I'm actually a music student, so I suppose since I can't sing my way out of a paper bag that I play an instrument or two.
My first instrument was clarinet, but now, I'm a percussionist, though that's a pretty general term I suppose. My specialty is mallet percussion, especially marimba and vibraphone, (mallet percussion also includes xylophone and glockenspiel,) but I still have to be competent on the other instruments. I have formal training in snare drum, timpani, some world percussion, and plenty of those 'auxiliary' instruments (such as cymbals, bass drum, and tambourine) that people underestimate/dismiss like it's nobody's business even though I've heard enough stories of people failing professional orchestral auditions solely because of said 'auxiliary' instruments. (Oh, what's that? You say that you'd be a mean triangle player.
Hilarious.) I'm also a master at avoiding learning to play drumset because drumset scares me way more than it should.
Most of my world music exploration has been fairly informal in training, and most of the world instruments I've played have been with Brazilian groups. If I wanted to list a few, there's the berimbau (which is actually the subject of an independent study I'm working on right now), pandeiro, surdo, zabumba, tamborim, cuica, reco-reco, alfaia drums, and agogo, among others that I'm forgetting.
Other than that, I used to play Guatemalan marimba, have a very basic knowledge of bongos, congas, djembes, and cello steel pan, plus I'm currently teaching myself how to play the Bodhran.
I still have a ton of other instruments I want to explore as well, but with the exception of the ocarina that was recently given to me, I pretty much just want to learn to play percussion from all over the world.
TheYellowCellPhone said:
Makes me sad all these people here who haven't played instruments outside of guitar, bass guitar and percussion. There's so much cooler instruments to learn and listen to than the same three.
When you say percussion in this context, are you mostly just referring to drumset, the typical concert percussion instruments, or all percussion instruments in existence? My (very biased) opinion on how interesting percussion is might lead to me humbly disagreeing if you're just generalizing all of percussion. (Especially because people almost never know what I'm talking about when I talk about marimba, and random strangers seem almost disappointed when I call myself a percussionist, but don't really play drumset. In fact, before I really went full-on percussionist, I called myself a marimbist because it was more accurate.)
Maybe it's my "I almost got an ethnomusicology degree by complete accident" side of me speaking, but a major reason why I'm a percussionist is because of the sheer variety of instruments I get to explore, not to mention the added bonus of gaining a little insight into other cultures through what they value in their music.
