since I began playing mandolins and other 2 course instruments, i have this fear of ripping my left hand nails off as i play. sometimes it feels like this is close to happening, with hammers and pullsoffs and fierce playing, but it has never happened, so i assume its an irrational fear, which often crosses my mind as i play.
are there other looneys out there, on any instrument, that have similar weird daydreams/nightmares...?
Usual nightmare is worrying that I bring the harp but forget the tuning key (and that did happen to me once). Never done it the other way round though...
I had a nightmare that I went to a fiddle workshop but I was the only one with fiddle - everyone else had dobro fiddles. They were all remarking on how quaint my old-fashioned one was. Then the leader of the workshop asked for a bow to borrow, so I gave him mine. He proceeding to separate the stick into two halves, and then handed me back the short side. Then everyone started learning a tune, only I couldn't, because I had only part of a bow. How about dobro fiddles though - are they appropriate for sessions?
For years, I have had the usual stress dreams... Like dreaming that I'm back in college, headed into a final exam, but I haven't been to class all semester. And since I worked as a nightclub DJ for 18 years, and a radio DJ for almost 6, I often have dreams that I get invited back into the business, but when I get there, I can't find any of the music I'm supposed to play, and I end up with endless dead air.
And recently, for the first time, I had a similar dream about playing trad. I dreamt that I was leading a session, but I couldn't remember any tunes, and when I did try to play, my fingers were like sausages, and I couldn't really move them.
Oh, and I've had the occasional irrational fear about snapping strings too, davydd. But those happen when I'm awake
Rumpole ... At a particularly savage session a few years ago, playing a very highly tensioned F style mandolin, I managed to pull the flesh away from my nail on my second finger. That is to say, I didn't pull the nail clean off, but managed to create a 2mm gap running the full width of said fingernail. Blood began to seep, the pain was irritatingly painful ... now i know how the torture of driving splints into people's fingernails must feel. Somehow (Guinness?, Black Bush?, stupidity?, arrogance?, iron will?, adrenalin?) I managed to ignore it but it was about a week before the nail and flesh had knitted sufficiently for me to play again. Ouch!
i get very nervous about taking the reed out of the chanter- all kinds of weird, awful things can happen. A few days ago, at the session, I Very Nearly dropped my chanter reed into an unwisely positioned pint of Harp. I then Very Nearly perished of the heart attack...
cheers(?), pipewatcher
Aiden and Rumpole, when I started playing mandolin one of the first things I experienced was catching a nail. Nothing like Aiden's experience though. I've kept my nails on the left hand filed as far back as I can ever since.
My nightmare is my right hand. I keep longish nails as I play classical guitar as well. I've always worried about caching my thumbnail.
Back in the 8th grade, circa 1965, I was playing electric guitar in our rock band at an outdoor concert when the high E string snapped, cutting open my wrist, and I bled all over my guitar.
Years later, in the conservatory double bass section, my stand partner's G string broke, and as it snapped upward, hit him on the head. Both he and the double bass hit the floor with a dramatic crash.
I used to have this beat up Filipino pawn shop Gibson copy guitar. It was the classic punk rock guitar. The molding up the edge of the neck was busted up, It had no finish on it. I used to play a constant angry down stroke at a very fast pace and inevitably at almost every show would bleed from my finger thrashing on the low E string. Not only that but every time someone else would pick it up they'd cut themselves on the broken molding...or get splinters from the unfinished wood body...we nick named it the 'Hate Guitar' and it took on a life of its own.......
sorry......
......maybe not the story you wanted to hear....see I have this bodhran now, it's really cheap....I got it in a pawn shop......
Once, whilst playing the flute, my head fell off, and so did my arse.
In the panic to put them back on, I accidentally put my arse where my head should be and vice versa. Then both bits took. That's why I now largely talk sh!te.
Quite often I dream that my fiddle doesn't make a sound when I play it. As if someone had soaped or oiled the bow. Perpaps my subconscious is trying to tell me that this is what I deserve.
