(top post) Forgive me if I'm keeping us off topic here, but I like music too:)
Here's my excuse: working on doing an assembler (using Ian's peg/leg) and emulator for an expanded TinyComputer which I plan to use in a programming game. *cough* My dad had his hands smashed several times while working. Kind of a lousy coincidence. The doctors told him that he'd never play guitar again a couple times, but he kept at it. He learned to retune his guitar to make certain chords (e.g., the A-shaped barre) which were extremely painful for him to play playable again, and in the process, he expanded his ability by leaps and bounds. He rarely plays in standard tuning anymore, because he can make much more interesting music using open and hybrid tunings. I think in at least one sense his misfortune was my great fortune, because I was exposed early on to an instrument which was not assumed to be fixed, but almost infinitely malleable. There's nothing quite like the sound of a Dm played as a twelve string harmonic, something that just can't be done at all in standard without extra arms. The only thing I could bend further than that guitar was the computer. Makes me think maybe the reason I got into programming languages themselves might have had something to do with the way my dad talked about music. Long story short, I was mugged a few weeks ago, and lost a chunk of my right palm in the process; I was out of commission for a little while but it seems that there was no actual skeletal, neural, or muscular damage, just a really deep flesh wound. I'm lucky and still playing with the band. I was maybe a little bit stupid, because I refused to stop practicing, even when the wound was infected. I've been playing bass with the band because I wanted to grow and I tend to do the same stuff over and over on the guitar. I just slapped some gauze on it, wrapped it tight with tape, took an aspirin and played with a pick for a month until it had healed sufficiently. Here's to finding new expressiveness in the face of adversity! --Casey On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi John > > Sorry to hear about your nerve problems. > > I got a variety of books to get started -- including Anton Shearer's and > Christopher Parkening's. > > Then I started corresponding with a fabulous and wonderfully expressive > player in the Netherlands I found on YouTube-- Enno Voorhorst > Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viVl-G4lFQ4 > > I like his approach very much -- part of it is that he started out as a > violin player, and still does a fair amount of playing in string quartets, > etc. You can hear that his approach to tremolo playing is that of a solo > timbre rather than an effect. > > And some of the violin ideas of little to no support for the left hand do > work well on classical guitar. But many of the barres (especially the > hinged ones) do require some thumb support. What has been interesting about > this process is to find out how much of the basic classical guitar > technique is quite different from steel string jazz chops -- it's taken a > while to unlearn some "spinal reflexes" that were developed a lifetime ago. > > Cheers, > > Alan > > ------------------------------ > *From:* John Zabroski <johnzabro...@gmail.com> > > *To:* Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com>; Fundamentals of New Computing < > fonc@vpri.org> > *Sent:* Thursday, July 19, 2012 5:40 PM > > *Subject:* Re: [fonc] Alan Kay in the news [german] > > > > On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Hi Long, > > I can keep my elbows into my body typing on a laptop. My problem is that I > can't reach out further for more than a few seconds without a fair amount > of pain from all the ligament tendon and rotator cuff damage along that > axis. If I get that close to the keys on an organ I still have trouble > reaching the other keyboards and my feet are too far forward to play the > pedals. Similar geometry with the piano, plus the reaches on the much wider > keyboard are too far on the right side. Also at my age there are some lower > back problems from trying to lean in at a low angle -- this doesn't work. > > But, after a few months I realized I could go back to guitar playing > (which I did a lot 50 years ago) because you can play guitar with your > right elbow in. After a few years of getting some jazz technique back and > playing in some groups in New England in the summers, I missed the > polyphonic classical music and wound up starting to learn classical guitar > a little over a year ago. This has proved to be quite a challenge -- much > more difficult than I imagined it would be -- and there was much less > transfer from jazz/steel string technique that I would have thought. It not > only feels very different physically, but also mentally, and has many extra > dimensions of nuance and color that is both its charm, and also makes it > quite a separate learning experience. > > Cheers, > > Alan > > > > Hey Alan, > > That's awesome that you are learning classical guitar. Are you using > Aaron Shearer's texts to teach yourself? One trick I have learned is to > not support my left hand at all when playing. In this way, the dexterity > in my fingers increases and when I press down on the fretboard I am using > only my finger muscles. > > I've had bilateral ulnar nerve transposition, and for a whole year in > college could not type at all due to muscle atrophy from nerve compression! > I wrote all my computer assignments on paper, and paid a "personal > secretary" to type them in for me. I thought about everything the program > would do before I wrote anything on paper, since I hated crossing out code > and writing editorial arrows. > > Dragon Naturally Speaking is really quite good, although not good for > programming in most languages. I've found Microsoft Visual Basic is > somewhat possible to speak. I also experimented with various exotic > keyboards, like the DataHand keyboard in the movie The Fifth Element. It > was easily my favorite keyboard, but the main problem and reason I don't > use it after getting better is that going to somebody else's desk and > typing becomes a lesson in learning how to type again. > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > >
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