Gratuitous sax and mindless violins

[j4]

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 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.

Comments

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've just remembered I *do* know another violinist... try simont (though I'm not sure he has a violin any more).

[simont]

'Fraid not. I was a violinist, but haven't played one since I was 15 (well, unless you count the one or two occasions when I've picked up someone else's out of curiosity and discovered I honestly have no idea how to make a nice noise on it any more). I'd have to practise for quite a while just to get back to "tolerable", let alone "worthwhile".

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 :-/

[j4.livejournal.com]

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.

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!).

[simont]

*shrug* Yes, I'm not sure why your wrists haven't fallen apart from all that; I'm fairly sure mine would have! I started to have chronic pain in my left wrist when I was about sixteen (shortly after giving up the violin), usually when stressed or in cold weather but every so often simply because my wrist (apparently) remembered it hadn't tormented me for a couple of weeks. Because it was the left wrist only I assumed it was the violin; other people I've talked to since then seem to agree, and say that apparently tendonitis and related things are common among violinists. I suppose some people must just have more robust tendons (you jammy wossname ;-).

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.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

My brain's motor-program section is very weak, by that I mean the bit where the thinking part says "JFDI" and some automatic bit does all the microcoordination. I can be dexterous (like when doing crafts, which I'm often quite good at), but it involves intense concentration due to all the explicit scheduling. This is mainly bad (lack of dexterity and clumsiness in everyday life) but one good thing about it means that I don't seem to be succeptible to RSI, because I rarely do the same things exactly the same way twice in a row. It took me ages to learn to type, but now I do it's apparently a bit mad, like two riverdancing spiders involving movements in all kinds of odd directions. Really I guess, I get away with no I due to the lack of R, rather than the lack of S.

[imc.livejournal.com]

My hands have been glued to a computer keyboard of one sort or another (starting with a rubber-keyed Speccy) since 1983 (at which time I was considerably older than 3) and I've never had anything wrong with my hands or wrists that lasts more than about ten minutes (and this tends to happen when I rest them awkwardly on the desk).

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.