A lady concert pianist once got a nasty gash on her (bare) shoulder from a piano string that snapped during a concerto. Fortunately, it missed her ear and face.
The solution for fiddle players who are worried about being injured by a breaking string (and it can happen, 'tho rarely) is to go all gut.
I often fear that someone will be sitting too close while you're playing and the saliva from the bottom of my flute might land on their lap or something like that .... could you imagine ... yukk !!!!
Kuec, I actually had that happen quite recently, for real.
I've had one of my fiddles set up for some time with Eudoxa gut A, D and G and a gold Olive E. I changed the Eudoxa A for a Chorda plain gut A (which in my view gives a better tone than the Eudoxa). To my surprise I found that if I a slurred a fingered note (eg a D or C) from that A string onto the open E the E frequently would not respond - not a case of whistling or squeaking, just no sound at all. This never happened if I changed bow when going from the A string to the E, or if I slurred across the open strings. The silent E never occurred either with the Eudoxa A. I experimented with different bows and rosins, and that didn't cure it. Bow pressure wasn't an issue - I couldn't force the sound out by increasing bow pressure. Further, I found that if I continued bowing the silent E, after a few inches the sound would very suddenly (almost explosively) kick in, as if the string was releasing its stored energy.
I put the problem to a luthier on Bristol Violin Shop. He had an immediate answer: it's a known phenomenon called "ghosting", and happens with a steel E and a plain gut A. The only solution is either not to use a plain gut A or to use a gut E. I opted for the gut E - end of problem. The plain gut E settled in very quickly, is stable, and its playabilty and tonal projection over its whole range easily matches that of the steel E. I'd also say that its tonal quality is a far suited to the other gut strings than the steel E ever was.
Why does "ghosting" occur? I don't really know, but the physics of what is happening is evidently fairly deep (perhaps someone has researched it?). My tentative thinking on the matter is that it may be related to the widely different tensions of a bare gut A and a steel E. You need a different kind of bowing control when playing on plain gut in order to project the tone, and this doesn't match what is required when you slur over onto a steel E.
Are you playing mandolin fingerstyle? Why would that happen with a pick? Don't laugh, I saw Tony McManus at a session playing fingerstyle tenor banjo and it sounded great, so why not mandolin... I did try it and it can work.
On the strings, Please, with guitar strings anyway, when changing them, you tend to be looking at them....safer to close your eyes. I got a close call once when a high E snapped. When they are getting up there in tightness, close your eyes or point it away. I have heard of some who were not so lucky.
I do have a little fear of losing my right hand picking nails. many of the great fingerstyle performers carry nail repair kits on tour. They put fakes on, use crazy glue, file them.... pretty amusing watching the big guys do that, but I have watched in amazement.
I keep the right hand nails just "long enough" to catch the string, but not so long that they break often. When they do, I have never had them break so short that they don't work luckily. Should carry some fakes for "if ever". They are long enough for guitar, yet short enough for harp, where I can play primarily with the finger pads, though sometimes a nail hits.
Apparently some of the Paraguyan harpers have long right hand nails and short on the left. Maybe they play guitar too!
Very young children when they discover that blowing into a tin whistle makes a very loud noise, running around the house blowing as hard as they can at the highest pitch. Fairly nightmarish, especially when hungover. :*(
For a fingerstyle/classical guitar player, skragging a fingernail before a gig is always a big nightmare. Because of that, I’ve developed considerable skill with super glue.
Before I had to give up the mando, I used to do some fingerstyle piddling on it – even a little classical-Recuerdos style tremolo. It works fairly well (although quiet) but wears down the nails like crazy.
I'm going through one right now- I had sinus surgery on Nov. 4 and am not allowed to play flute, whistle, or any other wind or brass instrument until at least after I next see the doctor, on Dec. 5th. :(
My Low Whistle is all one piece of metal, which means that it MUST be warm or it is out of tune. Twice now, just before a live performance, it's cooled down and slipped badly out of tune.
