Music is the greatest thing in the world. Share your musical experiences/stories!

[Bassman666]

Evening basschatters! Whiskey influenced post arriving. In my humble being, music has always been a big part of life. My dad passed away when I was 23 (8 years ago) and he was a unreal guitar player and the reason I play an instrument. Aftwr accepting at a young age that I couldn't grasp a 6 string guitar, I've managed to work my way up to a 5 string trouser flapper. I've learnt to live without him but it's never easy. No matter how your emotional state is, music helps. Just been watching a programme on skyarts 'Brian Johnson meets dave grohl' granted through half a bottle of Jim beams finest 😁. Awesome watch with two of the nicest and greatest musos the world has ever seen. Two absolute heroes of rock. Amazing to see how music can influence people and the passion these gents have for music is contagious. I've mainly used this forum for buying and selling as I seem to have a fetish for trying different gear, however as someone who hasn't been active in a band for a few years, it's awesome to be apart of a big music community. I don't really know what I'm getting at so sorry if you've been expecting a Oprah style shocking revelation! Keep playing my low end family, stay safe and enjoy the time with people who matter to you. Happy Friday (just!) and rock on! 🤘

Edited January 30, 2021 by Bassman666

[Nail Soup]

Well, I’m stone cold sober - but would like to back up your assertion that music is the greatest thing in the world.👍

[Len_derby]

Yeah, music is brilliant. Fundamental to humans. Only yesterday I was looking at a picture of a bone flute from the middle Stone Age. Thirty thousand years old I think. The speculation is that things like drums and simple stringed instruments existed but have rotted away. Music making won’t die, but it will certainly change. The current political and economic problems that cause barriers will eventually become blips in the flow of time. Of course, I know that is no comfort to people whose livelihood is threatened.  I think our discomfort stems from the fact we’ve lived though unprecedented musical times when, fuelled by the Rock and Pop explosion and the first generations of recording technology the ordinary Joe and Joanna could make a decent living out of performing music. 
My feeling is that the golden age is over and music making will return more to the way it has been for most of recorded history. A small group of elite musicians will make money. The rest of us will, if we’re lucky, be musical servants of the elite (such as low-paid orchestra or band members or tech crew). Most of us, if we want to play music to an audience, will be doing it for free, the tip hat or supper; performing for communal or ritualistic reasons.  The caveman or cavewoman flautist would be nodding their head wisely ‘welcome back man’.

Anyway, the lock-down blather is over and in the spirit of the op my most memorable musical events that I’ve participated in are as follows.

Firstly playing at the funeral wake of a friend.  Secondly, when I was a TA in a primary school I coached a group of novice pupils to perform a musical concert for their families. Both unforgettable in their different ways. Only one involved alcohol. I’ll leave you to guess which one.

[Lozz196]

I’ve been fortunate enough to make some great friends through music, share stages with bands I watched on the TV as a kid, and visit places that in all likelihood I might not have had the opportunity to without gigging, Colditz Castle in Germany being the main one. 

Best hobby in the world imo, I’m not a particularly sentimental person but I’m sure that at times in my life music has kept me going/given me that boost I needed, probably without knowing it.

[TJ1]

if it was not for the refuge of music I'd probably be an alcoholic/heroin addict - as it is I'm tee total and clean

[mikel]

Back in 1970 myself and two mates had give up motorbikes and bought instruments. Two of us playing guitars and the other of flute. We were big Tull fans. We were learning as we went along, as was the way back then, if we found a new chord we tried to write a song around it, none of your cover version tosh for us. One night in my parents living room the other guitarist began playing a chord sequence he had come up with so I joined in. After a few measures of this the flautist started playing over our sequence, then the other guitarist played something different over my chords. I followed them and began to listen for patterns to enhance or to subdue, and soon they followed my lead and we ebbed and flowed for about 15 minutes. When we finished we just looked at each other in shock and excitement. We knew bugger all about our instruments but we could improvise on the hoof, we could play off one another, we were musicians and the World was ours to conquer.

[Pseudonym]

9 hours ago, TJ1 said:

if it was not for the refuge of music I'd probably be an alcoholic/heroin addict - as it is I'm tee total and clean

Well, not everyone can multitask as well as Keith Richards. On balance, music is probably healthier, though not necessarily cheaper.

