Home » Open thread 1/9/23

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Open thread 1/9/23 — 24 Comments

  1. Actually, “Practice makes permanent.”

    If you consistently practice something incorrectly, you’ll imbed that “incorrectness” into muscle memory. Doing it incorrectly over and over again simply means you’ll have “incorrect” nailed perfectly.

    Practice with correction tends to make better.

  2. Fun videos on both, but it seems very likely they had some mastery of another instrument before picking up violin. Dexterity with handling a violin is one thing, but reading music capably is another. Their quick progress on sight reading impresses me more than the violin mastery, although that’s also very impressive.

    If neither of these students came into this with any prior musical training, or knowing how to read music, their progress is incredible! Very, very impressive.

    If they did come into it knowing how to read music, I’d like to know which instrument they already play, and how well? If it’s a string instrument then that’s a big leg up.

  3. Rufus T. Firefly:

    I agree they probably could read music quite well already, either from playing a different instrument or from singing. But I don’t think their previous instrument experience would have been a stringed instrument because their bow technique would have been better from the start.

    There is a lot of carryover with bow technique, and things like vibrato, which they learned quickly but nevertheless didn’t seem to know from the start.

  4. Fantastic! Does that guy also do simultaneous translation??
    If so, sign ‘im up NOW!
    – – – – – – – – – –
    Meanwhile, Mr. Rogers sings, “Regrets, I’ve had [more than] a few…”
    “Rep. Rogers Says He Regrets Tense Confrontation With Rep. Gaetz During Speaker Vote”—
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAt5b1I1Gmk
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rep-rogers-says-he-regrets-tense-confrontation-rep-gaetz-during-speaker-vote

  5. And returning to the “Secure Border”(TM)…
    …Andrew McCarthy appears to have woken up and is on the case!
    “Biden’s Immigration ‘Parole’ Scam”—
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/bidens-immigration-parole-scam/
    Come to think of it, the entire administration is a scam (a serial scam?)…
    – – – – – – – – – –
    Related: Lying liars gotta lie!
    “Joe Biden just said that Capitol Police Officer William Evans died as a result of threats by these sick insurrectionists.
    “Officers Evans was killed by a black Nation of Islam supporter who rammed him with a car.”—-
    https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1611453368110555148?cxt=HHwWmICxpZ2ThN0sAAAA
    We are being “led” by psychopaths.
    (So what else is new…)

  6. But I don’t think their previous instrument experience would have been a stringed instrument because their bow technique would have been better from the start.

    I’m a fairly accomplished guitar player of over 30 years. I play mostly electric guitar in the rock and heavy metal genres, but I also took a course classical guitar back in college – I still have my old clasical Yamaha nylon string that I’ll play from time to time. I also played alto saxophone in highschool band and took piano lessons as a child. As such I have a reasonable knowledge of music theory and I’m a fair sight reader.

    All this is to say that I was gifted an FV-1 Electric Violin a few years back, and I can say that I certainly found it pretty challenging to learn even how to get a sound out of it let alone play anything beyond a simple scale. So I find this pretty impressive.

  7. Nonapod:

    I do not mean the guitar, which has no bow. I mean stringed instruments of the usual orchestral variety: violin, viola, cello, and bowed bass.

    And I agree that their achievement is impressive, but less impressive if they already had played a bowed string instrument.

  8. neo @2:01pm,

    I was thinking more plucked or strummed string instrument, like guitar or mandolin. There’s a point early on where the woman switched to a fretted electric. Frets are a big leg up, especially for a beginner, but why would a beginner know that if she wasn’t used to playing a fretted guitar?

    And I disagree with the 2 violin guys, or they are just being humble. If they had 2 years to master flute, as they posit at one point, I bet they’d be pretty darned good.

