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Thread: Why do you play?

  1. #26
    Slow your roll. greg_tsam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Galimando View Post
    To see my enemies driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bertram Henze View Post
    Interesting... wasn't Conan the Barbarian abducted as a child and forced to do hard labour until, as an adult, he picked up the sword to take revenge?
    Yes and no. He picked up the OM with the optional bayonet attachment first and later transitioned to the sword.

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  2. #27

    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I thought he played the Bazooka...

  3. #28
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by sixwatergrog View Post
    Sure:
    I like the ... ... ... ...
    I love everything you said. The only addition I could add, two things:

    the thrill of being an important link in a chain stretching way back in time.

    that this music respects its elders, so if I have any thought of wanting to be respected when I become an elder, this is where it is most likley to happen.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  4. #29
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Simple answer: to share thoughts and emotions with other people and appreciate their culture.

  5. #30
    Registered User abuteague's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Someone gave me a mandolin they inherited from a music teacher that past away on the condition that I learn to play it. I felt obligated to give it a good try.
    Later I started playing with others so I started to play to be part of the community.
    Now I play because I like to.

  6. #31
    Slow your roll. greg_tsam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I play so that by the time I'm an old man I can amuse myself.
    Breedlove Quartz FF with K&K Twin - Weber Big Horn - Fender FM62SCE
    Wall Hangers - 1970's Stella A and 60's Kay Kraft

    Whether you slow your roll or mash on it, enjoy the ride.

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  8. #32
    Registered User John Kelly's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Being Scottish and living here all my life and in close proximity to Ireland too. Grew up listening to it and then playing it later. All the reasons the other posters have said too.

  9. #33
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by sixwatergrog View Post
    I like the communal approach to creating sound. Everyone plays in unison.
    ....

    I like how you don’t have to sound like anyone else or compare your playing with professionals or any other player. You can do it your own way.
    That post is more than a sum of bullet points: these two should contradict, but the magic of ITM lets them coexist.
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  10. #34
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    ...that this music respects its elders, so if I have any thought of wanting to be respected when I become an elder, this is where it is most likley to happen.
    The difference is not that other genres don't respect their elders. The difference is that their elders are dead.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Oops! I forgot one major reason: to get free beer at the Irish pub.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bertram Henze View Post
    The difference is not that other genres don't respect their elders. The difference is that their elders are dead.
    Now now.

    All traditional music, OT, IT whatever, is passed down. I wrote in my blog "Fiddlers now old, learned in their youth from fiddlers who were then old, who in their youth learned from the experienced fiddlers they knew and so on back and back and back."

    Thats a great thing. Not many places in our culture where the young seek out the old to go about learning something.

    And what of that. Death. I am not amazing enough at anything to be remembered long. I remember writing:

    "My source of inspiration?

    I saw a show on geneology, and heard this woman talking about her great great grand uncle, from Eastern Kentucky, who 'invited fiddlers and banjo players over to his house and played all night.' That is all she could find. It was the only thing that lasted through time, but it was enough to make him immortal.

    So my inspiraion is to be that long distant relative to future generations as yet unborn, who, 100 years hense, will be able to point way back up the family tree to "quirky uncle Jeff, Grandma Athalia's cousin twice removed (once for cause), who played music on the mandolin, of all things, and sometimes all night long."
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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  13. #37
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I was thinking of classical music.

    Traditional folk music genres, OTOH, are quite similar in respecting contemporary elders who don't have to be superstars. I'd like to distinguish "local respect" from "remote respect" or "global respect", all of them 4-dimensional (for instance, I might be tempted to respect my own future self, but that would not count as "elder").
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

  14. #38

    Default Re: Why do you play?

    When I was a kid in junior high, the local high school bagpipe band put on a presentation for us in the auditorium. When I heard them march in, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had to learn how to do this! I joined up and played the pipes my whole time in high school. We went all up and down the East Coast every summer, went to Scotland twice, marched down the Royal Mile and played at the Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle. It was an amazing series of experiences I will never forget. Although I find the highland pipes difficult to deal with these days, having an instrument suited to this music I learned in my youth has been really wonderful. I just with I hadn't waited 40 years to start.

