What other instruments do you 'dabble' on?

[toobagrowl]

Being a tuba player, I also like to dabble on a couple other instruments: trombone and synth/keyboard. My synth/keyboard "skills" are meager at best, but it's great fun to create/shape sounds and play simple chords, tunes and whatnot. Trombone is somewhere between tuba and synth for me; I could sit in with most college & community bands and do a decent job on the 2nd or 3rd part, as long as I've been practicing.

What other instruments do some of you play on, mostly for fun

[Dan Schultz]

Euphonium.
Alphorn.

[the elephant]

I played upright bass in a jazz trio for years for supplemental income.

[SteveP]

Mellophone (Conn 4E, 1921, pristine). Horn players are hard to come by in my area. So, occasionally I'll play the f horn part on my mellophone with the local brass quintet. It's kinda fun. Also play trombone and bass trombone occasionally.

[Donn]

Well, instruments I've played in public more than once within the last 10 years ... various saxophones, electric & upright bass, accordion. Started with recorders, band instruments with flute and the clarinet family, but not in public within the 10 year limit, and can sort of play guitar, ukulele, mandolin & viola, but not to even my low performance standards, that's more for home study purposes - guitar particularly, because of its combination of chordal harmony and rhythm, and now I'm getting interested in the same way with the ukulele. I can conceive and convey a rhythmic interpretation, with a guitar or ukulele in my hands. The guitar is a cheap old thing strung with high tension nylon strings and played with a pick, and the ukulele is a very cheap soprano, also played with a pick - both pretty near ideal for my purposes.

[Mike C855B]

Most other winds, but more often than not, double reeds. Most recent paying work has been pit gigs on oboe/cor anglais. Director of my primary group gave me the heads-up last week that he'll be programming Reed's Russian Christmas Music for the December concert. Tour de force for cor.

The Boss will have me drag out the Conn 28D (cor français) when we're short on horns and he doesn't have anything on the menu needing oboe color.

[Bob Kolada]

I used to play (and be confident playing) a lot of stuff. I played trumpet, baritone, Bb tuba, soprano and bass clarinet, French horn, and bass guitar in high school. After that it got weirder- I bought bass and contrabass trumpets, a contrabass trombone, tenor and bass trombones, various tubas, a cimbasso, and always felt saucy when I picked up an alto trombone. I still have my bass trombone, 2 euphs, 2 old Eb tubas, and the mini cimbasso. I stopped seriously playing bass trombone, the nicest instrument I own and probably the one I identified with most, due to physical issues.


Hell, I haven't even played in a group of any size since about fall 2014. I pick up the chimp once or twice a week, the tubas and euph once or twice a month, and the chainsaw noticeably less than that. I think the second valve is frozen. Oh well...

[Cdub]

Horn, flute, and trumpet tend to be the three most frequent ones I play on for church gigs that are not tuba.

[Mark Finley]

instruments I've played professionally or at least in public
Tuba
Euphonium
alto, tenor, bass and contrabass trombone
I have 5 electric basses that I play (one at a time) in a Dallas based cover band, We play mostly classic rock and classic country
https://www.facebook.com/Creekbend-Clas ... 285404089/" target="_blank

[GC]

Made most of my money over the years on bass guitar, but just retired from it. Now mostly Eb tuba, and occasional euphonium, trombone, and bass clarinet.

[Snake Charmer]

When not playing my Eb or French C Tuba I do a lot of playing on Saxhorn basse, Ophicleide, valve and slide trombone and tenor guitar. Flattop, archtop, electric and resonator and yes, a tenor banjo as well. Six-string reso (blues) guitar sometimes and I know how to use piano and accordion

[opus37]

British baritone in a band that needed me more there than on tuba while the regular baritone player was on sabbatical.

[rumhud]

Bass trombonist originally, majored in music and taught low brass when I was younger. Became an author and disability advocate but have been getting back into playing this year (probably a mid life crisis thing). In addition to my bass trombone (which I've been playing in a local historical heritage band), I've acquired a Schiller oval baritone (for sale, if anyone's looking for such a thing!) and a Wessex tornister euphonium, which is just a ridiculous amount of fun to play. Most of all, I've been learning the ophicleide, which is challenging and very cool, unless perhaps you're one of my neighbors.

[bloke]

I'm probably going to sell my bass guitar.
I made a considerable amount of money playing it, and online indicators hint that it may be worth more than the income from any additional gigs (based on how seldom I use it these days, and how well a leftover-from-our-brick-and-mortar-store Chino-fake plays if I actually need to use one) with which I might ever use it.

[Radar]

Besides Tuba, Euphonium (was my primary MOS in the Army Reserve Band), Bass and Tenor trombone, Electric Bass guitar, and Guitar, as well as Piano (my first instrument).

[jperry1466]

Euphonium, bass trombone.
Played string bass and electric bass on jazz gigs until the arthritis in my fingers got too bad.

[Worth]

A beautiful late 19th century 6’11” Henry Miller & Sons art case grand piano, fully restored 15 years ago. Synth, Euphonium, and some Electric Guitar!

[1895King]

Bass drum

[bloke]

Bass drum

I've done that once, in a recital.
My daughter (a couple of decades ago) performed something like a "farewell" oboe recital before heading off to study at one of our American music conservatories.
(She actually had some private students who were only a year or two younger than was she at that time, which helped pay for oboe cane, a gouging machine, knives, her own lessons with her own teacher, and other oboe-playing related expenses.)
She played several pieces on that recital, including the Poulenc Oboe Sonata, the Saint-Saëns oboe Sonata... (early that year, had played the Haydn and Vaughan Williams Concertos with a couple of local orchestras)...and a couple of other pieces.
She wanted to play the Sibelius "Swan of Tuonela" (English horn) piece, but the only piano reduction (well) stunk...so I studied the score and arranged it for electronic keyboard (with volume pedal and three utilized sounds: bowed strings, tremolo strings, and pizzicato strings), a solo cello player (to cover all of the upward-sweeping single-note lines in the strings...up way into the cello's stratospheric range), one bass clarinet, one horn, a harp, a bass drum, and (of course) English horn (seven players). We covered EVERYTHING, and sounded (well...) just about like the orchestral scoring for that piece.
Several of us on stage had (at various times in the past) either been recipients of the _________ __ _______ scholarship (to attend Interlochen), had been close friends of _________ __ _______, or both. (We asked for contributions to support that scholarship fund.)

...so (for the first - and, so far - last time in my life), I played the bass drum.

If anyone is curious (having never heard this, because Wagner didn't compose it), here is a performance of it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Pp8xAtww4

[David Richoux]

When the regular Bass Drummer can't make a parade gig I take it.
Mine is a huge old wooden monster from the 1930s, so I made a cart for it from a jogging stroller, works pretty well.

I have been trying to learn Bass Guitar, C French Tuba, serpent, and ophicleide for many years...