Doesn't sound like much but it was quite nightmarish at the time.
Carry it around real close to your body before the performance so as to keep it up to temperature. I've seen woodwind players in orchestras do this during breaks in a rehearsal or concert.
GHS Infinity Bronze -- I hope they've got their act together. I bought a gross because my rhythm player had them and gave me a set. I thought they really brought out the high mids of my guitar.
The strings of the gross that I bought weren't so nice, and I had to return them. They snapped, first on my instrument, and then on his. Always near the ball-end of the string.
One night changing strings before we began our set, I took the G string to the face. Eye was okay, but from my chin to my forehead it left an attractive welt about 7 inches long, as if I had been whipped with a switch.
Paganini, a great violinist of the 19th century, used to file his violin strings down to the breaking point with a metal file. As he was playing he would draw his bow where he had filed the string and it would snap, hitting his cheek, and drawing blood. He would play on, repeating the process with two other strings, drawing more blood, and finishing with an extraordinary virtuosic flourish on the one remaining string! Is it no wonder he was thought to be possessed by the devil?
sometimes when I play the tin whistle while dancing like a drunken leprechaun I worry that i might fall and lodge the fipple clear up into my cranium. now *that* would really suck.
I once put an A on, thinking it was an E. It didn't snap, but
the bridge did, making an impressive sound like a firecracker.
Now I cringe whenever I'm putting on a new E string - post
traumatic stress disorder
Seabhac - when I played clarinet, I worked with 2 or 3 clarinets.
While you're playing one, the others are next to you on stands.
Occasionally pick up the other instruments and blow some air
through them to keep the temperature up. Just takes a moment
every few minutes. It seems like a pro would use instruments
with tuning slides though ....
There's a great story about a recording session several decades ago when a new work for a wind ensemble composed in a rather post-modern atonal style was being recorded for the first time. After several hours in the studio the final take was printed on tape and everyone packed up to go home. That was when the clarinettist realised he'd accidentally been using his B-flat clarinet instead of the A. No-one had noticed - not the player himself, the other players, the conductor (who was also the composer!), or the production team behind the glass.
The mistake was never spotted, and the LP was duly published. Our man didn't reveal the truth until many years later, when the composer was no longer around and the LP had been dropped from the catalogue.
instrument nightmares
instrument nightmares
since I began playing mandolins and other 2 course instruments, i have this fear of ripping my left hand nails off as i play. sometimes it feels like this is close to happening, with hammers and pullsoffs and fierce playing, but it has never happened, so i assume its an irrational fear, which often crosses my mind as i play.
are there other looneys out there, on any instrument, that have similar weird daydreams/nightmares...?
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by rumpole
Re: instrument nightmares
I sometimes imagine when tuning my fiddle (with the fine tuners) that the string will snap and hit me in the eye.
Just my mind playing tricks tho.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by davydd
Re: instrument nightmares
I sometimes worry people are giving me the evil eye when I walk into a pub carrying a banjo...
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: instrument nightmares
Usual nightmare is worrying that I bring the harp but forget the tuning key (and that did happen to me once). Never done it the other way round though...
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: instrument nightmares
I had a nightmare that I went to a fiddle workshop but I was the only one with fiddle - everyone else had dobro fiddles. They were all remarking on how quaint my old-fashioned one was. Then the leader of the workshop asked for a bow to borrow, so I gave him mine. He proceeding to separate the stick into two halves, and then handed me back the short side. Then everyone started learning a tune, only I couldn't, because I had only part of a bow. How about dobro fiddles though - are they appropriate for sessions?
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by airport
Re: instrument nightmares
I actually had my first trad nightmare recently.
For years, I have had the usual stress dreams... Like dreaming that I'm back in college, headed into a final exam, but I haven't been to class all semester. And since I worked as a nightclub DJ for 18 years, and a radio DJ for almost 6, I often have dreams that I get invited back into the business, but when I get there, I can't find any of the music I'm supposed to play, and I end up with endless dead air.