  9. The latest proposal from our ban-happy Betters is the abolition of gas cooking stoves: The Consumer Product Safety Commission is mulling the action after recent studies showed emissions from the devices can cause health and respiratory problems, Bloomberg reported Monday. “This is a hidden hazard,” CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., told the outlet. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

    https://nypost.com/2023/01/09/biden-administration-reportedly-weighing-national-ban-on-gas-stoves/

    If the ban is imposed, I predict a Million Chef March on Washington, as 96% of professional chefs prefer gas cooktops to electric ones:

    https://www.thedailymeal.com/cook/5-reasons-top-chefs-prefer-gas-cooktops

  10. Rufus T. Firefly:

    Have you ever tried to play the flute? I have, just once. Once was enough. It would take me at least 100 years to learn how to play it. The most difficult instrument I ever tried to play. The breathing technique is so hard alone, and that’s just the beginning. See this – and that’s a “look on the bright side” description.

  11. @ PA Cat > “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

    There you have the Democrat Platform in one sentence.
    And whatever is not banned is mandatory.

    Thanks for the heads up – we’ll go out and get a gas stove to replace our electric one as soon as possible.

  12. We binge-watched the first season of “Wednesday” (the Addams family child goes to boarding school) with a couple of grand-daughters over Christmas week.
    One very impressive scene shows her playing the cello in a passionate manner somewhat at odds with her excessively restrained personal interactions.
    The actress was quite convincing in her bowing and fingering (according to AesopSpouse, who has taken up the viola recently, but is not making enough progress for TwoSet to feature him on a video).
    Apparently, she took lessons for only a couple of months.
    No info from the internet reports on whether someone else over-dubbed the music, but she certainly looked good!
    I suspect, however, that it is the only song she can play.

    https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/11/24/what-song-does-wednesday-play-on-the-cello-and-is-jenna-ortega-playing/

  13. Spotted this sad news in the side-bar to the Wednesday post.

    https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2023/01/10/inside-diamond-and-silks-net-worth-as-lynette-hardaway-passes-away/

    Diamond and Silk’s combined net worth in 2023 is proof of the immense fame they achieved as pro-Trump influencers on social media over the years.

    Lynette Hardaway Aka Diamond has passed away and the news of her demise is being mourned by Republicans across the country, including the former POTUS himself.

    The two sisters’ political commentary on YouTube and other social media channels also landed them several television shows including Diamond and Silk Crystal Clear.

    The sisters have remained Trump supporters for years speaking at multiple events to show him their support.


    Diamond is said to have been 52 years at the time of her passing.

    I enjoyed their hilarious videos very much.
    RIP Diamond, gone from us too young.

  14. @ Neo > “Have you ever tried to play the flute? I have, just once.”

    AesopSpouse took up the flute some years ago (after the guitar, before the viola he’s fickle that way), and one son and his wife both play. None are more than amateurs, but (listening to them) I didn’t think it was that hard. I haven’t tried it myself, but do play the recorder from time to time, although the only similarity in technique is blowing air through a hole.

    I think people have affinities for different types of instruments, though, and being able to play one type is not really related to playing some other type.

    His viola teacher is a professional cellist, and is taking up the accordion this year just for fun.

  15. neo,

    My wife is a flautist. I’ve tried to get sound to come out of the instrument to no avail. I’m aware of the difficulties and didn’t mean to downplay them. Two years of practice is a lot of time for a musician. Surely in the first week I’d have noise coming out and technique would improve. Reed instruments are likely similarly hard.

  16. I did an open end search on Youtube for “learning flute in a…”
    This is the first one that came up: https://youtu.be/mbjpiU7MrDc
    Someone challenged to learn to play flute in one hour.
    If you’re over the age of 12 you’ll probably find the pace and content annoying. The protagonist appears to know other instruments (there are keyboards and guitars about) and he is playing a song within an hour. His tone is still fairly bad, but it’s better than when he started and would obviously get better with time.

  17. I wonder if any of them had had something like Piano? I mean, reading music, and understanding the tempo and and developed sense of how things ‘should’ sound would be mean a pretty quick jump once some of the mechanics of playing the instrument is learned. My son, who has had 10 years of piano, started playing the guitar, and after a pretty short time, it started sounding really good, at least for ‘normal’ guitar pieces (not the intro to ‘Thunderstruck’). Part of the true beginner part is learning to both the mechanics of the instrument and the translating the language of written music first to the meaning, then to the output.

    Also, as for practice, his first instructor was “You don’t practice until you get it right, you practice until you won’t do it wrong.”

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