I was thinking the other day: what can you do with your instrument apart from playing it? For instance, I know that if you really loosen a fiddle bow and rub it against the back of someone else's fiddle, with practice, it can really look and sound like you are eating their fiddle(!).
Any other suggestions?
At our sessions, the stomping of feet can often cause pints to edge their way off the table and smash on the floor. I find my fiddle bow makes a very handy slide-the-beer-back-to-the-safety-zone utensil during tunes I don't know. Plus I don't have to move from my comfortably slouched and inebriated posture or shove various flutes / guitar headstocks / pipe drones out of the way to get to the endangered beverage.
If I tried juggling instruments, I'd soon be a non-instrumentalist. Joe, are you really a Cascading Style Sheet? I've used my fiddle as, gosh, I hate to admit this, a paperweight, a windowstop (okay, it was actually the chinrest I used), and once as a demonstration aid for an impromptu sex education class.
LOL -- now that I think of it, it sounds a pretty good idea. Imagine, you could make universal changes to yourself, all by just changing one line of code...
Used my D whistle as a cue stick on a cherry tomatoe that fell off the snack tray. No pocket to aim for, but it did a very nice ricochet off a candlestick back towards the rest of the munchies. Probably coulda used a little more english.
I also try not to juggle my instruments....I tend to light my juggling stuff on fire...not cause I hate my juggling stuff mind you...it's prettier that way, I'm an adrenline junkie, and it's made to be lit on fire. So very unlike my musical instrumets.
I was arrested once for attempted murder with my piano. It's a true story... I swear.
I was living in an apartment when I was attending college and I would practice during the day on occasion. One day as I was working on Beethoven’s "Emperor Concerto," there was an ambulance that pulled up to the building next door with all the lights and sirens blasting. I looked out the window and saw them load someone in and drive away. A little while later two police officers showed up at my door and said they had to take me in for attempted murder. I went to the station with them and met the police chief there who explained to me that the fella next door claimed I had intentionally upset him with my piano playing to cause him to forget to take his nitro pills and have a heart attack -- and die. After we all had a good laugh about it, the chief then advised me to file a harassment complaint against the fella and that would probably take care of it -- and it did. But more important than all of that was the relief I had to find out that I wasn't being arrested for murdering Beethoven's music.
I prefer the whistle to the flute as a back scratcher. Do this at a session and it's a great way to make sure no one wants to ever borrow your instrument.
For new and unusual tunes, try putting the mouthpiece of your whistle on the other end and play as normal (?)
Geoffmca - you're right, instruments can have the side effect of ending partnerships. But sometimes that's a good thing!
Well, over the years I've got more and more in the habit of using one or the other of my 2 accordions as a place to put my feet up. Often up on one while I play the other. New pupils seem to need some time to get used to this - don't know why...
You can use your bow to play some kind of baseball (or cricket) with fries instead of the ball. Just make sure the fries are smothered in ketchup, otherwise they might just stick to the bow hair.
Well, let's just say that you need a lot of hand-eye-bow coordination in order to eat fries in a brief session break while you still have your bow in one hand and the fiddle in the other!
If you have long, skinny fingers, a whistle makes quite an effective guitar slide. If you have short, stubby fingers, it makes an awkward but serviceable one. A D-whistle is great for keeping an F-whistle in. Also, a bodhran can serve as a container for all your bodhran sticks. In fact, if you put a low D-whistle through the middle of a bodhran, you can use it as an umbrella.
A friend of mine has an Ovation-style fibreglass-backed guitar, which he takes to picnics and uses as a cricket bat.
you can sell them and use the money to buy food or pay rent or whatever, then sit on your duff staring into space. Imagine all the freetime you'd have!
Well you could play them for money I think that would be a better thing to do than to lose my beloved instruments, yeah all 800 of them some times it seems like I have that many I really don't, I used my low whistle in a blugrass session once you are probably wondering what I did with it at a b;uegrass session but you should be wondering what I was doing at a Bluegrass session lets just say I was misadvused, I'll give you a clue I have limbs and a *stick* I used it as a metronome.
In travelling, if you take off the strings of a guitar, it serves as a good containter for clothes, sandwiches and the like. The problem is with liquids - if you don't come up with a suitable cap for the soundhole, they tend to spill out, especially in case of rapid braking.
My mate played a game of pool using his clarinet as the cue during a session in Cornwall involving a jazz band down to do a gig in the hotel the next night and the local folk musicians. It was a totally bizarre evening!
All this talk of murder - my fiddler uses a low whistle to make "Psycho" stabbing-in-shower noises to amuse the audience. (When he is not making whale noises, hanging curtains or holding up scaffolding with it).
I collect old un-playable antique instruments that make really great decorations in my basement pub (a glorified rec room with an Irish Music theme). I also bought some lovely Walton Bodhrans that look great on the walls.