  15. #39
    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    So many great answers -- it made the music on the page come alive (I learned from books before I sat in my first session), the thrill I get from playing for dancers, for the friendship and comraderie of a range of people whose lives all touch at this one point, for the sheer excitement of getting caught up in a whirl of sound and fury, for laughter and jokes, for expanding my expectations of myself and for the looks on the faces of kids who see us play in their schools and the looks on the faces of senior citizens we visit.
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  16. #40
    Registered User SincereCorgi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vigee View Post
    Oops! I forgot one major reason: to get free beer at the Irish pub.
    Ha, somebody beat me to it.

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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I play music to keep my mind sharp. I always have at least 4 or 5 new concepts that I'm working on which keeps me learning and mentally engaged.

    Related Story: Up to about 18 years ago I supported myself and family by playing music. I worked with the same dance band for over 17 years and worked constantly. (We would take two weeks off here or there for vacation but we normaly played at least 5 nights a week) When I "got a real job" my wife was suprise (and at least a little disapointed) that I still insisted on practicing every day. I have to admit that it wasn't easy to explain why I've always been driven to learn more about music and feel compelled to continue learning but it is so much of my life that she accepted the fact that it is a large part of who I am.

  18. #42
    Celtic Bard michaelpthompson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Because the music is there, crying out to be played. Somehow, Irish TRAD reaches across generations, national borders, cultures, or any other boundary like no other music seems to do. I don't recall anyone who ever heard it played who said they didn't appreciate it on some level.

    I especially like the reasons given by sixwatergrog, but I identify with Mandolindian. My family is only a little Irish by background, we're more English and Scottish and Welsh, but somewhere along the line, the Irish part seems to have beat up all the others and taken dominance. So this is my music, and I belong to it.

  19. #43
    Destroyer of Mandolins
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I'm in it for the money. There are enough 'Irish' pubs around to make real money here. If they were Italian restaurants I'd pretend to be Italian. Not that I don't love the music, I do, but I love lots of music. I've played a dozen different genre over the years, but I play what pays at a particular time.

    Often when we talk about 'professional' musicians we actually mean celebrities. But 99% of professionals aren't ever known. When you play trombone in a pit orchestra on Broadway you perform the score they put in front of you. Whether or not you like the show is irrelevant because there's 100 other guys with trombones in line behind you. So the fact that I really like Irish music is a big plus for me.
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I play primarily to maintain the calluses on my fngertips.

  21. #45
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by whistler View Post
    I play primarily to maintain the calluses on my fngertips.

    Works for me.


    Actually I play in order to justify paying $35 for a pick.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

  22. #46
    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Why do you play?

    Because they said they won't unlock the door until I can play something well.



    Apart from that, because music really is the breath of life and happiness for me. If I get diverted from it I'm not as happy a person as when I just give myself up to the music. It's part of me and I need to just accept that and make it the best part of me. I used to try to see if I could justify the time spent on it, after all it all stops at the grave and I doubt I'll be good enough to be leaving my mark on posterity with it. But the alternative is to deny a really important part of what makes me who I am. At 46 I'm too old for excuses like work taking priority, so I better just get on and enjoy it.

    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

  23. #47
    Registered User AnneFlies's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    I play my mandolin because I enjoy it, I can do it alone or with others, and it's not a clarinet.
    A "Not Ready for Prime Time" player

  24. #48
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    The reason I play and the reason I started playing are very different.

    The reason I play, realistically, is that I would have this huge mandolin shaped hole in my life if I didn't. My life really has rearranged itself around the music.

    Mandolin is cutting into my fishing time actually. Yikes! I always thought nothing could do that. And I haven't been in my canoe in two or three years.

    I don't mean that without mandolin I would sit around strumming nothing, of course I would fill up the time with other stuff. But really, these days, I play because I can't conceive that life without playing would be as good.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

  25. #49
    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why do you play?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    Mandolin is cutting into my fishing time actually. Yikes! I always thought nothing could do that.
    You'll surely burn in hell for that one . Where I'm sure they play mandolins instead of harps.

    My aim this summer is to get out sea-trout fishing on the river the night of each jam. Finish jam, go fishing. I mean the visa is valid for the night so apart from sleep deprivation there's nowt to lose. Got out last night & blanked but missed a couple of takes. At least with the mandolin you don't blank.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

  26. #50

    Default Re: Why do you play?

    i play early music (medieval, renaissance dance music, mosty) because i like the idea of treating these olde-worlde "classical" tunes to a little "folk" r-n'-r. i also play 60's u.k. and mo-town songs for pretty much the same reason.

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