In 2009, I began playing recorder.
Yup. That cheap little wooden flute that many children in grade school seem to have experienced for a few exciting months, culminating in "hot cross buns" or, if you were really advance, "mary had a little lamb" (there are only three notes in the former, but the latter boasts a fourth note, thus delineating the dabbler from the devotee.).
Actually, I never got to play it in grade school, and stumbled upon it after witnessing several incredible german medieval bands, shirtless, muscled men with pipes and fiddles and fire, and, well, I thought maybe I'd like to be one of 'em as well.
Got kinda good at the recorder. It's a rather old instrument, common throughout the middle ages in Europe, and an absurd amount of fun. Also, I sound nothing like a grade-schooler, nor do I look like one.
I've also played a german small bagpipe, called a hummelchen. The name means "little bee," I think because it's got a really strange, humming sound. It sometimes sounds really ghostly, sometimes sounds haunting, usually sounds good.
It's currently broken (do not work a double shift as a social worker and then play a bagpipe to relax and then fall asleep).
It sounded like this:
For a short period of time, I also had a band, called Harrow's End. We only did a short handful of open mics, but it was damn cool and insanely fun. Circumstances allowing, I hope to return to this dream. We sounded like this, at least according to a hand-held phone-camera.
