h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello, I would also like to join, on the strength of the fact that I am listening to music as I type this.

Thanks,
TVF

Heh heh. I remember your entry on the Suede Chain, so you're good. I'll add you to our membership list sometime soon.

I used to play the guitar in my formative, Cobain-loving, years - played (twice) in a band that did Oasis covers and have recently sold my axe as it is a prehistoric instrument that does not befit my now hi-tech musical taste.

I would love to play an MPC3000 (Akai sampling drum machine/sequencer) but don't have the money. Yet.

By far and away the greatest musician, composer and dancer (along with Travolta and Swayze) is Michael J Jackson - King of Rock & Pop.

Closely followed by the Underground Resistance collective and Massive Attack.

DJ-wise, Derrick Carter is the most likely to rock my party!

I've added King Fabels, TV's Frink, and RickyDazla to the membership roster. Welcome, all!

I've also moved the membership list to its own page, since there are more than 30 of us now. It's at:
http://www.h2g2.com/A438068

Gracias, Vielen Dank, Thank You, Merci, Dank U, Dzjenkoeje....

You're very welcome, King Fabels.

I have created a Musicians For Hire page. The idea is to encourage people at h2g2 to request us for their events. Please check out the page and let me know how you feel about it.

http://www.h2g2.com/A439292

There are also a couple of interesting new threads posted on the Guild's page. Please check them out if you have a moment!

I wish to join the Musician's Guild. I sing, play the guitar (chords only, but pretty good), mandolin, tin whistle, recorder
and clarinet. I have failed miserably to play the trumpet (it is still sitting inside in its case).

My favourite composer changes all the time, but at the moment it is Mozart, although JSBach is a close second and Mahler in third place.

I don't know what I expect from the musician's guild, but I hope to get to talk to some recorder players.

Gnomon

Don't worry about the trumpet, Gnomon. A friend gave me an acoustic guitar once, and I had to give it away again. My small fingers didn't at all appreciate reaching across the frets, so I gave up.

If you're a recorder player, you should check out Shazz's thread for a "Baroque Music and/or Recorder Group." At the very least, I'm sure she would enjoy chatting about playing with you.

Just FYI for everyone, I'm leaving for vacation in a couple of hours. I won't be back until October 11th, so page updates for the Guild will have to wait until then. You can all continue to chat and work together, though.

In case you didn't notice, there is a new venue for h2g2's virtual community. It is a hip club called the Overamped Bass. Do pop by and check it out if you're in the groove. It's at http://www.h2g2.com/A443486

What instruments do I play? I play the vocal cords. Since I burned my left hand while still a toddler, all other instruments (other than the harmonica and the kazoo) have been a source of frustration and misery in the playng ,and joy in the listening. Although I once had a whim (and I had to obey it) to buy a French horn in a second-hand shop......

My favourite composer is definitely Trad, especially when arranged by Vaughan Williams. Or maybe Tallis. My favourite musician is Peter Hurford, although Evelyn Glennie is a pretty close second (and much more attractive, as I'm certain Peter would agree).

I've contributed several articles of a musical nature, and my latest contribution is just starting out: http://www.h2g2.com/A447527

Sign me up, Scotty

Jackson? The greatest? I dispute that, sir! We won't know for a hundred years at least how his music stands the test of time.

Dear Just zis guy?

I'm sorry to hear that you have problems with your left hand. This is not the end of the line for you as far as musical instruments go. First, if you can use your left hand at all to manage a plectrum, you can play guitar in the left-handed way, holding the neck of the instrument in your right hand. You will have to restring the guitar so that the strings are the other way around. This doesn't cause too many problems on most guitars. Another instrument you can play is the Dolmetsch Gold Series Recorder. This is a recorder that has extra keys added so that it can be played with one hand. They are expensive, but it is such fun to make music it might be worth it.

Very true. However, the success that he has already had in his, and my, own short lifetimes are already fairly impressive, if not unsurpassed.

