My fiddling means I no longer sport elegant long fingernails but very short ones and great calluses (a physical change). And then of course there’s the zen moments that come out of spending so much time practicing that are applicable to my whole life….and then there’s the community of grumpy/crouchy/cantankerous pedants and perfectionists I’ve come to love……
So how has your instrument and/or ITM changed YOU?
It’s made me a lot calmer. I know what you mean about the zen moments, curvy---I’ve never been able to meditate, never had the patience for it, but practicing is very similar because you have to be very relaxed and focused to get a good sound. An hour or two of that relaxation and focus every day has really helped me deal with a lot of the stress in my life. I never expected that to happen when I started learning---I thought it was only about music!
I love how you think you switch off from work/worries etc when you practice….you go over and over and over and plow all of your attention and energy into getting that tricky phrase where you miss the bow direction change right. And then you stop and lo! and behold! ….that problem at work that was gnawing at my guts and had me really worried…I’ve got an idea about solving! Amazing how it frees you from panic and lets your subconscious do its work unhindered! 😉
OK…one glass of wine and my grammar has mixed personages….
O.K, I confess…..I used to be a heavy metal guitarist! I used to find that playing was a good way of getting rid of tension and frustration. I made the change to fiddle five years ago and find that I’m a much calmer person. (Could just be that I’m older of course)! Anyhow when I try to play guitar now I just get annoyed because I can’t play at anything like the same speed that I can on the fiddle….
Hey FF….tell me that you do know all those Frog tunes in the database…Bang your frog on the sofa, Frog in the well etc….with a nickname like yours….you just HAVE to! 😉
I’m going to learn them ALL, don’t worry!
There’s a great song about Fred the talking Frog by Michael Smith. Are you two related?
😛
Sadly, no, I’m one of the Devon Frogs…………
Thanks KML - just managed to snort my wine instead of drink it - but I’ll head off to bed with clear sinuses, and a big grin….and maybe I’ll just revisit that first site…..:-0
😛
It has made me acquire an unhealthy propensity to drink and has made me bad company on friday mornings.
I used to be one of those grumpy, cantankerous perfectionists you mention- but that was before taking up the fiddle. Nothing’s changed, of course, except that now I’ve got a good excuse…🙂
I’ve become boring, tedious, repetitive, tedious, repetitive, boring, tedious and repetitive.
it’s made me very happy
Humph, I may be grumpy, and cantankerous, but I’m never crouchy. Now grouchy, that’s a different matter.
Bah Humbug I say.
It has made me a mystery to my family and freinds…
Made me a bit lighter in the wallet.
I’ve spent less and less time in the workshed and more and more time blowing a tube with six holes in it. At least I’m not breathing in all that dust. 🙂 Which is more satisfying? Making articles with your hands or making music? I dunno, both are good for body and soul in different ways.
TWH, what about making your own instrument, thereby combining both? I’d have made my own fiddle, if I didn’t have enough problems trying to play a proper one🙂
They have made me bulbous.
You’re right PK, I’ve made a few whistles but doubtless will try my hand at a flute sometime. Trouble is .. I’d have to think of various useful objects to make so as to justify investing in a lathe and some means of making a conical bore etc. etc. Think I’d prefer just to play tunes for a while …………
I no longer listen to the radio when I drive, preferring instead to listen to the tunes rattling around in my head. It’s amazing how much you can practice WITHOUT your instrument.
It has made me acquire a healthy propensity to drink.
Oh, and I now visit online discussion forums.
From playing the guitar, my left hand is bigger, more flexible and probably stronger than my right hand. The fingers of my left hand are one-quarter inch or more longer than the right hand. And I’m right-handed.
After going from guitar to other fretted instruments with relative ease, the fiddle laughed at me and taunted me and gave me a lesson in humility.
Playing instruments has also been a zen-like experience, when I’ve managed to let it happen. And it’s been the basis of most of my lasting friendships.
I also played heavy metal guitar, but I can’t imagine why now. I’ve tried to go back several times and just can’t force myself to do it. And I sympathize with Bobhimself completely. As a strapping (scrawny) young cocky teenager, I realized that having played guitar for years, all other fretted instruments came fairly easily and said to muself, “Self, it’s time you picked up the fiddle”. Woops. That was the end of my cocky teenage era.
Playing my fiddle has left my right shoulder two inches lower than my left; a friend pointed this out to me, as I was not aware of it, but there it is. As to the music, it has left me less able to take “classical” music entirely seriously; ONLY TWO MODES??!!