And recently, for the first time, I had a similar dream about playing trad. I dreamt that I was leading a session, but I couldn't remember any tunes, and when I did try to play, my fingers were like sausages, and I couldn't really move them.
Oh, and I've had the occasional irrational fear about snapping strings too, davydd. But those happen when I'm awake
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Reverend
Re: instrument nightmares
You don't think that could be reality?!
(Happens to me too!)
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Rob
Re: instrument nightmares
Rumpole ... At a particularly savage session a few years ago, playing a very highly tensioned F style mandolin, I managed to pull the flesh away from my nail on my second finger. That is to say, I didn't pull the nail clean off, but managed to create a 2mm gap running the full width of said fingernail. Blood began to seep, the pain was irritatingly painful ... now i know how the torture of driving splints into people's fingernails must feel. Somehow (Guinness?, Black Bush?, stupidity?, arrogance?, iron will?, adrenalin?) I managed to ignore it but it was about a week before the nail and flesh had knitted sufficiently for me to play again. Ouch!
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Aidan Crossey
Re: instrument nightmares
i get very nervous about taking the reed out of the chanter- all kinds of weird, awful things can happen. A few days ago, at the session, I Very Nearly dropped my chanter reed into an unwisely positioned pint of Harp. I then Very Nearly perished of the heart attack...
cheers(?), pipewatcher
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: instrument nightmares
Aiden and Rumpole, when I started playing mandolin one of the first things I experienced was catching a nail. Nothing like Aiden's experience though. I've kept my nails on the left hand filed as far back as I can ever since.
My nightmare is my right hand. I keep longish nails as I play classical guitar as well. I've always worried about caching my thumbnail.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by dlkes
Re: instrument nightmares
Back in the 8th grade, circa 1965, I was playing electric guitar in our rock band at an outdoor concert when the high E string snapped, cutting open my wrist, and I bled all over my guitar.
Years later, in the conservatory double bass section, my stand partner's G string broke, and as it snapped upward, hit him on the head. Both he and the double bass hit the floor with a dramatic crash.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: instrument nightmares
I used to have this beat up Filipino pawn shop Gibson copy guitar. It was the classic punk rock guitar. The molding up the edge of the neck was busted up, It had no finish on it. I used to play a constant angry down stroke at a very fast pace and inevitably at almost every show would bleed from my finger thrashing on the low E string. Not only that but every time someone else would pick it up they'd cut themselves on the broken molding...or get splinters from the unfinished wood body...we nick named it the 'Hate Guitar' and it took on a life of its own.......
sorry......
......maybe not the story you wanted to hear....see I have this bodhran now, it's really cheap....I got it in a pawn shop......
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by shanty
Re: instrument nightmares
Once, whilst playing the flute, my head fell off, and so did my arse.
In the panic to put them back on, I accidentally put my arse where my head should be and vice versa. Then both bits took. That's why I now largely talk sh!te.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Nick Splease
Re: instrument nightmares
Quite often I dream that my fiddle doesn't make a sound when I play it. As if someone had soaped or oiled the bow. Perpaps my subconscious is trying to tell me that this is what I deserve.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by kuec
Re: instrument nightmares
A lady concert pianist once got a nasty gash on her (bare) shoulder from a piano string that snapped during a concerto. Fortunately, it missed her ear and face.
The solution for fiddle players who are worried about being injured by a breaking string (and it can happen, 'tho rarely) is to go all gut.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: instrument nightmares
I often fear that someone will be sitting too close while you're playing and the saliva from the bottom of my flute might land on their lap or something like that .... could you imagine ... yukk !!!!
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by She moved through the fair
Re: instrument nightmares
Kuec, I actually had that happen quite recently, for real.
