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 instrument, which is not only way too much work, but expensive in the long run. And they're also pretty much all as obsessive as bell ringers, it sounds like, and as you know the problem with that is time. I don't know why I do these things to myself.)

[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.

I must confess to having an easier time with sharps than flats. I don't LIKE lots of sharps, but I can handle them. If you give me flats, however (even the key of F is pushing it, although I tell myself to stop being a wimp and deal with the stupid B flat), I will whimper. And probably transpose it to the nearest available key with sharps (which is not really as fancy as it seems; I just pretend that that E flat key is really E, and play accordingly; it only gives problems with accidentals). Which is not really Dealing With the Problem, but sometimes you just don't care. I would like to blame this on the guitar, which because of its tuning is much easier to play in sharp keys than in flat ones. However, since the piano is my first instrument (and still my native "music language"; I was trying to teach someone with no musical background how to play the guitar and drew a picture of piano keys to teach them about scales), I don't think this excuse really works.

If it's any encouragement, I think transposing is one of those things that seems scary at first but you do get used to it. Of course, the majority of my transposing (the only real exceptions being what I mentioned earlier with changing from a flat key to its sharp equivalent) is with my right hand only. I enjoy playing and singing hymns from time to time; unfortunately the songs all seem to be written in keys appropriate only for sopranos and I am most DEFINITELY an alto (anything above a B from me [C on a good day, D on an excellent day] is painful), so I have to change them to be able to play and sing at the same time. (Not doing both together, at least with songs I don't know well, makes my singing so awful as to make me wince.)

[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!