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Gratuitous sax and mindless violins
Orchestra rehearsal was good, although I am very cross with my desk-partner. She took our music home two weeks ago to photocopy it all so that she could practise it, and when we came to look for our copy of the Guys and Dolls medley today we couldn't find it. At first she insisted that I must have it, but for once my lack-of-practice could be turned to my advantage as I knew I hadn't touched the music since she gave it back to me. :-} Eventually she admitted she'd probably left it in the photocopier or something, but she didn't even apologise for having lost it (not to mention having cost the orchestra money if she's really lost it). Stupid cow.
Went to the Carlton after orchestra to find a very depleted SGO quiz presence -- only![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ewx, beckyc, cjwatson and Peter Benie. Had interesting music-related conversations with the latter two and (once again) resolved to get some kind of music ensemble going. A string quartet would be good, but we are sadly lacking in violins/violas -- I can play either (though would prefer violin for the time being as I'm vastly more out-of-practice on viola) but I seem to be the only one in Cambridge who'll admit to being able to do so. On the other hand, we have three cellists (cjwatson, emperor and timeplease) so could probably manage something along the lines of Apocalyptica if I played viola and pretended to be the high end of the cello range. :-)
Call for musicians
Anyway: if anybody in Cambridge plays anything, frankly, and wants to get involved in a very amateurish play-random-music-for-fun collective, then shout here (or shout at me by email). At the moment I think the bias is likely to be towards classical and "light" music, but that's negotiable.
Went to the Carlton after orchestra to find a very depleted SGO quiz presence -- only
ewx, beckyc, cjwatson and Peter Benie. Had interesting music-related conversations with the latter two and (once again) resolved to get some kind of music ensemble going. A string quartet would be good, but we are sadly lacking in violins/violas -- I can play either (though would prefer violin for the time being as I'm vastly more out-of-practice on viola) but I seem to be the only one in Cambridge who'll admit to being able to do so. On the other hand, we have three cellists (cjwatson, emperor and timeplease) so could probably manage something along the lines of Apocalyptica if I played viola and pretended to be the high end of the cello range. :-)Call for musicians
Anyway: if anybody in Cambridge plays anything, frankly, and wants to get involved in a very amateurish play-random-music-for-fun collective, then shout here (or shout at me by email). At the moment I think the bias is likely to be towards classical and "light" music, but that's negotiable.
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As Martin Luther King might once have said.
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I assume
Mine's more or less gone -- just a chesty cough and a bit of a sniffle left -- and that's not going to stop me doing stuff. Kids of today, don't know they're born, etc. etc.
:-)
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I play the mezzo-soprano. But frankly musically I'm a bit shit really, and would probably hold everyone back even if there was call for a voice.
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(I used to play violin, but I didn't really enjoy it.)
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(A string quartet would be nice if we could swap two cellists for a^W^W^W^W^Wfind another violinist.)
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Also, my left wrist has never really forgiven me for bending it at a daft angle round the neck of a violin for seven or eight years of my childhood. I'm always suspicious that that might have been one of the root causes of my brush with RSI. I'd be unwilling to take up the violin again, just in case. These days when I have stringed-instrument urges I play the guitar instead, which I'm also useless at but at least it lets me keep my wrist at a halfway sensible angle.
Sorry
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The whole RSI thing puzzles me, to be honest; I've been using computer keyboards since the age of 3, playing piano since the age of 6 or so, playing violin since the age of 9 (and later viola as well, which is heavier!) -- you'd think I'd be a prime candidate for crippling RSI by now, but the only hint of it I've ever had was a few twinges when I was in the sixth form. But at the time I was leading an orchestra, playing in two smaller string ensembles, and frantically practising piano for the performance bit of A-level music; so I suspect I might just have been overdoing it.
Maybe some people are just more susceptible to it than others, or maybe it's the combination of wrist-mangling things I've done that's meant my wrists haven't had a chance to get stuck in one position (I'm guessing now) ... I don't know.
As for the actual playing, though, I'm sure it'd come back to you if you took it up again -- my playing was dreadful when I started playing with the CCO (which is why I chose to hide at the back of the second violins and play very quietly) but now I'm producing something that sounds like music again, and playing a lot more confidently. But then I've always found it much easier and more fun to play as part of a group -- I don't play half as well solo (which of course means I'm crap at auditions, so I found it really hard to get into orchestras etc. when I was at Oxford -- fortunately the CCO doesn't require auditions!).
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Interesting that you enjoy playing in orchestras; I never really felt I was contributing much to the music when I did that - when you're one of about ten people playing the same notes, it often feels as if you could just stop and nobody would notice all that much. (I even felt like that when I became the leader of my school orchestra, so it's not a sitting-at-the-back thing!) Small quartets and ensembles, where you're the only person playing your part, I found much more fun - more like teamwork and less like being a small cog in a large machine. Solo was fun too, but in a different way.
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I did once get tendonitis in my knees (first one, then a few months later the other one), which was odd. My doctor joked that I should stop going ski-ing until they got better.
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With
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There's string quartets for cello, two violas and violin; and it looks like we've got at least two violins now anyway (Rachel and meirion and... did I miss anyone?) so string quartets are a definite possibility. Or even string quintets. Or sextets. Hurr hurr, I said "sex". :-)
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Well, I've got a double bass, and I'm not afraid to use it...
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I won't be offended if I'm not up to your standard, but I could work on b) and c) quite quickly, given a reason to bother ...
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Eh, you think I have standards? ;-)
Seriously -- sounds fine to me. I'm not interested in getting together a group of elite musicians (for a start, I wouldn't be eligible to join such a thing!) -- I'm interested in getting together a loose affiliation of people who like playing music for fun, and who don't mind swapping parts and messing about and just picking up stuff and playing it because it looks interesting.
BTW what needs fixing on the fiddle? If we do get anything started before you get it fixed, you're welcome to borrow mine in the meantime if you want and I'll play viola or piano.
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Bow needs new hair and it could probably do with new strings. I'll take it to a music shop and wait for the indrawn sucking noise ;)
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-m-
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Well, I think that's the highest standard that anybody's admitted to so far :-) so I wouldn't worry too much about practising... if we do get anything going then it'll be more a case of "come along and hack through stuff for fun" rather than "you need to practise this stuff first". At least at first ... I suppose maybe if we get good we'll want to practise. I dunno, the whole practising thing is alien to me. ;-)