I have an old silver flute that was given to me 10 years ago. I never really figured out how to play the thing properly. I thought about making it into a nice lamp. (saw one once and it was very cool).
bravo to the guy who sits on his drum and finds it as comfy as a hammock! now i will scroll back an see who said that! haha!
by the way i am feling angry and cynical right now. I hate computrs. I must forget trying to *Seriously Respond* to a discussion because I just now spent a half hour responding seriously to a May 3 discussion and was just about to press "post " when wowie zowie the F@#$%^&*computer swallowed my entire cyberetic thought-provoked emotion in one gulp, and this i s why i dont really trust this medium except for as a bit of a laugh)
see>this whole silly post got posted, but did my good stuff make it? no......
so am I to trust to serendipidy, that it was all useless twitter?
Hi vboyd100, that happened to me a few times on other sites with a similar java script for posting messages. What I do now is to write my response in Microsoft Word (for Mac) and when I'm done; I copy & paste it into the window on the site. If something goes wrong -- I still have the Word doc. Easy peasy!
Other things you can do with your instrument
Other things you can do with your instrument
I was thinking the other day: what can you do with your instrument apart from playing it? For instance, I know that if you really loosen a fiddle bow and rub it against the back of someone else's fiddle, with practice, it can really look and sound like you are eating their fiddle(!).
Any other suggestions?
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Joe CSS
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
At our sessions, the stomping of feet can often cause pints to edge their way off the table and smash on the floor. I find my fiddle bow makes a very handy slide-the-beer-back-to-the-safety-zone utensil during tunes I don't know. Plus I don't have to move from my comfortably slouched and inebriated posture or shove various flutes / guitar headstocks / pipe drones out of the way to get to the endangered beverage.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I heard of a man who killed his wife with a banjo. I believe he hit her with it and that her death wasn't just the result of his playing.
Steve
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by SteveKendall
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Juggling. But you have to be a multi-instrumentalist.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I used my flute to take measurements for a little girl's renaissance costume (I was at a picnic and it was the only thing I had)....it fit perfectly.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by autumn
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
If I tried juggling instruments, I'd soon be a non-instrumentalist. Joe, are you really a Cascading Style Sheet? I've used my fiddle as, gosh, I hate to admit this, a paperweight, a windowstop (okay, it was actually the chinrest I used), and once as a demonstration aid for an impromptu sex education class.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
*boggle*
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Zina, Cascading Style Sheet? Girlie, you're killing me!!!!! LOL LOL LMAO!!!!!
Jim HTML
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
LOL -- now that I think of it, it sounds a pretty good idea. Imagine, you could make universal changes to yourself, all by just changing one line of code...
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Used my D whistle as a cue stick on a cherry tomatoe that fell off the snack tray. No pocket to aim for, but it did a very nice ricochet off a candlestick back towards the rest of the munchies. Probably coulda used a little more english.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by ketida
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I also try not to juggle my instruments....I tend to light my juggling stuff on fire...not cause I hate my juggling stuff mind you...it's prettier that way, I'm an adrenline junkie, and it's made to be lit on fire. So very unlike my musical instrumets.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by autumn
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Not "quite" on topic, but my bouzouki and fiddle cases make excellent resting places for my cats.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by celtman1
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
i think I may (inadvertently) be using my new fiddle to end a marriage!
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by geoffmc
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I used a whistle to make soap bubbles.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by gian marco
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
When i was a student, I used a recorder to smoke a joint at school with some friends ( one hole for each ).
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by gian marco
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I was arrested once for attempted murder with my piano. It's a true story... I swear.
I was living in an apartment when I was attending college and I would practice during the day on occasion. One day as I was working on Beethoven’s "Emperor Concerto," there was an ambulance that pulled up to the building next door with all the lights and sirens blasting. I looked out the window and saw them load someone in and drive away. A little while later two police officers showed up at my door and said they had to take me in for attempted murder. I went to the station with them and met the police chief there who explained to me that the fella next door claimed I had intentionally upset him with my piano playing to cause him to forget to take his nitro pills and have a heart attack -- and die. After we all had a good laugh about it, the chief then advised me to file a harassment complaint against the fella and that would probably take care of it -- and it did. But more important than all of that was the relief I had to find out that I wasn't being arrested for murdering Beethoven's music.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I find the flute makes a great back scratcher.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by MollyB
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Zina - please keep the discussion relevant to the music. Please refrain from using the word "sex". This is not a "sex" site.
Jeremy
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
_That_ explains the "raincoat" on Zin'as scroll!
:-|
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Oh, hell, Jim, personally I think "CSS" is a much dirtier word than "sex"... *smirk*
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I prefer the whistle to the flute as a back scratcher. Do this at a session and it's a great way to make sure no one wants to ever borrow your instrument.
For new and unusual tunes, try putting the mouthpiece of your whistle on the other end and play as normal (?)
Geoffmca - you're right, instruments can have the side effect of ending partnerships. But sometimes that's a good thing!