My longest friendship is with someone I met in primary school more than 40 years ago. In the 6th form, we would bunk off and hang around music shops, or hang around his house listening to his outstanding record collection. A couple of years ago, we started working on a few tracks that we eventually released online. He lives in England, I live on the west coast of the US. It was great putting something together with modern technology, including the capacity to emulate equipment and effects that we could only dream of tinkering with when we were feckless, potless teenagers.

That friend introduced me to New York new wave, which he loved. At the time, it seemed remote and exotic, a great scene that had already faded and which we could only envy. Thirty years later, I'm writing for the same publications as Patti Smith and Richard Hell, and it tickles my adolescent ghost every time it happens. My old friend has released a few solo albums on a net label, and I'm overjoyed that a friendship with music at its heart has endured so well -- especially given that it took me 25 years to repay him for the Television tickets.

[joeystrange]

23 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

I’ve been fortunate enough to make some great friends through music, share stages with bands I watched on the TV as a kid, and visit places that in all likelihood I might not have had the opportunity to without gigging, Colditz Castle in Germany being the main one. 

Best hobby in the world imo, I’m not a particularly sentimental person but I’m sure that at times in my life music has kept me going/given me that boost I needed, probably without knowing it.

Similarly to you, I think I’ve met almost all of my friends (and my wife) through music and most of my most important experiences are somehow music-related.

My life would not be the same without it. Not even nearly.

[chris_b]

I think I'd change the proposition slightly, making music is the greatest thing in the world.

[Nail Soup]

I remember listening to an edition of Desert Island Discs, where the 'castaway' mentioned that the producer had given them the brief something like: "Don't think of your 8 best records, think of 8 most important moments/things in your life and then nominate the record associated with them"

First I was surprised that such a comment was not edited out, as it reveals the inner workings of the show.

I also thought: What do you mean? Finding my best 8 records was the 8 most important moments/things in my life!

 

[Trueno]

At the age of 12 I heard the Beatles’ “I am the Walrus” for the very first time. I remember thinking that things would never be the same again.

[Lozz196]

37 minutes ago, Trueno said:

At the age of 12 I heard the Beatles’ “I am the Walrus” for the very first time. I remember thinking that things would never be the same again.

Hearing Pretty Vacant by The Sex Pistols was pretty much the same for me.

[bassbiscuits]

I started playing bass when I was 12, and looking back I think it was an important creative and constructive channel for all that teenage uncertainty, anxiety and anger in the years that followed.

Playing an instrument has been my best companion, and a big part of how I see myself. Its also introduced me to many of my friends and resulted in lots of cool situations.

Ill never be a millionaire rockstar but I’ll always be a bassist.

Edited January 31, 2021 by bassbiscuits

[Bilbo]

I have no idea where to start on this. Being a kid is challenging for all of us and, as an adult, I know that feeling left out is a very common experience for children and young people. I was probably attracted to music because people liked pop stars and I wanted to be liked. I had older cousins who played and who I admired so the seeds were planted. One of them gave me a guitar when I was 12. With nobody to direct my energies, I knobbed about with it until I was about 17. The day I started working, I bought a bass guitar. The instrument made sense to me in a way that the guitar didn't at the time and it became my thing. I was playing in my bedroom for hours at a time. Nothing else had captured my attention like that before. 

I joined No Quarter about six months later and recorded a session for Radio 1 within a year. It went from there. Since then, I have been to places and met people I would never have met otherwise. An acceptable round of recordings, gigs, writing etc. It has always been a rich and vibrant part of my life in a way that the day job never has been able to compete with. Did I ever get to be popular? No, not really. But these things matter less as you get older and I have relationships with loads of other musicians which, for my part, I value. Some, very much so. At the core of it all, though. Is some really beautiful music. 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Bilbo

[Bilbo]

Regarding the popular thing, I was discussing this with a guitar player friend of mine. Someone mentioned the fact that people join bands to 'get girls'. I laughed and said that, in 40 years of playing gigs, I had never been spoken to by a girl after a gig. In fact, I have rarely been spoken to by anyone at a gig unless it was a gig I had arranged. 

A few months later, he was talking to a girl after a gig we had done together and, just as they were finishing their conversation, she told him she was a bass player. 

'Fcuk me, Rob', he said. 'Even the bass players don't talk to you'. 🤣

[bass_dinger]

On 31/01/2021 at 17:30, bassbiscuits said:

 

Ill never be a millionaire rockstar because I’ll always be a bassist.

Fixed it for you . . ..