Beginner or Re-tread Musician Club/Band/Orchestra/Class?

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Old 10-29-2019, 09:23 PM
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Martian Martian is offline
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Default Beginner or Re-tread Musician Club/Band/Orchestra/Class?

I am looking for a club for beginner or returning musicians.

A little background on me:.

I am 69 years old, from age 7 to 18 I played in public school bands, orchestras and jazz ensembles. My parents could not afford to buy or even rent an instrument, so I learned to play what ever instrument was left over (free) at school during the first few years. I started with Sousaphone, then bugle, coronet, base horn, french horn, clarinet, and finally settled in on saxophone where I played soprano, alto, and baritone - whatever was needed and available. I was in our high school (Ft Lauderdale High School) marching band, and it's orchestra which performed weekly classical concerts at our local War Memorial Auditorium. The concerts were broadcast live by the city's local FM Public Radio Station (WFTL). For one concert I got to play a bass saxophone performing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture which was really cool and scary, since I didn't get to practice on it until just a couple hours before the concert.

Music theory was hit or miss, it was not taught much in middle or high school band, so I did a little reading on my own and picked up what I could which wasn't much. I mostly played by ear, and could barely sight read, but I faked it well, by listening to others play, and them playing what I heard.

When I turned 18 (1968) I volunteered for the Marines and spent 6 years with no time for any type of music. Then when I got out of the Service I was married with one son and a second on the way so I had to find work and had no time to "play around:" with some silly instruments...

Fast forward 50 years - having not opened a piece of sheet music except for a few brief failed attempts to learn to learn to play guitar and here I am retired in this incredible retirement community.

I now have the time, and I want to revisit music, to learn a couple new instruments, to become reacquainted with my beloved saxophone - and learn a little music theory so it all makes a bit more sense

We are not "well off", my wife and I live on our combined Social Security - and I really can't afford $100/mth for private lessons: we tried to make that work for a while when I started to learn Cello recently. So, for the past year I have been trying to teaching myself music theory and to play the Cello with "mixed" results. (Less than optimal! )

That is my story, and you probably are asking yourself why did I just bore you with all that.

Well the reason is, I expect there are more people out there just like me. People that learned to played instruments early in life and then had to let it drop by the wayside to raise their family or to pursue a career. And I bet, like me some of you would love to get back into playing again.

I have no delusions about starting at 70 to learn to learn cello and becoming the next Davide Finkcel or Amit Peled playing cello solo's in front of world renowned orchestras. Uh, nope, not gonna happen!

But, I do enjoy putzing around and would love to spend time with other "beginners" that are completely new or re-newing. And over the coming years we could have fun making lots of noise and maybe some progress together. Eventually maybe even perform some public concerts and just plain have fun making music.

From the searching I have done, tt doesn't appear such a group exists, so I am looking for some like minded souls that might like to put one together. (If you know of such a group/club please let me know!)

I think it would be awesome to find 10 to 20 players (or more or less, it doesn't matter), a "teacher" to teach and direct us, and a "manager" to run the group. I would be glad to help anyway I can, but I can't commit to running/managing the group at this time. I do expect managing this would be a bunch of work.

And if a retired teacher (or someone with the knowledge that would like to play one in the club) would be interested in teaching us some music theory and how to play our instruments that would be awesome!

Basically a beginners band class/club for any and all instruments.

Am I right?

Is there anyone else out there that would find it interesting or even better would be excited to get together and form a small band or orchestra, make some awful noises and (re)learn to play while having some fun together!
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Old 10-29-2019, 09:37 PM
Fraugoofy Fraugoofy is offline
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I would join and I can play the clarinet (kind of). Hope there are more out there like us! Rae

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Old 10-30-2019, 05:52 AM
jacksonbrown jacksonbrown is offline
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The Villages Twirlers and Drum Corps.

Search on above for the website, visit us at 1:00 PM, La Hacienda, Thursdays.

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Old 10-30-2019, 04:51 PM
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mfp509 mfp509 is offline
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I am taking a beginner violin class at the Enrichment Academy. I don't know if the teacher teaches cello or not. The book we use is Essential Elements for Strings and I am sure there is a Cello 1 book. The course does cost $90 for 4 weeks but it does get you started. If you have a cello maybe we could try something together like going through the Book 1.
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Last edited by mfp509; 10-30-2019 at 04:58 PM.
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Old 10-30-2019, 08:50 PM
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Martian Martian is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mfp509 View Post
I am taking a beginner violin class at the Enrichment Academy. I don't know if the teacher teaches cello or not. The book we use is Essential Elements for Strings and I am sure there is a Cello 1 book. The course does cost $90 for 4 weeks but it does get you started. If you have a cello maybe we could try something together like going through the Book 1.
I do have that book (along with TOO MANY others ). And I do have a cello.

I will contact you soon.

Frank
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