Music - I'm a very musical person.
I have a fairly wide range of musical interest, I'll listen to anything
once.. :-)
Listen to some of my brother's music
Some of my favorite music would have to be Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Tears for Fears, Vangelis, Al Di'Meola, Chick Corea, Frank Sinatra, various Salsa music, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman, Sting, and others. Click here to see my ancient 1994 CD Collection.
I've been a percussionist since 1981, with some piano lessons here and there. When started college I got interested in electronic music, synthesizers and sequencing. Rolla tends to sap the non-science interests out of people, but I'm happy to say that I guarded against this at least with music :-)
While at Rolla I performed as a percussionist in:
I'm an alumnus of the Delta Gamma chapter of the Kappa Kappa Psi national honorary Band Fraternity. Here are various pictures from my chapter of KKY, during my time in the music performance groups at UMR
I used to read the rec.music.makers.synth and rec.music.makers.percussion newsgroups regularly, but no longer have the time.
Things done a while back: I took an Electronic Music class with Dr. Oakley, and I played in the Pipe band for 3 years. (Pipe band == Ozark Highland Pipe Band) Of all the music I've ever played, Scottish music was definitely the most unique, and some of the most interesting music I've played. One challenge in playing Scottish music (for a percussionist) is to play with traditional grip. In high school we used modern style marching drum carriers (drums are level, no cant) which made matched grip easy. I hadn't played traditional grip for about 8 years.. I can now play nearly equally well in either traditional grip or matched grip. The thing that makes playing snare to Scottish music different from say Corps style percussion, is like the difference between Jazz and Rock drumming. Scottish snare has a sort of swing to it as opposed to the more even beat heard in Corps style percussion..
Check out my music links page for some MIDI and Synth related stuff...
I still think that the Analog synths have never been beaten :-) My gear currently consists of: Item Description ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alesis D-4 Drum synth Alesis QuadraVerb+ Digital Effects (reverb, flange, phase etc..) Ensoniq Mirage One of the original samplers Kawai K1r Early wavetable synth. Roland JV-880 Wavetable synth. Roland JX-8P Analog/Digital hybrid synth (Digital Osc, Analog Filters) Roland JX-10 (Super-JX) Kinda like 2x JX-8P in one board.. Roland MKS-50 Analog/Digital hybrid synth (Digital Osc, Analog Filters) Yamaha TX81Z FM synth Random Drum Trigger pads including some home-made ones :-)
What do I wish I had???? I love ANALOG synthesizers, I'm addicted to the _FAT_ Sound that you just don't get from the newer digital creatures. I've never really gotten up close to any of the Oberheim's, but I know there are whole synth cults that worship 'em. (XPander maniacs anyone?) I'd love to have a Roland JP-8 or an MKS-80 :-) I'll probably end up with an MKS-80 before its all over..
