A chance to exchange notes on the little everyday things that cheer you up when you're down, or make an ordinary day into a better one. Winning move unaltered.
Finding a home workaround for restless legs I get restless legs. Lying awake in bed at 3.a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m. with a pair of legs that think they want to go for a half mile run while the rest of me just wants to go to sleep is like Chinese water torture . My known exercise workarounds are to tire 'em out by going for a long walk, or running up and down a flight of stairs 6-10 times or pedalling furiously on an exercise bike for a couple of miles. But I live in a flat and have no stairs (and no exercise bike), so the two quick and easy workarounds were not available to me at home. Very, very glad to have found a life hack that I can do at home that also works and doesn't take the couple of hours the walk takes.
[Simons] You're going to tell us what it is, aren't you...? Sorry to hear of your case, it must be horrible to face up to confinement. Very glad you have found a solution.
[Simons] Yeah, what is your fix for the problem? (I bought a treadmill on Friday. Half of it was delivered on Saturday, the other half came this morning. I have paid for it by not having to buy petrol to drive to work for the next 6 weeks. I am imagining walking and listening to half-hour episodes of the Goon Show or Poirot or Paul Temple)
Well it's a home hack; I realized my futon base is at a usable height for 'step training'. Really it's far too high for proper step training but as I need the equivalent of running up at least 6 flights of stairs two steps at a time it'll do. Normally a divan-like bed would be too soft, but mine's got two tatami mats in it so it's firm enough to step on repeatedly. For restless legs, the NHS suggestions include taking a hot bath in the evening, or applying a hot or cold compress to your leg muscles - only cold works for me. In fact I also discovered that my legs don't get twitchy as long as they remain cold, so I sleep with not just my feet but my legs outside the covers, and provided it's not too warm a night that also works. Unfortunately my exercise tolerance and cold tolerance are increasing with practice, so my legs and I are locked in an arms race. And when it's too hot, tiring them out (by any expedient method) is my only fix.
Practising pedal notes on the trombone. It's taken me 25 years to get the hang of this, for some reason. A wonderful rich farty sound that shakes the very walls.
The day I realised that my musical skills would never lead me to buying a musical instrument, brass or otherwise. It was the brass involved that disillusioned me.
(Duj) Musical instruments, especially new ones, are a ludicrous price and there's a lot of pretentiousness involved. The keys of a bassoon, so I was told by a bassoon player, are made put of silver. Why silver? Brass would do, or chrome-plated mild steel or even cast iron or even nylon, which is strong stuff. It's all bollocks, I tell you. Everything is. I could go on.
I would postulate that when it comes to the quality of metal, we are talking about the difference between a responsive brass instrument and one that has as much life in it as a 3 day old dead ferret. Like my French horn - complete crap, but then so am I as a horn player so it doesn't matter. There are, however, cases where it matters very much. Like real brass players.
(Pablo) The quality of the metal probably reflects the overall quality of the design from an engineering point of view but should not affect the actual tone since all the sound comes out of the bell and the material of the instrument itself hardly vibrates at all. This obviously does not apply to an instrument with a sounding board such as a piano, violin or guitar but it certainly does to a brass instrument. You can make a "brass" instrument out of anything, even cardboard. A metal mouthpiece probably helps though. The worst thing about a cheap 'n' nasty trombone, say, is a sticky slide or leaky water valve, engineering defects. If you open the water valve some notes just disappear; they just cannot be played whereas others are completely unaffected. Weird! All to do with nodes and antinodes.
Watching the little birdies scoffing their mealworms. It seems mealworms are the best thing ever, to a bird. I am less enthused over the featherless cat that also likes them.
[Rosie] Granted that brass instruments are at base, merely tubes (so the didgeridoo qualifies as a brass instrument(??)), I think you could find many top pro brass players who say the metal matters very much. Not just for reasons of weight and balance, but the sound that they can get on them. Re the water valve, I once knew a trombonist who could play a scale on it. You had to be there.
(Pablo) They get a good sound because they feel comfortable with the instrument which is probably expensive, shiny, well put together, well balanced and has a nice easy slide. The material simply can't matter because it doesn't vibrate. As for the didgeridoo, I'd say yes, it's fundamentally a "brass" instrument because the sound is formed by the player's lips, not by a reed. So, for the same reason, is the sodding vuvuzela. I've played one made out of rubber. It blows just below the Bb below middle C. Harmonics are difficult to get and ridiculously out of tune anyway. BTW I'm not "top brass" let alone a top brass player. Big Band hack, more like.
(pen) It's a reed instrument. The wonderfully vulgar sound comes from a vibrating membrane. Brass is basically blowing raspberries down a long tube, in my case 9-13 feet.
[Rosie] Us French hornets have a technique called bouchée or cuivré, whereby one partially stops the bell with the right hand while blowing like the proverbial. If the metal is good, the bell vibrates like crazy, which you can hear. If the metal is crap, nada.
Survival Just read back my entry directed to Stevie from early in the year, commiserating with his bronchitis. Christ, I must have had Covid! Pre-release version, OK, but it has been established that it has been around since November. Note to self - get antibody tested.
(Pablo) If the bell vibrates surely it can only do so at one frequency which may well not be the note you are blowing. My trombone does this and the bell resonates just above D a ninth above Middle C. I can only get this note on a good day (a D-day, I call it) but you can excite the resonance by playing the G below Middle C, just slightly sharp. But none of this affects the sound of the 'bone in its normal range.
BTW I hope the Covid hasn't done you any harm. I certainly don't want to get it myself, not at my age.
[Rosie]Without trying to labour the point, I think this shows the difference between quality of metals, as instruments respond very differently. Tried doing harmonics? Like playing a note and humming strongly the 5th, 10th or 12th above? Bones are particularly good for this. Horns OK, Weber even wrote them into his Horn Concerto.
Thanks for the Covid good wishes. As I am still here, and as good as ever, no, it didn't bloody well get me, despite my age. I'm sure it's the cabernet sauvignon that did it - excellent preservative.
(Pablo) Can't do those harmonics. However, I can do quite a good growl, something that goes down quite well in a trad band but would get you some funny looks if you tried it in a big swing band.
(Pablo) You certainly wouldn't put in a growl when playing ensemble but I agree it could easily be part of an ad lib solo. I've even tried it myself but not to any great effect.