Furthermore, 100 years is only 2 generations at most - type in Michael Jackson into a search engine (try the GeoCities search engine) and you will get some idea of his global fanclub, many of whom will be alive 100 years after his first composition. So, without him releasing any further material (very unlikely) and without him gaining any further fans (very unlikely) he will certainly be extremely popular and in the eyes of many The Greatest.

Have you tried the trombone?

Is this the right place to sign up?

The problem is in the fine motor control which I would have been gaining at this stage (under two years old). Because I was given no physiotherapy (I'm not sure there was any such thing on the NHS in the late 60s) I simply don't have sufficient control over my left hand to do these things. Nor can I type. Every single time I type from it comes out as form. I had to go back and edit that one.

Add to this my ambleopia (lazy left eye) and my chances of doing being dextrous with my left side - sinistrous? - are small.

Many people have much worse problems. At least I can sing. Unless I have an abscess on my wisdom tooth. Bummer.

How about synthesizers? You can take your time with the program, combine sounds or literally carve your own out of oscillating wavelengths. And they are musical instruments. Just because there are clods out there that make them seem like any jerk can play them doesn't mean they aren't for the natural-born artist. At least that's how I feel.

He may - and I have no special expertise here - be the greatest composer of 20th Century pop music, but I do not believe that many people will be as moved by the works of Jackson as, for example, the Dying Swan from Swan Lake, or Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

Not that Jackson's not good at what he does, but you must offset the size of his following against the age in which we live, when global communications take seconds and records are cheaply available worldwide. Compare this with the young Mozart who, hearing of the existence of some fantastic music whose performance was restricted to the Sistine Chapel, travelled across Europe to the Vatican and then transcribed from memory Allegri's legendary Miserere.

He may well attain the status of such recording giants as Caruso and possibly even von Karajan, but the strength of the great classical composers is that their work is constantly being reinterpreted and rediscovered by new generations of musicians, whereas most moder pop music is frozen in time, occasionally reprised on the odd live album, perhaps, but more a work of theatre than a musical heritage for the future.

Which is a good deal more serious than I intended, but then I am still surprisingly wound up over the Channel 4 poll which rated Robbie Williams ahead of Mozart in the category of most influential musician of the last millennium

I cut and pasted one paragraph from a Django page and posted a link to another;

"Although Django Reinhardt was famous for his mood swings and volatile temper, his unique guitar work remains beyond reproach and nearly impossible to copy. A fire cost him the use of two of his fingers on his left hand, forcing him to adapt his style to accommodate his handicap."
http://www.go.com/?win=_search&sv=M6&ud9=IE5&qt=Django&oq=Django+Rinehart&url=http%3A//www.vguitar.com/online/messages3/2017.htm&ti=Django!&top=

All of which I know, and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein who lost an arm in the Great War and had works for one hand written for him by Strauss and Britten, to name but two. But in each case they had learned the instrument in their youth. The point is, it was only when I was about 9 that someone thought the piano and violin might be good for me, by which time my left hand was already well behind the right. And this couls probably have been remedied if anyone had realised the reason I got cramp in my left hand playing the piano, and had given me some kind of exercise programme or some such. But they didn't. I only realised the problem when I tried a typing tutor program at the age of 30, and discovered that my right hand was working at almost exactly twice the speed and accuracy of my left.

I'm not complaining. If I had been really determined a sa child I dare say I could have learned the piano, but if my left hand had worked properly I may well have been able to gain enough enjoyment not to require great determination, and then perhaps I would be able to bash out a tune for my own pleasure - or even to help me find my part when singing. Them's the breaks. It could have been a lot worse; a hot iron can do terrible damage to a toddler, and I'm lucky that I can still move all the joints on my left hand, even if a couple of them only bend half as far as they should. It doesn't stop me weight training, and it doesn't stop my typing (inaccurately and with the right hand covering two-thirds of the keyboard but, hey, it works for me).