I've had one of my fiddles set up for some time with Eudoxa gut A, D and G and a gold Olive E. I changed the Eudoxa A for a Chorda plain gut A (which in my view gives a better tone than the Eudoxa). To my surprise I found that if I a slurred a fingered note (eg a D or C) from that A string onto the open E the E frequently would not respond - not a case of whistling or squeaking, just no sound at all. This never happened if I changed bow when going from the A string to the E, or if I slurred across the open strings. The silent E never occurred either with the Eudoxa A. I experimented with different bows and rosins, and that didn't cure it. Bow pressure wasn't an issue - I couldn't force the sound out by increasing bow pressure. Further, I found that if I continued bowing the silent E, after a few inches the sound would very suddenly (almost explosively) kick in, as if the string was releasing its stored energy.
I put the problem to a luthier on Bristol Violin Shop. He had an immediate answer: it's a known phenomenon called "ghosting", and happens with a steel E and a plain gut A. The only solution is either not to use a plain gut A or to use a gut E. I opted for the gut E - end of problem. The plain gut E settled in very quickly, is stable, and its playabilty and tonal projection over its whole range easily matches that of the steel E. I'd also say that its tonal quality is a far suited to the other gut strings than the steel E ever was.
Why does "ghosting" occur? I don't really know, but the physics of what is happening is evidently fairly deep (perhaps someone has researched it?). My tentative thinking on the matter is that it may be related to the widely different tensions of a bare gut A and a steel E. You need a different kind of bowing control when playing on plain gut in order to project the tone, and this doesn't match what is required when you slur over onto a steel E.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: instrument nightmares
I get this entirely rational fear that some p*ssed fiddle player will have my eye out with his bow.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: instrument nightmares
Dr. Jung, please report to the subconscious mustard courtesy phone...
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: instrument nightmares
How to avoid instrument nightmares?
Easy! Only play at lunchtime sessions ...
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: instrument nightmares
Are you playing mandolin fingerstyle? Why would that happen with a pick? Don't laugh, I saw Tony McManus at a session playing fingerstyle tenor banjo and it sounded great, so why not mandolin... I did try it and it can work.
On the strings, Please, with guitar strings anyway, when changing them, you tend to be looking at them....safer to close your eyes. I got a close call once when a high E snapped. When they are getting up there in tightness, close your eyes or point it away. I have heard of some who were not so lucky.
I do have a little fear of losing my right hand picking nails. many of the great fingerstyle performers carry nail repair kits on tour. They put fakes on, use crazy glue, file them.... pretty amusing watching the big guys do that, but I have watched in amazement.
I keep the right hand nails just "long enough" to catch the string, but not so long that they break often. When they do, I have never had them break so short that they don't work luckily. Should carry some fakes for "if ever". They are long enough for guitar, yet short enough for harp, where I can play primarily with the finger pads, though sometimes a nail hits.
Apparently some of the Paraguyan harpers have long right hand nails and short on the left. Maybe they play guitar too!
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by irisnevins
Re: instrument nightmares
Very young children when they discover that blowing into a tin whistle makes a very loud noise, running around the house blowing as hard as they can at the highest pitch. Fairly nightmarish, especially when hungover. :*(
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by dee.
Re: instrument nightmares
I get problems with my right hand on the banjo sometimes- strum a chord too hard and catch it a bit too low and I scratch the backs of my fingers
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by jlocky
Re: instrument nightmares
Very interesting, Trevor. Actually this has occured to me and I put it down to my bowing. So I should possibly change my A string.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by kuec
Re: instrument nightmares
For a fingerstyle/classical guitar player, skragging a fingernail before a gig is always a big nightmare. Because of that, I’ve developed considerable skill with super glue.
Before I had to give up the mando, I used to do some fingerstyle piddling on it – even a little classical-Recuerdos style tremolo. It works fairly well (although quiet) but wears down the nails like crazy.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: instrument nightmares
I'm going through one right now- I had sinus surgery on Nov. 4 and am not allowed to play flute, whistle, or any other wind or brass instrument until at least after I next see the doctor, on Dec. 5th. :(
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: instrument nightmares
Greg, sorry to hear that.
