¤ milky moon ¤

Haha

the only reason i like belle & sebbe is becaus eof their song fox in the snow, which rasputina covered. and they had melora play on some crap song of theirs.

I think Belle & Sebastian are the one band I can think of that I'd describe as decent twee. But they're not super twee. Any other tolerable twee I've heard probably comes out of Sweden, Ursula is right.

And it's not that I don't think of uke as a real instrument, I just overwhelmingly associate it with twee. And I admit that that's not entirely fair of me. But it's hard to avoid with all the bad ukelele twee out there! I think the thing is, uke is fairly easy to play/learn. Sure, there are masters of it who can play crazyass technical stuff. But pretty much anyone can learn a few chords and I'm sure we're all aware of how many songs one can play knowing only 3-5 chords. And this seems like what a lot of twee bands do.

Joanna is like the opposite of twee. I think someone who listened to a split second of MEM and heard her high-pitched voice, but didn't listen to lyrics, instrumentation, or chord progressions, might ignorantly refer to her as twee. But here's the differences: Joanna can really fucking play the shit out of her instrument(s). Despite what haters will say, she can really fucking sing. I doubt anyone would argue much with you on the intelligence of her lyrics, and if they do, they're obv a moron. PLUS her music is intensely honest and genuine, which is something I find lacking in lot of in twee.

I just watched I Want the World to Stop by Belle & Sebastian. That's twee? If so, I'm still confused.

Can you not just, like, look it up on the internet? define: twee

Holy crap, I missed a lot on this thread.

I got a ukulele for Xmas (I was originally going to ask for an electric bass but thought a ukulele would be more useful). Silly me, I forgot about my messed-up fingers and inability to play stringed instruments aside from the harp; it's REALLY hard for me to play, which suggests that something is wrong with me.

Tom, I looked it up right after the first post. Surely you must know how I like to lead people on.

I want to play metal and rock on my mando, but when I get my banjo, I am going to play mostly americana. I was so limited with the zither, but I think I am very connected to them, because they were my first instrument ( I didn't start playing anything until last year). I want to make the music I like. I've been writing songs since I was about 9, but by now I've really refined my techniques. I write songs about people, little biographies. I wrote one about Andres Grassl () and I wrote one about Tom Nook (from Animal Crossing). I write songs about murder, country songs. I guess you could say that pen and paper are my instruments, because those are the ones that get most used.
On twee- Sweden is like a twee factory. Suburban Kids with Biblical Names, Testbild!, twee is huge there. In all of the metal/goth-themed stores, they also sell twee band merch. Strange.
polli- have a read

There was a book at the mall: "AC/DC for Ukulele."

I dunno. I would think uke might actually be harder for dudes to play (assuming we're talking soprano ukes) on account of it being so tiny and dudes generally having thick fingers.
Of course, that's a generalization, and I know a lot of guys who still manage to play it. Shoot, my fingers sometimes feel awkward at the really high frets on a guitar, and I have pretty small fingers.
Well...my fingers are sort of messed up too, but probably in a different way. They're excessively flexible, which can be a good thing I guess. But they're like...hyper-extended? They can all basically bend backwards pretty far and what happens is the joint is so wobbly, they don't like staying in the proper curved position you're supposed to maintain for most instruments. They like to flatten out and then lock. Most of the time, it didn't affect oboe except when I'd have to do certain trill fingerings and I'd try to pick my finger up quickly, but it'd be hatin'! UGH! And then on things like cello and piano where I have to do big stretches, it actually can be quite painful. I don't know what I can do about it. It seems no amount of finger exercises help; my fingers are just built like that.
And then, of course, my terrible wrists. I am so paranoid I'm going to/am getting arthritis prematurely and it's going to ruin my ability to play anything!

I'm going to have early onset arthritis from knitting, it's okay.

My fingers have always been relatively clumsy and slow. I've tried and tried to develop my ability to play fast (on the guitar), but my fingers just won't cooperate. That doesn't mean that I can't play complicated parts. I just can't play them with any speed. I think that the 'fast fingers' genes are missing from my DNA, or they are turned off. Probably something my grandfather or great-grandfather did (trans-generational epigenetics). Oh well.

My left index finger is rotated inwards at the first knuckle, so I can't stack my fingers like I can on my right hand - the finger just points out in a weird direction, so it's really hard to do a lot of guitar/uke chords because my finger just won't point in the right direction. This has, however, made certain things on the clarinet way easier for me than it is for most people, so I guess I can't complain.

Becca - I feel like every oboist I've ever met has the same weird finger thing that you do! It's that weird thing where the second knuckle bends back and makes your fingers look like claws, right?

I have very nimble fingers, they move very gracefully (do not read into that), but I have terrible hand0eye coordination.

I watched a documentary about a study of the relationship between Swan Neck Deformity of the Finger and the playing of musical instruments. They pointed out that a significant percentage of the players had the deformity prior to taking up an instrument, and an even high percentage played instruments like the oboe or flute. They showed how some researchers are following evidence that suggests there may be a genetic predisposition in people with SNDoF to play those particular instruments, but with the majority specializing in the oboe. That's seems almost too hard to believe. Well, don't be surprised, because I just made it up.

I believe it! I know like 4 people who can do that, and three of them play the oboe (the fourth plays viola, and actually one of the other three also plays violin... hmm).

And I think it's funny that it's called "Swan Neck" and the oboe kind of sounds like a duck... haha. Speaking of which, Becca, I knew this trio (2 oboes and English horn) and they called themselves "Duck, Duck, Goose."

this isn't mando, but it is almost identical to mine. Mine has a finger guard that was put on it sometime in the 60s, but other than that and the shorter neck, they are really quite similar.

Apparently, what he's playing is a 'manjo'. So, I googled it and found this thing.



I want one!