I was wondering why you picked up guitar again. DId not know you were
sidelined on the keyboards. Guitar certainly has its own charm, and
switching from a pick to finger picking is a very interesting transition.

Hope to see you next Wednesday.

David

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Alan Kay <[email protected]> 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
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Long Nguyen <[email protected]>
> *To:* Alan Kay <[email protected]>; Fundamentals of New Computing <
> [email protected]>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 18, 2012 10:47 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [fonc] Alan Kay in the news [german]
>
> Dear Dr. Kay,
>
> May I ask, how would you type on a computer if you cannot play keyboards?
>
> Best,
> Long
>
> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Alan Kay <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I should mention that there is both garbling and also lots of
> fabrication in
> > this report.
> >
> > I didn't say "abandon theory" -- I did urge doing more real experiments
> with
> > software (from which the first might have been incorrectly inferred).
> >
> > But where did all the organ stuff come from? I never mentioned it, so it
> > must have been gleaned from the net. And I suddenly became a better
> organist
> > than I every was. And he had me touring around when I have not been able
> to
> > play keyboards for four years because of a severe shoulder trauma from a
> > tennis accident.
> >
> > But the University of Paderborn and faculty and students were very
> > hospitable, and it was fun to help them dedicate the building.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Alan
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Eugen Leitl <[email protected]>
> > To: Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]>
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 7:19 AM
> > Subject: [fonc] Alan Kay in the news [german]
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Alan-Kay-Nicht-in-der-Theorie-der-Informatik-verharren-1644597.html
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
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