimicking a female lion in heat). Here is a vid with one prominent: the little drum-looking thing with a button in the center of the head. Attached to that button is a thin bamboo stick that is rubbed with a wet cloth to produce the sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8I3b6CLoq4

If you are inspired, listen for it in, among other songs, Marley's "Could You Be Loved?" and Paul Simon's "Me and Julio, Down By The Schoolyard."

[David Mason]

Dave Grafe's post kinda rang a bell, at least this part:

if there's a dollar for a bass player I'll be there for you and ready to play most anything, just tell me the key and play.

I made more money playing bass than anything else. If it's a band where "Sultans of Swing" or some jump blues fit, I'm required by law to play some six-string (or slide). When I read the "the decline of..." threads, it seems to me like what's really disappearing is dance music, of any certain genre at all. The bar owners didn't care if it's Texas two-steppers or blues wobblers or old drunk noodle-dancing hippies, as long as it generated income. Maybe I'm just getting old, or the younger people don't have as much disposable income, but there's slim pickings out there for any kind of band at all these days.

[Patrick Janka]

Very cool, everyone. Chas, those are impressive. Mark, nice collection of basses!

My next purchases I'm eyeing are a sitar, sarangi, and tablas =)

[Mark Daniels]

Thanks Patrick. It's taken me just over 20 years to find the right basses for me. However, the Dingwall's up for sale to pay for a better steel than my Little Buddy!

I had to look up Sarangi as I had no idea what it is! It really is the distinctive sound of that part of the world isn't it!!

[chas smith]

Patrick, thank you, and there's around 12 more instruments, not including guitars, thunder sheets, plates and the small things, in and around the studio. I've been doing this for a long time.

[Jan Viljoen]

I play various instruments inter alia,

Pedal steel,
lap steel,
mandolin,
tenor sax,
acoustic bass.

I want to show you one of my custom mandolins, it is not only the cheapest but also the prettiest.

I bought the used Japanese mandolin for +-$7 in a small music shop and it had neither a tailpiece nor a bridge. The headstock was narrow, but it was structuraly sound.
I immediately saw the potential to change it into an electric ax.

A luthier friend of mine widened the headstock and added the bluegrass tuners, tailpiece and bridge.

I worked many years ago at the Agricultural Bank in the Bushveld north of South Africa and a gamefarmer client gave me a partially weathered Hippo tusk. I had kept it for that one day.
My friend cut it up nicely and added the points and heelcap.

South Africa being the Cradle of Humankind, with the most hominid fossils in the world, the Homo erectus cave man mother-of-pearl inlay on the headstock was done by another friend.

I also bought a used humbucker pickup for $20 and he fitted it nicely.
It was then spraypainted in glitter red.

I am very proud of this mandolin and it roars like a Bushveld lion.

Thanks for the opportunity.
Sorry, the picture sequence is wrong.

JV

[Lane Gray]

I've no idea, Jan, if you play swing or jazz, but my first thought was "Somewhere, Jethro Burns is smiling." That's one cool mando (from one who learned on Duffey's first mando, a Kalamazoo A5)

[Fred Glave]

Lead/Rhythm 6 string (Stratocaster), Bass guitar (Washburn) and Pedal Steel. I sing lead and backup too.