Miscellaneous Do you name your instruments?

Jules · Feb 22, 2015

My old Conn tenor was called Suzie but that was a bit of a one off, after one of my exes....

Ron123 · Feb 22, 2015

Hi
I'm not going to tell you...... well not till I ask them if they mind!
Ron

Pauline · Feb 22, 2015

My tenor is called Freddie.
One night after band practice I was loading him in the car when I found myself saying "there you go Freddie!" And that was that!
My other instruments don't have names.

Ads · Feb 22, 2015

Good Grief no - even the missus doesn`t name her brass instruments . Heck the cat was just called "The cat" or "puss" (or Cooking fat when it tripped you up) .

jonf · Feb 22, 2015

Jules said:
My old Conn tenor was called Suzie but that was a bit of a one off, after one of my exes....

And how did that go down with the current Mrs L?

Matabayahsi · Feb 22, 2015

hahah I always name my instruments my first bass guitar was jennifer and my second one the cort A5 is called Courtney, my telecaster Tangerine, my strat Cherry and finnaly my sax is called Ormond, I named her after my host`s surname who actually bought it for me (technically I worked for it but they bought it for me because they really enjoyed my work)

jeremyjuicewah · Feb 22, 2015

No. But the bombero (fireman) in the village named his sons Jose and hose B. Boom boom!!

Tenor Viol · Feb 22, 2015

Nope and I don't usually name my cars either - apart from one which had a number plate with EMA in it, so it was 'Emma'.

The only thing I give a name to is my sat nav. Given my car is Germanic, I have decided she is 'Gerty' as in Gertrude. I did toy with Waldtraute (Wagner Das Rheingold reference)

Jonesy · Feb 22, 2015

Tenor Viol said:
The only thing I give a name to is my sat nav. Given my car is Germanic, I have decided she is 'Gerty' as in Gertrude. I did toy with Waldtraute (Wagner Das Rheingold reference)

Hope it wasn't designed by "Der Wanderer".

Jules · Feb 23, 2015

jonf said:
And how did that go down with the current Mrs L?

They didn't overlap, time wise....

Young Col · Feb 23, 2015

I don't name mine, but I recall that Lester Young called his tenor - and other people's instruments - "ol' pound cake". Probably a product of his obliquely worded humour. Probably also why a Count Basie/ Sweets Edison number called Pound Cake from 1939, featured a typical laid back Lester Young solo, along with contributions from Jack Washington (bari), Earle Warren (alto) and Buck Clayton's muted trumpet. Interesting that this recording contains a riff from a great 1937 recording of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, made in Paris with Dicky Wells (trombone), Bill Coleman (trumpet) among others, with Django Rheinhardt. Dicky Wells was in Basie's band in 1939 so perhaps contributed to the arrangement.

One of my fellow band member alto players doesn't name her instrument but does talk to it. Putting it on its stand she would tell it not to move until she got back. She recently berated a reed telling it that if it didn't behave she would take it off and send it home. I thought this was little harsh, but she said you had to show them who was in charge otherwise they would only take advantage. And who can argue with that?

Jules · Feb 23, 2015

Young Col said:
One of my fellow band member alto players doesn't name her instrument but does talk to it. Putting it on its stand she would tell it not to move until she got back. She recently berated a reed telling it that if it didn't behave she would take it off and send it home. I thought this was little harsh, but she said you had to show them who was in charge otherwise they would only take advantage. And who can argue with that?

That's actually a bit sinister, I watched Stanley Kubrick's movie of Lolita the other week and Peter Sellers talking lovingly to his gun in that movie is creepy in the extreme (a classic example of comedy actors doing 'scary' really well)

Lizengar · Feb 23, 2015

I talk to my instruments as well. When I accidentally knock my instrument or bumped into it, I would apologise to them. But I am giving the silent treatment for my saxophone...we are still getting to know one another.

altissimo · Feb 24, 2015

you should hear the names my saxophones call me, when they think I'm out of earshot... I don't know where they picked up such bad language...

Jeanette · Feb 24, 2015

altissimo said:
I don't know where they picked up such bad language...

I wonder...............

Jx

Young Col · Feb 24, 2015