Musical Instruments I Own and Play

My first love and hate is the accordion. Learned to play it when I was about 13 years old, and it has been good to me. I did a bit of teaching which paid for my extras when I was in High School (at which time I also played, poorly, the flute and piccolo). But, then after I got married, and a whole lot more mature and worldly, I decided that it just wasn't all that “cool”. So, it got sold and accordion was forgotten.

But, everything old is new again. And a few years ago I was in a little used musical equipment store and saw a good looking Excelsior. Bought it for very little and have had a lot of fun with it.

I was amazed by how quickly I re-learned it to play. Great instrument for doing polkas and old-time waltzes! Click on the picture on the left for a nice, full-size picture ... and some interesting information on my book deal. If anyone can shed some info on its age I'd be grateful. All I know is that on the back it has “Model 312”. I think that is was made in the mid 1960s, but that really is just a guess.

For some nice links, software and other goodies, I've written a little accordion page

After discarding the accordion (a foolish thing now that I look back on my life), I bought a small Yamaha spinet organ. Traded up a few times and bought my ultimate machine somewhere around 1989, a Kawai KX2000. Cool fun.

So after all that, what next? Well, I figured it be fun to play in a band and how hard could it be to play a simple instrument which only did one note at a time? Gotta be easy ... right!

Started to play tenor sax in 1997. I think I am started to understand it now. I went though a few cheapies before getting my current Keilwerth SX90 tenor—in my opinion an awesome horn.

I also have a nice little soprano and a really gorgeous 1920s C-Melody.

Here's pictures for you to drool over.

You'd think I'd learn to stop! Nope, my most recent toy to toot on is Akai EWI 4000s MIDI controller. Lots of fun!.

Now, you would think that this would be enough. Well, almost. I also have a Casio WK-3000 and, of course the usual assortment of percussion odds and ends.

Never a quiet night around here!