Watch Party for "Unfinished Business" Challenge!

Ken Radford That’s super cool.

I grew so lonely at the piano bench, and my piano teacher skipped so many lessons, that I picked up the recorder and started studying it with a teacher.

I have never played a woodwind instrument.

I am playing three out of four of the SATB set, soprano, alto, bass, and soon, tenor.

I play duets or double with my recorder teacher. I play three recorders at every lesson, F and C recorders. 

Usually we play music from the 16th century. It is great fun. Maybe someday I can join a Baroque ensemble or find a harpsichord player to play with.

My theory is that all instruments are impossible, but some instruments are more impossible than others.

It’s interesting to see clarinet players with 50 years of experience turn to the recorder.

The reputation of the recorder has suffered greatly because schools hand out 30 soprano recorders to school children. The right number of sopranos in a recorder ensemble is one or fewer.

Larry K I agree that all instruments are impossible, but some instruments are more impossible than others. The piano - in its role as the full orchestra - has to be the most impossible. I also play guitar (bass/rhythm/lead) and drums, and I find them less challenging than the piano. 

Ken Radford I spent a decade studying classical guitar with someone who studied with Sharon Isbin at Juilliard.

I love the classical guitar. It is a quiet voice in a noisy world.

But, after playing some Bach inventions as duets with another classical guitarist, and seeing the difficulty of that, I started on the piano again to try to play all of the voices.

I probably don’t have enough runway to achieve my goal of playing advanced pieces by Bach, or any other composer for that matter, so I also started the recorder.

I thought of playing the bass, and actually played a huge acoustic contrabass guitar, this very instrument,

https://youtu.be/8nz-fzzy6pE?si=8U89JMXLxDWzlq6h

but gave it up. This is not me playing. This is a Yale-trained professional.

I am trying to sell this instrument.

I don’t know where this all leads but I have had some interesting musical experiences over the years.

I play music to achieve “flow,” that state where time seems to stand still.

Larry K That’s my kind of guitar playing Larry! Reminds me of Mood For a Day and Roundabout by Yes - two pieces that I have been messing with for many years.,