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#1
12-12-2023, 05:41 PM
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Picking up instruments you had set aside
I stopped playing square neck dobro about 8 years ago when the band I played with folded due to a bereavement. I stopped playing clawhammer banjo about the same time. But the last few weeks I have been preparing for a one off bluegrass/barrel house style gig and dobro and banjo will be perfect for the night. I'm actually really enjoying getting to know my instruments again.
Have you had a period where you have set aside an instrument you used to play a lot, but then come back to it years later?
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I'm learning to flatpick and fingerpick guitar to accompany songs. I've played and studied traditional noter/drone mountain dulcimer for many years. And I used to play dobro in a bluegrass band. 
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#2
12-13-2023, 02:40 PM
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My first instrument was tenor sax. I pretty much stopped playing after high school, but in my late 20s a friend's band needed a fill-in player for a couple of gigs, so I dusted off my old Yamaha and sat in with them. I had forgotten how much fun it is to be a part of a horn section!
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#3
12-13-2023, 04:38 PM
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Got a McSpadden dulcimer that I picked up for $90 at the Lancaster (PA) QVC outlet around 30 years ago - haven't touched it since, hoping to actually learn to play the thing sometime before Armageddon...
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"Mistaking silence for weakness and contempt for fear is the final, fatal error of a fool" - Sicilian proverb (paraphrased)
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#4
12-13-2023, 06:09 PM
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C6 lap steel - easy to forget, hard to put together again.
D.H.
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#5
12-13-2023, 06:42 PM
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Not a completely different instrument, but...
I used to play electric slide in the late Seventies/early Eighties, but put it down for 30-some years. I had a soundtrack project I was working on, and while composing cues I tried out electric slide. WOW. Within 30 minutes I was as fluent as I had been 3 decades prior. I ended up using electric slide on more than half of the 69 cues. That was my 'bicycle' moment.
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-Gordon 1978 Larrivee L-26 cutaway 1988 Larrivee L-28 cutaway 2006 Larrivee L03-R 2009 Larrivee LV03-R 2016 Irvin SJ cutaway 2020 Irvin SJ cutaway (build thread) K+K, Dazzo, Schatten/ToneDexter Notable Journey website Facebook page Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. - Leonardo Da Vinci
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#6
12-14-2023, 12:08 PM
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I've got enough (well, too many) guitars and this happens to me all the time. My nylon string and my resonator get less action than the other acoustics, but when I take them out of their cases I enjoy their differences from the other acoustics in my accumulation all over again.
With electrics it's even more so. Earlier this year I put a new neck on s Japanese Fender early 50s style solid body electric. It's got the original Fender "blender" switching system, with the "tone" knob being a variable blend of the two pickups in the first position, neck with no tone adjustment in the middle, and a "bassy sound" capacitor on the neck pickup in the neck position. The old neck had worn vintage frets and my old finger joints were increasingly bothered by that. So, I put it aside -- for what? A couple of years at least. Oh man does this thing sound great, and I've played a lot of Tele's over the years, so I've got a field to compare it to. And my finger joints are happy that I'm not slapping wood every time I fret a string.
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses....
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#7
12-17-2023, 02:44 AM
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 I have another instrument to add to the list. We had a village Christmas gathering at our village hall last night. I took my "Bocs Can Idris", a double fretboard zither I designed and built from reclaimed mahogany from one of the old chapels in the village. I haven't played it for ages. I just sat are a table and played Christmas carols. Soon had folks singing along. The evening turned into a bit of a Noson Lawen with lots of folks doing turns, and I ended up giving an impromptu short set of our local Welsh folk tunes with a neighbour acompanying me on guitar. I was surprised that we could remember any given how long it has been since we played together!
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I'm learning to flatpick and fingerpick guitar to accompany songs. I've played and studied traditional noter/drone mountain dulcimer for many years. And I used to play dobro in a bluegrass band.
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#8
12-17-2023, 02:50 AM
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After a recent post, "Do you prefer alternate tunings?", I returned my guitar to standard, which I had not done in a while. It's not an old instrument, but it was fun to go back to playing the blues, and play those songs that really only sound like themselves in standard voicing. It has been fun, and reminded me of a whole list of songs I had not sang in a long, long, time.
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"Don't worry that it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear. Just sing; sing a song." Guild F50R Epiphone Masterbilt EF-500rcce Larrivee Parlor Koa Special Edition https://soundclick.com/kiphendryandtheonestarhotel
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#9
12-18-2023, 02:49 PM
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If I had people to play with, I'd get out my dobro in a minute. Love me a square neck.
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2007 Martin D 35 Custom 1970 Guild D 35 1965 Epiphone Texan 2011 Santa Cruz D P/W Pono OP 30 D parlor Pono OP12-30 Pono MT uke Goldtone Paul Beard squareneck resophonic Fluke tenor ukulele Boatload of home rolled telecasters "Shut up and play ur guitar" Frank Zappa
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#10
12-19-2023, 04:56 AM
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Quote:
__________________
I'm learning to flatpick and fingerpick guitar to accompany songs. I've played and studied traditional noter/drone mountain dulcimer for many years. And I used to play dobro in a bluegrass band.
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#11
01-10-2024, 12:01 PM
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The instrument I recently picked up again - is guitar. About 10 years ago I stopped playing, experiencing too much hand/wrist discomfort from a lifetime of playing fretted strings; I'm 63, and started guitar at 10. I play other instruments, and started on cello - on which I could play my beloved Bach pieces: cello is more ergonomic and doesn't stress my hands the way fretted strings do.
My other main player is hardanger fiddle - which was in the shop last fall, enabling me to buy some guitars  I got my hdgr fiddle back recently and, oops, my guitars haven't been out of the case since. 
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#12
01-13-2024, 04:46 AM
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Quote:
About 15 years back, in my early 40s, I had no one to play with, just as I started playing guitar after a long lay off. I looked for local musicians on CL, and also put an ad up in my town. A few catch and release interactions, and today I’m playing regularly with two guys I consider my best friends. NJ is a populated place. If I’m not mistaken, so is Cali. Go get em. Playing with others is magic for the soul.
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i got tired of updating my guitars.
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