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by keyedup
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Well, over the years I've got more and more in the habit of using one or the other of my 2 accordions as a place to put my feet up. Often up on one while I play the other. New pupils seem to need some time to get used to this - don't know why...
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by kris
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
The luggage guys once used my guitar (in the case of course) to practice their caber tossing.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
You can use your bow to play some kind of baseball (or cricket) with fries instead of the ball. Just make sure the fries are smothered in ketchup, otherwise they might just stick to the bow hair.
Well, let's just say that you need a lot of hand-eye-bow coordination in order to eat fries in a brief session break while you still have your bow in one hand and the fiddle in the other!
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by heike
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
If you have long, skinny fingers, a whistle makes quite an effective guitar slide. If you have short, stubby fingers, it makes an awkward but serviceable one. A D-whistle is great for keeping an F-whistle in. Also, a bodhran can serve as a container for all your bodhran sticks. In fact, if you put a low D-whistle through the middle of a bodhran, you can use it as an umbrella.
A friend of mine has an Ovation-style fibreglass-backed guitar, which he takes to picnics and uses as a cricket bat.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
you can sell them and use the money to buy food or pay rent or whatever, then sit on your duff staring into space. Imagine all the freetime you'd have!
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by vboyd100
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Well you could play them for money I think that would be a better thing to do than to lose my beloved instruments, yeah all 800 of them some times it seems like I have that many I really don't, I used my low whistle in a blugrass session once you are probably wondering what I did with it at a b;uegrass session but you should be wondering what I was doing at a Bluegrass session lets just say I was misadvused, I'll give you a clue I have limbs and a *stick* I used it as a metronome.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Why Bother?
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
In travelling, if you take off the strings of a guitar, it serves as a good containter for clothes, sandwiches and the like. The problem is with liquids - if you don't come up with a suitable cap for the soundhole, they tend to spill out, especially in case of rapid braking.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Janek
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
...Imagine having to shake your guitar vigorously for half an hour, just to get a clean pair of undies.
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
My mate played a game of pool using his clarinet as the cue during a session in Cornwall involving a jazz band down to do a gig in the hotel the next night and the local folk musicians. It was a totally bizarre evening!
# Posted on April 30th 2004 by Tarrantella
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
....or the back of an old beat-up horribly-toned fiddle as a hand-bodhran.
Jim
# Posted on May 1st 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Once I actually used my bodhràn as a percussion instrument for accompanying musos at a session.
Boggle,
Joe
# Posted on May 1st 2004 by Joe Quinn
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Hey cool! I didn't know you could do that!
So now I know why people bring those things to sessions......
# Posted on May 1st 2004 by Joe CSS
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I like sitting on bodhrans at sessions -- it's like a wee hammock for your bum.
# Posted on May 1st 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
It's been suggested by more than a few people that my hammered dulcimer might make great kindling. . . .
# Posted on May 1st 2004 by jrathbun
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Hammered dulcimers are great for slicing chips.
All this talk of murder - my fiddler uses a low whistle to make "Psycho" stabbing-in-shower noises to amuse the audience. (When he is not making whale noises, hanging curtains or holding up scaffolding with it).
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by geoffwright
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I also had a double-bass player who used it as a vacuum cleaner.
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by geoffwright
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I collect old un-playable antique instruments that make really great decorations in my basement pub (a glorified rec room with an Irish Music theme). I also bought some lovely Walton Bodhrans that look great on the walls.
I have an old silver flute that was given to me 10 years ago. I never really figured out how to play the thing properly. I thought about making it into a nice lamp. (saw one once and it was very cool).
Joyce
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by JMH
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
Especially if it's somebody else's bodhran, Jack.
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I think everyone should bring along their own bodhran to sit on.
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
chuckle. So that's what they're for! You wouldn't believe what they do with them up here!
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
bravo to the guy who sits on his drum and finds it as comfy as a hammock! now i will scroll back an see who said that! haha!
by the way i am feling angry and cynical right now. I hate computrs. I must forget trying to *Seriously Respond* to a discussion because I just now spent a half hour responding seriously to a May 3 discussion and was just about to press "post " when wowie zowie the F@#$%^&*computer swallowed my entire cyberetic thought-provoked emotion in one gulp, and this i s why i dont really trust this medium except for as a bit of a laugh)
see>this whole silly post got posted, but did my good stuff make it? no......
so am I to trust to serendipidy, that it was all useless twitter?
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by vboyd100
Confessions of a session.org poster
Hi vboyd100, that happened to me a few times on other sites with a similar java script for posting messages. What I do now is to write my response in Microsoft Word (for Mac) and when I'm done; I copy & paste it into the window on the site. If something goes wrong -- I still have the Word doc. Easy peasy!
# Posted on May 3rd 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Other things you can do with your instrument
I once knew someone who could make his 'cello sound lilke a flock of seagulls.
Don't ask me how, mind...
Joe
# Posted on May 6th 2004 by Joe CSS