Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: April 01 2003, 20:42 |
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I'd agree with all the things he can play which you've listed there...
With drums, I'd guess he can probably play a tiny bit, but not enough to want to play them himself on an album. I can only speak from my own experience, but after having had a play around on a drum kit every now and then, I can play a few of the basic rock rhythms (and if I happened to be playing in a situation where the drummer dropped dead on stage and the show couldn't go on without drums, I could step in), but wouldn't dream of calling myself a drummer. I'd just imagine that, with the amount of time Mike must have spent around drummers and drum kits, he's probably picked up a few tricks in a similar way.
Same kind of goes for double bass - as long as you can hold the strings down and get the intonation of the notes right, playing really simple plucked basslines isn't that difficult after a little practise (for someone used to playing fretless electric bass at least), but of course there's a huge difference between plucking out a few notes and being a proper player.
Bowed instruments he certainly doesn't seem to go for, aside from the odd scraping a bow across the strings of a violin a-la-moonshine.
He does play some wind instruments, like recorders and whistles, but as far as I'm aware isn't as nimble as the likes of Paddy Moloney. They're again the kind of thing that, once you have a rough idea of the proper way to play them, it doesn't take very long to work out some simple tunes and make them sound reasonable.
He experimented with the Stick, but I assume he never really took to it. It's not really any different to tapping on a guitar, crossed with the two handed approach of piano, but it takes perseverance to master that kind of thing and I guess he didn't feel it was worthwhile.
He doesn't play the highland pipes - he apparently found it took too much breath to inflate them. We could go on for a long time listing instruments he doesn't play - mostly ones he's never even heard of 
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