I just went through a month of a sinus infection--couldn't breathe enough to play flute--and that was bad enough. Speedy recovery to you.
# Posted on November 13th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: instrument nightmares
My Low Whistle is all one piece of metal, which means that it MUST be warm or it is out of tune. Twice now, just before a live performance, it's cooled down and slipped badly out of tune.
Doesn't sound like much but it was quite nightmarish at the time.
# Posted on November 14th 2008 by Seabhac
Re: instrument nightmares
Carry it around real close to your body before the performance so as to keep it up to temperature. I've seen woodwind players in orchestras do this during breaks in a rehearsal or concert.
# Posted on November 14th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: instrument nightmares
GHS Infinity Bronze -- I hope they've got their act together. I bought a gross because my rhythm player had them and gave me a set. I thought they really brought out the high mids of my guitar.
The strings of the gross that I bought weren't so nice, and I had to return them. They snapped, first on my instrument, and then on his. Always near the ball-end of the string.
One night changing strings before we began our set, I took the G string to the face. Eye was okay, but from my chin to my forehead it left an attractive welt about 7 inches long, as if I had been whipped with a switch.
I met my fiancee that night.
# Posted on November 14th 2008 by gravelwalks
Re: instrument nightmares
Good god.... that's not doing anything to assuage my fear of snapping my eye out with a breaking fiddle string!
# Posted on November 14th 2008 by Pádraig
Re: instrument nightmares
Paganini, a great violinist of the 19th century, used to file his violin strings down to the breaking point with a metal file. As he was playing he would draw his bow where he had filed the string and it would snap, hitting his cheek, and drawing blood. He would play on, repeating the process with two other strings, drawing more blood, and finishing with an extraordinary virtuosic flourish on the one remaining string! Is it no wonder he was thought to be possessed by the devil?
By the way, I wouldn't try this at home.
# Posted on November 14th 2008 by croi
Re: instrument nightmares
croi, I believe the reason Paganini was accused of being in league with the devil was that he also played and wrote for guitar.
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: instrument nightmares
I sometimes sit close on the left side of a blind fiddler, but we have an understanding. So, far, it's working.
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: instrument nightmares
So true, oldstrings!
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by croi
Re: instrument nightmares
sometimes when I play the tin whistle while dancing like a drunken leprechaun I worry that i might fall and lodge the fipple clear up into my cranium. now *that* would really suck.
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by Brendan
Re: instrument nightmares
It'd help you suck up a beer sure.
Wet yer whistle so to speak.
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: instrument nightmares
I once put an A on, thinking it was an E. It didn't snap, but
the bridge did, making an impressive sound like a firecracker.
Now I cringe whenever I'm putting on a new E string - post
traumatic stress disorder
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by Hup
Re: instrument nightmares
Seabhac - when I played clarinet, I worked with 2 or 3 clarinets.
While you're playing one, the others are next to you on stands.
Occasionally pick up the other instruments and blow some air
through them to keep the temperature up. Just takes a moment
every few minutes. It seems like a pro would use instruments
with tuning slides though ....
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by Hup
Re: instrument nightmares
There's a great story about a recording session several decades ago when a new work for a wind ensemble composed in a rather post-modern atonal style was being recorded for the first time. After several hours in the studio the final take was printed on tape and everyone packed up to go home. That was when the clarinettist realised he'd accidentally been using his B-flat clarinet instead of the A. No-one had noticed - not the player himself, the other players, the conductor (who was also the composer!), or the production team behind the glass.
The mistake was never spotted, and the LP was duly published. Our man didn't reveal the truth until many years later, when the composer was no longer around and the LP had been dropped from the catalogue.
# Posted on November 15th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: instrument nightmares
LOL!! I believe it too
# Posted on November 16th 2008 by Hup