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Sospiri

Member
  • Posts

    164
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  • Last visited

About Sospiri

  • Birthday 01/17/1937

Converted

  • homepage
    http://www.msheppard.com
  • occupation
    Retired
  • hobbies
    Computers, music, photography
  • Location
    Crete, Greece
  1. I was always told that empty vessels make the most noise!
  2. Paul, Elmer has hit the nail on the head. Get your fingering correct until it becomes second nature. If you get into bad fingering habits you will really struggle to play many runs and phrases. Once you have got into the habit of bad fingering, you will find it very difficult to get out of it. It's the same with typing on say a QWERTY keyboard. Using two or three fingers, you will get up to a certain speed and no further. Maybe typing is not a strict analogy, because it will only mean that you will type much more slowly. When performing on a musical keyboard, a speed and accuracy block puts you at one helluva disadvantage.
  3. i do a lot of genealogical research for people scattered around the globe, and also UK-based military research. I also belong to a local history forum for the city where I was born and occasionally do more research for my adopted home town. It really is a case of keeping your brain active. But get in a little physical exercise as well otherwise other medical problems result from sitting for too long. At 84 I can no longer perform due to Dupuytrens Syndrome and arthritis, but I keep an active interest in jazz and classical music by listening.
  4. If you've ever done military service then you will know that you can't beat marching to a pipe band. If you've ever listened to British drummer Tony Oxley, (and even Bill Evans offered him the drumseat but he felt he didn't want to be on the road for 10 months), you will have heard an ex-pipe band drummer. Excellent. Opera is just the classical music version of a musical, such as Oklahoma, but if you don't like either, don't worry about it - plenty do like it. Yoko Ono - pass, I've never listened to her, should I have done?
  5. Real avant garde (free) can be really enjoyable and a challenge from the players' point of view, especially when you're working with at least one outstanding player. But for a listening audience not so much because they are not really so much part of the process. From the listener's point of view it requires a lot of concentration to get much out it.
  6. The subject raised by the OP doesn't need a thread. To even attempt to discuss it in depth requires a whole damned forum! Everyone goes through an enormous number of mental moods, continually, and there are times when most musicians will want to listen to the different types of music that they have encountered in their lives so far. The non-musician is different and somewhat more limited in the stuff he wants to listen to. Some of us have played avant-garde jazz, and with at least one fine musician, it can be an enjoyable and challenging experience. But to the average person it's like putting a galvanised iron bucket on thrir head and hiiting it with a lump hammer - when the Hell is it going to stop???!!! Many non-muesicians come to the same conclusion with classical music, modern jazz, and probably bottom of the list, opera. Some people just cannot stand opera or choral music, even though by and large they can at least tolerate the more conventional and popular classical music. I listen to the lot with the possible exception of vocal pop music, simply because it generally bores me silly - there's not enough there to hold my interest for more than two or three minutes, but I certainly don't decry those who wish to or even get deeply involved in it, anymore that I expect those same persons to enjoy a Bach invention, a Puccini opera or an Edwardian operetta. So, classical music is far from dead, though its development over the last 60 or 70 years has been largely falling on deaf ears outside music colleges. And to a certain extent I blame those very people in music colleges for producing a lot of unmemorable, tuneless rubbish that doesn't attempt to engage with the audience be they musicians or not. Rant over.
  7. Happy Birthday Joe, and I hope it was darned good one!
  8. Some Scots have a very heavy accent. My son-in-law comes from and lives in Dundee, and I can hardly understand a word he says!
  9. A Very Happy Birthday, Paul, but you're a mere youngster - nowt to worry about yet!
  10. Probably more to do with the inability to gig in this pandemic and being prevented from going out and doing anything to replace that activity. It's definitely got a lot worse over the last year. Add to that the fact that all are getting older and having a good moan is a privilege that comes with age. Of course, no one cares or takes any notice except you lot. Ha ha!
  11. Nothing squared is nothing minus nothing
  12. At 84 next week I can't get too violent with the exercise! However, I do at least 10 lengths of my gardem (60 yards) and quite often 20 every afternoon at quick march pace, otherwise it is a pretty sedentary lifestyle. Just make sure I get up and walk around the house every half hour. But at least on a large Greek island we are pretty free of Covid. Stay safe everyone.
  13. I thank my lucky stars that some here haven't run out of MUSICAL ideas. Jim, Linwood, Al - where are you?
  14. Happy New Year to everyone from Crete, Greece, wherever you may be and in whatever timezone you are in. May it be a Peaceful and Successful Year for all of you. May the gigs be safe and come flowing in. It's been far too long. Finally my thanks to the MPN team for making this a joyful and at times extremely funny community to which to belong.
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