On 22/05/2012 09:22 AM, scott wrote:
>> More like, failure is something I /expect/, as a matter of course.
>> Success isn't something I see very often...
>
> To be successful you need to put in the practise, I learned this a long
> time ago. I thought I would just pick up a guitar, learn the mechanics
> of how to play it and then be able to play songs. Nope, it doesn't work
> like that. The people you see able to play songs on instruments have
> practised for a long time, there's no way around it.
>
> Think how much time you've spent on Haskell, I'm sure if you'd spent
> that time on the violin instead you'd be pretty expert by now.

Well, I've been playing keyboards since I was 9 years old. I mean, I'm 
OK, but I'm still not fantastic at it...

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> Well, I've been playing keyboards since I was 9 years old. I mean, I'm
> OK, but I'm still not fantastic at it...

I've also been walking for 30 years, but I'd never win an olympic 
walking event.  To become fantastic at something you need to practise 
properly.  This means always pushing yourself to the next level as hard 
as you can and not just endlessly repeating what you are already good 
at.  This is why you have a teacher or a coach to help you.  And also 
why I suck at guitar and keyboard - I spend ages learning one song and 
then just play that endlessly, much to the annoyance of everybody else :-)

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On 22/05/2012 10:44 AM, scott wrote:
>> Well, I've been playing keyboards since I was 9 years old. I mean, I'm
>> OK, but I'm still not fantastic at it...
>
> I've also been walking for 30 years, but I'd never win an olympic
> walking event.

Unrelated, but I saw a record-breaking moonwalk attempt. The... thing 
that won it was dressed exactly like Michael Jackson, and kept 
repeatedly grabbing itself and singing "we-heeeee!" in a bizarre 
high-pitched voice. And when they awarded it the new world record 
certificate, it wept and said "I did it for Michael".

True fact: Some people are really messed up.

> To become fantastic at something you need to practise
> properly. This means always pushing yourself to the next level as hard
> as you can and not just endlessly repeating what you are already good
> at. This is why you have a teacher or a coach to help you. And also why
> I suck at guitar and keyboard - I spend ages learning one song and then
> just play that endlessly, much to the annoyance of everybody else :-)

I'm not sure it /gets/ much more "next level" than Bach. ;-) But sure, I 
take your point.

Come to think of it, I'm trying to think of a talent I could even 
hypothetically possess which would actually impress anybody. It seems 
people are just hard to impress. "Oh, you can play violin? Sure, so can 
every orchestra I've ever seen. Big deal." "Oh, so you can dance? Big 
deal, Harry Judd learned how to do every dance there is in just 12 
weeks." "You can do maths? Yeah, so can every college teacher in the 
country." It's actually surprisingly difficult to come up with things 
that would impress the average person on the street...

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> Come to think of it, I'm trying to think of a talent I could even
> hypothetically possess which would actually impress anybody. It seems
> people are just hard to impress. "Oh, you can play violin? Sure, so can
> every orchestra I've ever seen. Big deal." "Oh, so you can dance? Big
> deal, Harry Judd learned how to do every dance there is in just 12
> weeks." "You can do maths? Yeah, so can every college teacher in the
> country." It's actually surprisingly difficult to come up with things
> that would impress the average person on the street...

People will be impressed if you state your level of expertise or actual 
achievements.  Not just I play violin, but I play in xxx orchestra or 
have played in xxx concert hall.  Not just I race karts at weekends, but 
I finished 3rd in the under 18 national championship.  Not just I write 
code, but I wrote code for a game/app that sold x million copies.

If you haven't got any achievements like that, then practise some more 
and push yourself to get some! (assuming you want to impress people)

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On 21/05/2012 08:45 PM, Warp wrote:
>    All this talk about violins makes be think of this:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgBejh5TLA

OK, so I'm never playing that. If nothing else, because it sounds awful...

(Having said that, I do often find the bow bouncing like that when I 
don't actually want it to.)

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 21/05/2012 08:45 PM, Warp wrote:
> >    All this talk about violins makes be think of this:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgBejh5TLA

> OK, so I'm never playing that. If nothing else, because it sounds awful...

> (Having said that, I do often find the bow bouncing like that when I 
> don't actually want it to.)

  AFAIK that's the way it's written in the original score by Paganini.
It's too difficult to play for most violinists, which is why they don't.
Only a few people in the world can play it like Paganini did.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 22/05/2012 09:10 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> On 21/05/2012 08:45 PM, Warp wrote:
>>>     All this talk about violins makes be think of this:
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgBejh5TLA
>
>> OK, so I'm never playing that. If nothing else, because it sounds awful...
>
>> (Having said that, I do often find the bow bouncing like that when I
>> don't actually want it to.)
>
>    AFAIK that's the way it's written in the original score by Paganini.
> It's too difficult to play for most violinists, which is why they don't.
> Only a few people in the world can play it like Paganini did.

Yeah, the comments on the video said as much. And that /does/ sound like 
something Paganini would do...

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On Tue, 22 May 2012 16:10:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   AFAIK that's the way it's written in the original score by Paganini.
> It's too difficult to play for most violinists, which is why they don't.
> Only a few people in the world can play it like Paganini did.

Yep, ricochet bowing on that scale is incredibly difficult and not many 
people can sustain it like that.

As noted in the comments, it's more typical (but not correct with regards 
to how Paganini wrote it) to do this as a spiccato style instead.

Paganini was a sadist who must've had some horrible wrong done to him by 
a violinist once. ;)

Jim

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Wow, WTF?! o_O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY8h6FnjeuY

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On 03/06/2012 10:08 AM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Wow, WTF?! o_O

No, I take that back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4mX6C_qlDc

What bothers me is not so much the extreme dexterity, but the fact that 
class doesn't actually sound like that...

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