On 17/05/2012 8:14 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 17 May 2012 19:43:04 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
>> I had to look it up having never heard of Tim Minchin.
>
> Oh, I thought you had originally mentioned him to me (along with a few
> other people who did).
>

You're talking to someone who thinks "Clue" is cutting edge. :-P

>
> I've found most of his stuff to be quite funny.  His lullaby is very
> good, if only because it says the things you'd never dare say. :)
>

I will take your word on it.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>> My voice has a range of an octave and a half, maybe more if I use
>> falsetto
>> as well.
>>
>> None of which compensates for the fact that I can't reliably sing in
>> tune,
>> my throat hurts after a minute or two, and I'm constantly out of breath.
>> Also, my voice just sounds awful. :-P
>
> I'm betting you'd improve if you actually took some lessons.

Yeah, you're probably right about that. Trouble is, I'd never have the 
nerve to actually sing out loud in front of somebody else... o_O

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On 17/05/2012 06:12 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 17 May 2012 09:12:49 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> It took be about an hour to tune the violin when I first brought it
>> home. As soon as I let go on the tuning peg, it would instantly go slack
>> again. Took me ages to make it stick. Not sure if worn out or just
>> poorly made in the first place...
>
> Sounds like it's worn to me.  Peg Dope (which IIRC is the actual product
> name) is supposed to help with that.

Possibly doesn't help that I've never tuned a violin in my life.

Obviously, having your instrument correctly tuned is crucially 
important. So at school, the teacher always did that for us.

> Replacing the strings is easy.  I wouldn't pay someone to do it, just buy
> a set of Dominant or similar and replace them one by one.

Yeah, I already read that you shouldn't remove all the strings at once. 
I wonder how many other gotchas there are? Apparently it's also fairly 
important to have the strings properly routed through the pegbox... In 
all, I figure I should probably leave this one to the professionals. It 
probably won't even cost that much.

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On Fri, 18 May 2012 08:56:54 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 17/05/2012 8:14 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 May 2012 19:43:04 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> I had to look it up having never heard of Tim Minchin.
>>
>> Oh, I thought you had originally mentioned him to me (along with a few
>> other people who did).
>>
>>
> You're talking to someone who thinks "Clue" is cutting edge. :-P

LOL. :)  BTW, I was shocked (shocked, I say!) that there was no Mornington 
Crescent in the last series.

Jim

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On Fri, 18 May 2012 09:05:31 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> Sounds like it's worn to me.  Peg Dope (which IIRC is the actual
>> product name) is supposed to help with that.
> 
> Possibly doesn't help that I've never tuned a violin in my life.
> 
> Obviously, having your instrument correctly tuned is crucially
> important. So at school, the teacher always did that for us.

Seems like a poor excuse for a teacher, then.  The point of playing in 
school isn't to sound good, but to learn how to play (which includes 
tuning the instrument).

>> Replacing the strings is easy.  I wouldn't pay someone to do it, just
>> buy a set of Dominant or similar and replace them one by one.
> 
> Yeah, I already read that you shouldn't remove all the strings at once.
> I wonder how many other gotchas there are? Apparently it's also fairly
> important to have the strings properly routed through the pegbox... In
> all, I figure I should probably leave this one to the professionals. It
> probably won't even cost that much.

Probably not, if you've never done this before.  But I'm surprised that 
you haven't, as I recall you say you played for years.  But given your 
above comment that you've never tuned a violin before, it seems that your 
self-described "suckiness" at playing is attributable in a HUGE part to 
having a crap teacher who didn't actually teach you anything about 
playing the violin beyond "put your fingers here" and "move the bow like 
this".

Jim

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>> Possibly doesn't help that I've never tuned a violin in my life.
>>
>> Obviously, having your instrument correctly tuned is crucially
>> important. So at school, the teacher always did that for us.
>
> Seems like a poor excuse for a teacher, then.  The point of playing in
> school isn't to sound good, but to learn how to play (which includes
> tuning the instrument).

Well, you know, we're talking about 9 year old kids here.

> Probably not, if you've never done this before.  But I'm surprised that
> you haven't, as I recall you say you played for years.

I played for about 2 years, total. And that was 20 years ago...

> But given your
> above comment that you've never tuned a violin before, it seems that your
> self-described "suckiness" at playing is attributable in a HUGE part to
> having a crap teacher who didn't actually teach you anything about
> playing the violin beyond "put your fingers here" and "move the bow like
> this".

Perhaps.

Then again, the violin is a very hard instrument to play. Basically, 
it's /sensitive/. That means that in experienced hands, you can do all 
this really expressive playing, which is what the violin is famous for 
of course. But because it's /sensitive/, it also means that in 
inexperienced hands, every slightly glitch is magnified drastically, and 
it sounds plain AWFUL! >_<

So far, I basically haven't used the E-string at all. The pressure of 
the bow on the string seems to be enough to put it out of tune. And as 
soon as I put a finger on it, it becomes almost completely mute.

Also, I have bruised fingertips now. :-/

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On Fri, 18 May 2012 21:47:45 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Possibly doesn't help that I've never tuned a violin in my life.
>>>
>>> Obviously, having your instrument correctly tuned is crucially
>>> important. So at school, the teacher always did that for us.
>>
>> Seems like a poor excuse for a teacher, then.  The point of playing in
>> school isn't to sound good, but to learn how to play (which includes
>> tuning the instrument).
> 
> Well, you know, we're talking about 9 year old kids here.

I don't remember precisely, but ISTR that when I was 9, I had at that 
point been taught how to tune my instrument.