In a distant period of history known as “the 1980’s” I also played heavy metal, on my Kramer Focus 3000 electric guitar, equipped with a Floyd Rose Locking Nut Tremolo Arm (or whammy bar, as I think we called it then). I can still play some old Dokken riffs. I so badly wanted to play solos like Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani and their ilk, but it just never came together for me. In the end I because fairly adept at Jerry Garcia style “major key jamming”, which I guess just somehow makes sense for how my brain is wired. And like Jerry Garcia I also ended up making a lot of musical explorations…into folk, country, bluegrass, and eventually…Irish traditional! Now that ITM has its hooks into me it has mostly crowded out everything else for the last couple years. The fiddle is a cruel mistress.
You’re right, TWB, there’s only so many table lamps a man can make, and as for the conical bore, I got stuck next to one of those once…I think he worked for the Highways department ;)
Sorry- I re-named you there TWH- this keyboard never spells anything properly.
Being a recovering rock guitarist myself, ITM has given me a valid arena to “go hog wild” on the flute! After playing “Drowsy Maggie” and “Banish Misfortune” at full session speed on my Casey Burns, everything else just seems anti-climactic. 😉
KML GIVE UP THE MUSIC QUICK!!!
ITM has meant for me a new lease of life for my fiddle, an escape from the prescriptive music of the orchestra, learning to play by ear and therefore to escape the chains of sheet music and a new social group in which I am considered a youngster and no one can see well enough to know if I have wrinkles or can hear well enough to know if I play out of tune!
Hmmm… how has the concertina changed me? 😏 I now have magnificent pecks. 😀
From the Dancing perspective, my right leg is now bigger than my left.
A while back I had a trial afternoon at fencing. The legs are used in precisely the opposite way.
Oh the pain!
As a fluter, it taught me not to smile - it’s an embouchure thing.
By the way, aren’t we all now wondering whether KML spends his time browsing for pictures like his “before”?
Is it just me or does anyone else notice KML’s “before” photo looks a little light in the pantyhose?
Hey Phantom….notice how everyone stayed away from that last comment? :-o
Yep… things were getting just a little too PC around here. I threw it in to help balance things out. 😉
Got me searching for a photo that was once sent to me on one of those email circulars - I think it was of the Bulgarian rowing team getting their gold medals at an Olympics……anyway they were 4 rather well endowed men wearing skin tight white lycra and winning a medal or (maybe it was the national anthem playing)had brought them all to attention! Can’t believe I didn’t save it! 😛
Its forced me to lie in bed for hours listening to screechy fiddle tunes in my head. Screechy is the style I play, by the way ; )
My adams apple has shifted 2 inches to the right
Eeeeuw! Calluses are one thing!!……but skewed adams apples!!!……maybe Phantom’s AFTER photo was more accurate (for blokes) than I thought! 😉
Do you mean physically, or mentally, or as a performer? Well, I think the question was an open one.
Well, musically it has given me a base. I play whistle, have played (and still own) a flute, and play melodeon. One of these I got fairly recently has semitones (a 2 1/2 row DG), so at long last I am exploring other kinds of music in a way I couldn’t on diatonic melodeon or whistle.
I never learned a classical instrument and assume at 54 I’m very unlikely to. So my musical language is Irish trad - the tunes and the way they work and the techniques used, all of which make it a very coherent and functional tradition.
But I see myself hiving off into things like Klezmer or classical numbers. I’ve found some of Gilbert and Sullivan works very well on the box; also, a session near my home where people do Beatles‘ songs, etc. - and a cupboard in my parents’ home crammed with miscellaneous music. I’ll be investigating these more often than trying to play reels in G Minor.
(I’ve noticed how effectively some ITM musicians have indeed transferred their know-how to other forms of music - De Danaan and Planxty being two groups that have done so.)
1. Changed alot of freinds
2. I am a bigger mystery to the freinds I have kept
3. Learning the button box, it takes me longer to mentally switch when I have to play the piano (one of my regular gigs)
4. I am less worried about frills and show off, and more attentive to the music’s ‘bones’.
5. Less tolerant of ‘trained, professional’ musicians arrogance
6. lighter in the wallet.
7. My kids are now certain I am crazy.
8. My wife has discovered internet shopping.
9. Have discovered that playing ITM has taken my understanding that I will never make any money as a musician to newer heights…and really don’t care much.
10. Amazed my sainted Polish mother who tolerated my absolute resistance to learning the piano accordion as a kid, with my playing the button in every spare minute of the day. Also have her aggravated with my continued resistance to playing “Polish Stomp” accordion and prefering Irish dance tunes.
8.
for me, it has made me realize what is REALLY important to me in life and discover that I am a really passionate person!
it has helped me grow into the person I am now, and start a whole new life.
besides this, it got me in touch with a lot of lovely people who are now very dear to my heart 🙂
I feel blessed.
my instrument? flute.
