Comments on: And something totally different…

By: Unnua

Unnua — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:32:25 +0000

Hey, I used to play the flute! It’s been ages, though.

By: yitz

yitz — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:19:09 +0000

that’s something i noticed as well. if i try to learn a skill, i’m really bad at it, then i leave it alone for a bunch of years, when i come back to it, suddenly i just get it and i’m really good at it. it’s how i learned to ride a bike, rollerblade, and paint among other things. (i’m currently ‘not’ being a scribe so that when i pick it up again soon, i will be skilled.. let’s see if i succeed.) i’m glad someone else has similar stories of this, as i think most people aren’t aware how much learning can happen subconsciously over time.

By: Ettina

Ettina — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:43:15 +0000

Mom has been telling me to tell you how much she likes your cat. So I’ll tell you – my Mom really likes your cat.
My Dad plays tin whistle and recorder, and one of our cats, now dead, really liked both, especially the tin whistle. She’d come up and start purring and bumping up against the instrument (which caused some notes to sound odd). She was diabetic (reason she died, actually) and would hide when it was time to give her insulin. Dad would play the tin whistle and she’d come out from wherever she was to purr and love it up. Then I’d take her, pet her gently and when she was really happy, give her the injection. It didn’t bother her as long as she was purring when I did it.
I have good ‘intuitive’ sense of pitch, judging from my singing, but can’t do anything conscious requiring knowledge of pitch. I need sheet music to play from with an instrument, the improvised music I make on piano is by visual patterns rather than sound (and isn’t very musical) and when I tried figuring out notes to a song I wrote I ended up with something that sounded completely different. If I can’t mimic a sound, I can’t remember it, and if I partially mimic a sound I can remember only the aspects I can mimic. For example, I can remember the exact words someone said if I tried to remember at the time, and can remember conscious awareness of their accent, but unless I can mimic their accent I can’t remember it.

By: n.

n. — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:46:34 +0000

things I can do […] that tend to impress people […] that don’t actually make me any more capable, say, around the house or anything.

Same goes for the Spanish subjunctive and the 500 irregular French verbs.

PS: ditto on the “musically impaired”. i think i’m tone deaf or something.

By: Ms. Clark

Ms. Clark — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:00:43 +0000

I’m so jealous. I am totally musically impaired. I have tried at different times, but I just don’t have “it” whatever “it” is. I’m having fun with sound when I’m making videos, though, sometimes with sound effects plus voice plus music.