Ratbagged

[robinmckinley]

 
 I Create a Verb.  And an Adjective.  I’m sure many other people have created it before, but today I create it:  ratbagged, to be bewildered, disappointed and laid low by events beyond one’s control.  A bit like sandbagged only twitchier, with nasty gnawing rodent teeth.

In the first place, the weather.  It’s been one of those uber-ugly

Comments

[lauzeta]

Well, if it helps with food and floors and so on, I just bought another copy of Sunshine (my third? fourth? something like that, anyhow) to give away, in an attempt to do my bit.

I was just talking about this with friends this morning - hatred of flats vs. hatred of sharps seems to be divided along lines of what instrument you play, at least with string players. Violinists and violists hate flats (well, violists hate everything, it's a pig of an instrument) and cellists hate sharps. When it comes to piano, I've always found sharps more interesting, although I did go through a phase where I was consistently learning pieces in B major for no reason.

Also I think those of us who have portable instruments are at least equally drawn to others', possibly even more because you only ever get to play yours. That might just be me being atypical though, since I keep picking up more... and more... instruments, which a lot of people don't do. (Last year I started learning viola da gamba, and gambists usually play more than one variety of the

[robinmckinley]

Well, if it helps with food and floors and so on, I just bought another copy of Sunshine (my third? fourth? something like that, anyhow) to give away, in an attempt to do my bit.

************ THANK YOU. You are a FRIEND. :)

I don't know why I do these things to myself.)

**************Because they're all INTERESTING. Except that I'll be the rest of my life struggling with the piano, *I'd* want to take up a portable instrument *SO* I could collect them. :) The obsessive personality is the obsessive personality. I *do* have fantasies of buying a second piano . . . a grand, of course . . . my upright has a beautifully *sweet* tone that I don't think grands ever have, but the range of dynamics you can get EASILY on a grand is . . .

Shup up! Stop! Stop!

. . . Panting . . .

So, tell us more about what you play--?

[robinmckinley]

At least it's a concert instrument.

************* What does this mean? As opposed to the kazoo? So's the flute (a concert instrument). So's the PIANO. :)

[danceswithpahis]

Yes, I've often wondered about this too. When I was in middle school band I played the trumpet, and was highly surprised to learn that it didn't play the notes I thought it did. I read bits of that article (thanks for the link); the idea of being able to change from one instrument to another makes sense (i.e., if you play different sizes of clarinet or whatever, keeping the same fingerings and pretending that all of them are the fingerings for the key of C would greatly facilitate the switch), but as for the rest I must admit that I don't buy it. It's true that it would give the players of some instruments a steeper learning curve, but I think it's something you would get used to. And I think that it would make things significantly easier for composers, although admittedly I don't compose so I can't really speak for that group

[danceswithpahis]

"Well, you played trumpet, right?"

-- Yes, that could be it. I was going to say that I still started on the piano first and played it for a few years beforehand. Then I stopped and thought about how it was really only 2 years (I had forgotten that I started the trumpet in fifth grade, not later), and it's not like I practiced THAT much in those two years. So maybe you're on to something.

[spindriftdancer]

yes, but it's *easier* to play sharps on a violin... flats are the terrible things which give you nightmares!