Comments on: The international ukulele tuning schism, and the nature of passion

By: mig

mig — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:03:10 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Woodshed. Great ukulele site you have there, BTW.

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:58:42 +0000

Go with gCEA tuning. aDF#B used to be popular but it’s very rare now. I live in the UK and use gCEA.

By: Trish

Trish — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:42:33 +0000

Any chance of taking the cerebral brain out of your blog postings Ian? Bono is after all, a pnob.

By: R J Keefe

R J Keefe — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:09:42 +0000

Temperament is passion that is dressed to go out.

Cholera will work just fine!

By: mig

mig — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:29:43 +0000

Thank you, Ian. Part of what I have been trying to do is decide on a word, and feeling does seem a better fit than passion. My problem is, I think, a lack of craft and facility combined with a fear of competence. The tune in question is not especially hard, and I ought to be able to achieve the necessary technical ability with enough practice, which should make it possible to remove the cerebral mind from the equation and play musically.
Interesting, though, how the fear of competence, which I had forgotten about, or never really articulated before, fits in here.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:57:23 +0000

You are looking for passion in the wrong place. You assume that passion is some quality that certain people have. A ghost in the machine and a category mistake.

Passion is a behaviour that may be observed in others and has a context. Throwing and breaking things not specifically designed to be broken might not convince most observers that the behaviour exhibited is passion. Were The Who passionate when they wrecked their instruments?

Are you sure that passion was sought in your playing of this piece, not simply feeling? So since you asked, what about taking the cerebral mind out of it, if you have enough craft and facility, and connect to the emotional. But be careful, Bono is a knob.

By: mig

mig — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:01:12 +0000

I prefer to throw the cheap coffee cups you get at the rest stops here, at the floor. It was sort of a compromise, and cheaper than plates. But I stopped doing it once the shock value wore off.

By: anne

anne — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:56:33 +0000

Try throwing a toilet paper roll at the wall and see if your reaction is that it was satisfying, or that you wish you’d thrown a plate. Elevating the absurd by making it louder seems to be a key part of passion.