Wrongplanet Musicians' Showcase

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The answer to your question is YES. lol It's not a stupid question, either.

For me, it's never about "show." It's about musicality. Even if you have a full 5-octave handbell choir (i.e. one person for 2 bells as is custom), musicality is extremely difficult to achieve. There's little timbre variation, very little in terms of extended techniques, not really much dynamic range, and that make the bells undesirable to write for (hence few composers every write for bells). The reward is in the challenge--to take something unmusical and squeeze all the music you can out of it that no one ever imagined was there. Knowing the limitations of the bells themselves, I focus more on what other composers are NOT doing and try to fill in the gap. Do a Youtube search on "solo handbells" or "handbell duets" and you'll notice most often that bells are typically paired with organs or pianos--never a "praise band" or an orchestra. And it's VERY conventional. The best bell solo out there is probably Christine Anderson's "Be Still My Soul" aka "Finlandia." But even it doesn't really plumb the depths of where bell music COULD go. It's a beautiful arrangement--don't get me wrong here. But it is also very typical. Do a youtube search on that (Michele Sharik Be Still My Soul) and you'll see what I mean.

I'd love to write something like that. The main difference is I want mine to ROCK!! !

Y'know...I think I will. Gimme a week or two and I'll post what I have so far. Maybe I'll to a "The Making of..." video series about this one! lol

(incidentally, "bell trees" are becoming very popular these days and are a great alternative to conventional playing. The only difficulty here is there is little or no control over sustain, but in principal it's no different than glockenspiel playing)

Hi, heres some of my documented work. I play lead guitar,mostly inluenced by 70's and 80's music.
Www.myspace.com/burgundytrashglam
Www.reverbnation.com/cordialspew
www.myspace.com/lugburz
I also toured in 2006 with Thor!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbMUBiJGaoU[/youtube]

The video is stupid, but it was meant to be that way xD
It's a song I wrote one year ago, now I've recorded it. I did it in one hour, so it's not really perfectly recorded xD

wow can I download? I like where the vocal sits, I can't put a finger on it but it has a lot of warmth, the lower-end piano during the chorus fills the room well and runs well with the bass (I do not know how to mix yet and most of my bass(s) tend to get muddy or don't merge well). Good song!

I too am moved, please upload more!

Some weird thing I was fiddling with

http://soundcloud.com/horsefluid/borsdan-1/s-6tUTx

no. i will remove it because a girl i am with urges me to do so,

If that's what you think you need to do. My wife is amazingly supportive and encouraging. But I have to admit from time to time that she's right and that I make horrendous mistakes that no matter how much I try to convince myself of my own excellence, I am, indeed a failure.

That's pretty cool. Things like this make me wanna get a SID chip or something.

Although my Synclav does sport a variable sampling rate. There's nothing quite like manipulating a machine into sounding like it's eating itself. Minimal though it may be, it's inspiring. When I'm too bored to swing bells, I gotta try something like this.

Since my psychosis has caught me again in the last weeks here's one song I wrote in the deepest deep of it 2 years ago.
It's about suicide.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ8he91MELA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qsMgGmD7eI[/youtube]

DOH. I broke one of my favourite cymbals

It could have been worse. Could have been a Zildjian. lol

Awesome drumming, btw.

Just curious, what keyboard is that behind the drums?

And did I notice a Mesa head over on the left?

Thank you, AngelRho

My Zildjian A Custom EFX 16 inch crash is in the process of breaking
I prefer Sabian though, XS20 hats (14 inch) and ride (20 inch), B8 ride (also 20 inch), used to have an XS20 rock crash (16 inch), and the A Custom is going to be replaced with an 18 inch APX solid crash when it finally gives up.

Thank you very much.

The keyboard is a Concertmate 970, whatever that is. It was my sisters, but she left it here. I just recently started messing around with it for fun.

The Mesa belongs to the guitarist in one of my bands. It's a Mesa Dual Rectifier I believe, along with a Mesa cab. I don't know much about guitar rigs though.

I don't know that much about drums. I've spent a fair amount of time repairing/maintaining percussion instruments, but that was all with someone else's money. A couple of years ago I sampled a Yamaha set with condenser mics and I've been thoroughly disappointed with them. Just bought a Shure SM57, so might try again. I love drums...and it's too bad I can't play very well at all.

And that's only because I happened to have access to some things that don't belong to me. What I'd really enjoy having would be a few Zildjians and some Saludas. Their Earthworks series sound as good as they look, and I'd love to put some of those into a production.

I'm not a big expert on guitar rigs, either. I love the Marshall tone, but one of the guitarists I play with has probably that same dual rectifier he plays through a Marshall 4x12. Really fills up a room, too.

Saludas are hit and miss, being handmade custom ordered.

Sabian and Zildjian were once the same company, but they ended up splitting over a squabble. Sabian is the newer of the two. They are made in the Canadian Maritimes (only one factory) which gives them my vote every day

Yamaha make some REALLY nice drums, do you remember the specific line? I'd wager either the mics were very badly placed, not suited for the drums/room, or the kit was tuned badly. If you listen to Dave Matthews Band, Carter Beauford uses all Yamaha drums.