I play the sax and the electric bass. I like to sing and do pretty well with scat singing. Recently I started to play Contra bass. It's tough and it is the hardest double I've ever tried so I'll throw out a little respect to the "real" contra bassists.
Being a sax player has given me the opportunity to do the normal doubles like flute and clarinet (and all the saxes), but having a dad who was a band director gave me chances to touch many instruments like oboe, guitar, keybourd, drums, trumpet, and even tuba (sousaphone). Give me a week to brush up on 'em and I promise you an "experience" for your ears! ..... Well actually, in the theater, I sometimes get a chance to touch some of these other instruments and I usually don't embarrass myself. I'm not scared to try to make 'em work because sometimes that is the sound that is needed. I rarely play sax all night and that's cool with me. It just makes the sax sound more important when it actually comes.
I have to give my dad a lot of credit for most of the concepts and techniques I've acquired. He honed his craft through "club dating" in New York. He passed a lot of it to me including the hand signals for calling out keys on the band stand (ask me if you really want to know!) As I taught students here in Denmark, it seems that most of what I taught them that made a difference was a variation of what I got through him. Thanks dad.
I'm a true beliver in negative reinforcement as a teaching tool. Despite it being politically incorrect, it seems that the most valuable learning experiences for me have come through a negative impulse. Case in point would have to be Rob McConnell. When I took a bass solo at a clinic in front of him, he burst my bubble, and instead of complimenting me, he grumbled "Could you have SUNG that solo?!" It got me thinking and pushed me to work on my scat soloing. Thanks Rob. It didn't feel good at the time but it turned into something that I'm proud of.
As of now my only Myspace presence has been in the form of photos of OTHER people. It seems that some people are using my photos of them for their myspace pages. That's cool.... except that I don't have many of MYSELF! I'll have to find a way to turn the camera on myself or just edit some pictures of Zappa or Groucho....
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