>> Probably not, if you've never done this before.  But I'm surprised that
>> you haven't, as I recall you say you played for years.
> 
> I played for about 2 years, total. And that was 20 years ago...

See, the impression you gave about this previously was that you had many 
years' experience playing.  2 years isn't enough to get a lot of 
expertise in playing an instrument.  You said you sucked at it.  You 
didn't say that you only played for 2 years when you were < 11 years old.

That makes a difference.

> Then again, the violin is a very hard instrument to play. 

It certainly takes more than 2 years practice as a prepubescent teen to 
get any competence at it, yes.  (I played from the time I was 9 until I 
was about 20 or 21).

If it were /easy/, then everyone could play like Itzhak Perlman.

> Basically,
> it's /sensitive/. That means that in experienced hands, you can do all
> this really expressive playing, which is what the violin is famous for
> of course. But because it's /sensitive/, it also means that in
> inexperienced hands, every slightly glitch is magnified drastically, and
> it sounds plain AWFUL! >_<

You expect to get instant expertise.  It takes years (more than *2*) to 
get to that level of playing.

> So far, I basically haven't used the E-string at all. The pressure of
> the bow on the string seems to be enough to put it out of tune. And as
> soon as I put a finger on it, it becomes almost completely mute.

That tells me that the pegs are definitely not right for the peg holes, 
and you should get someone to take a look at it.

> Also, I have bruised fingertips now. :-/

Yep, that'll happen until you get callouses on your fingertips.  That's 
part of the reason I haven't played in several years - I don't have those 
callouses, but I have the dexterity, and it does hurt to play.  Feels 
like I'm cutting into my fingertips with a dull knife.

Jim

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On 18/05/2012 8:57 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> LOL.:)   BTW, I was shocked (shocked, I say!)

Bzzz! Repetition.

> that there was no Mornington Crescent in the last series.

I did not really notice. It's one song to the tune of another that I 
look forward to.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>> I played for about 2 years, total. And that was 20 years ago...
>
> See, the impression you gave about this previously was that you had many
> years' experience playing.  2 years isn't enough to get a lot of
> expertise in playing an instrument.  You said you sucked at it.  You
> didn't say that you only played for 2 years when you were<  11 years old.
>
> That makes a difference.

I did say I wasn't much good in the first place. ;-)

As you presumably know, the characteristic sound of the violin comes 
from playing with vibrato - which is absurdly difficult. They don't 
teach you how to do that until you're already a really good player.

> If it were /easy/, then everyone could play like Itzhak Perlman.

Uh... who?

I did find some page on the Internet which shows you how to hold the 
violin itself and the bow. And then it says "already, bring on the 
Paganini!" As if anybody is going to be able to play Paganini after 
reading a few web pages...

>> Basically,
>> it's /sensitive/. That means that in experienced hands, you can do all
>> this really expressive playing, which is what the violin is famous for
>> of course. But because it's /sensitive/, it also means that in
>> inexperienced hands, every slightly glitch is magnified drastically, and
>> it sounds plain AWFUL!>_<
>
> You expect to get instant expertise.  It takes years (more than *2*) to
> get to that level of playing.

What I'm saying is, you can pick up a guitar and make a half-decent 
sound with it in about ten minutes. Because a guitar is not a 
particularly sensitive instrument. A violin is much, much harder. 
Because it's very, very sensitive. That means you can do much more with 
it, but also that it takes far more effort.

Having just said all that, I haven't played a violin for 20 years. I 
wasn't that good in the first place. But I have now reached the point 
where, provided I stick to the key of D major, I can play simple 
melodies which sound more or less in tune, with a tone that isn't 
horrifyingly awful. When you consider how long it took to get that good 
the /first/ time around, that's not bad...

>> So far, I basically haven't used the E-string at all. The pressure of
>> the bow on the string seems to be enough to put it out of tune. And as
>> soon as I put a finger on it, it becomes almost completely mute.
>
> That tells me that the pegs are definitely not right for the peg holes,
> and you should get someone to take a look at it.

It strikes me that this violin was probably on sale in a charity shop 
/for a reason/. ;-)

I'm hoping to pay a visit to the local music shop tomorrow. (Like all 
shops, they deliberately open an hour after I leave for work, and shut 
an hour before I get home again.) I'll get them to take a look at it and 
see what they say. I might also be able to pick up a new violin and see 
if there's any noticeable difference in sound quality.

>> Also, I have bruised fingertips now. :-/
>
> Yep, that'll happen until you get callouses on your fingertips.  That's
> part of the reason I haven't played in several years - I don't have those
> callouses, but I have the dexterity, and it does hurt to play.  Feels
> like I'm cutting into my fingertips with a dull knife.

Even when I was being taught by professionals, I always hated the 
E-string. That thing is /basically/ a piece of cheese wire. That's what 
it is, you're pressing a cheese wire into your fingertips. Ouch! >_<

I'm really excited to have a violin in my life again. But everybody else 
I've told about it has said "urgh, I *hate* violin!" Ho hum. Forever 
unappreciated, eh? It would be nice to be able to play well, but 
realistically I doubt I have the time or money to make that a reality. 
So I'm just going to see how far I can get with it. We'll see what 
happens after that.

PS. Ever tried playing flute? That's pretty hard too. When I was first 
given one, it took the entire household about a month to collectively 
figure out how to get a single note out of it... ;-)

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On 18/05/2012 11:27 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> PS. Ever tried playing flute? That's pretty hard too. When I was first
> given one, it took the entire household about a month to collectively
> figure out how to get a single note out of it... ;-)

I can get a tune out of a tin whistle. Is that close? ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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