Music

Music is my raison d'être. Here's a bit of my musical background:

• I play piano and have since I was 8. I'm pretty good, but I'm no concert pianist.
• I've played guitar and bass guitar since about 14. I'm a middling to good guitar player, but I play lead bass in a rock band. I've been told on more than one occasion that I sound like a mixture of Les Claypool, Justin Chancellor and Tim Commerford, which I take as great compliments.
• I play kit, but not spectacularly well. I can back people, up, but I'm nothing special.
• I can play whatever brass instrument you want me to. I used to be fairly good, but in my years of not playing, I'm fairly certain my embouchures has gone way downhill. My favourite brass instrument is the euphonium.
• I own a violin. What I do to it is probably more akin to molestation than music.
• I'm pretty comfortable picking up any instrument and playing. For instance, a while ago I was meeting my (now ex) girlfriend's parents. Her father was very into bouzouki playing (they're greek). Within about 15 minutes of trying the instrument, which I'd never seen before in my life, I was fairly comfortable jamming.
• I have a very strong background in theory and history, having studied both in some detail for the past 15 years.

I'm currently the bass player for the Metal / Punk / Hooligan Rock outfit Lucky Number Ten. This may come up in here with some regularity, but that's not going to be the focus of this section. I aim to discuss certain aspects of specific music, and there will probably be a fairly regular feature regarding music that I'm currently listening to and what I think about it.