What are you doing today?

[JuiceBox52]

Today I had an interview on the Wheelchair Roundtable podcast! It went well and they are incredible people

Here’s the link if you wanna check it out

 

[Essjay]

My advice is to use them for an hour or so & work your way up, like any new exercise.

I was diagnosed with arthritis in my left foot last spring and was given what looked like home made inner soles. The instructions on those said to start at an hour a day then work up till wearing them all day. The problem for me was that I only wear shoes when I go out and they don't work in the kind of slippers I use. But I had to laugh when the inner soles arrived - they have a tiny sliver attached to the heel on the inside edge and if I use them the sliver is almost certain to come off.

 

[Fishmanic]

Today I had an interview on the Wheelchair Roundtable podcast! It went well and they are incredible people

Here’s the link if you wanna check it out

Awesome interview @JuiceBox52 . You came across as intelligent and informative as you described your afflictions. During the interview, you mentioned that you're an artist....you gave yourself a nice plug about your talents. And BIG CONGRATS on having one of your artworks displayed at the Kennedy Center...quite an accomplishment that will help you get even more notoriety. Wishing you the best of luck in the upcoming Ms Wheelchair competition.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I am planning a "Beginning Band for Grownups" class for this spring. It's going to be a hoot. The biggest challenges for me are deciding how often to meet and how much to charge. Ideals vs. reality, in both cases...

 

[emeraldking]

Just finished writing about my trip to Surinam. Where I caught my fish to bring back home. It's meant for the February edition of the Poecilia news in Holland.

 

[GaryE]

I am planning a "Beginning Band for Grownups" class for this spring. It's going to be a hoot. The biggest challenges for me are deciding how often to meet and how much to charge. Ideals vs. reality, in both cases...

Back in the forgotten times, I attended the 'World's First Bad Music Festival'. Several bands that were vaguely good got booed off stage for it, and the whole evening was great, wild fun. They released a festival highlights tape and that's me on harmonica in part of it.
One band was seven lead guitarists and a drummer. This is your future....

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Back in the forgotten times, I attended the 'World's First Bad Music Festival'. Several bands that were vaguely good got booed off stage for it, and the whole evening was great, wild fun. They released a festival highlights tape and that's me on harmonica in part of it.
One band was seven lead guitarists and a drummer. This is your future....

Now THAT sounds like a hoot.

 

[GaryE]

I like your idea @WhistlingBadger . Maybe it's the old punk in me, but people should have a chance to make music, even if they aren't great at it. Even if the people who join up have rudimentary skills, that first song that sounds more or less like it's supposed to is magical as a feeling. I was once involved in starting up a fiction writers' group in a blue collar community in a time of high unemployment. 18 people showed up because they wanted to write prose, poetry or songs, and after a year, the majority of them had published something. They wanted to do it, and if they stuck with it, they did it.
None are writers now, but who cares? They accomplished a thing they wanted to do, and who knows where that confidence took them?
Music, writing, painting, all arts - even the art of creating aquascapes - people need that. Give those people musical structure to work with. You have the ability, and they have the need.

I just discovered one of my neighbours up the road had surgery and lives alone. She's a visual artist in her nineties, so I've dropped over to clear snow, and help out a bit. Yesterday I was listening to her as I started up the wood stove. She tries too hard to convert me to her religion, but in between biblical stuff I hear the dedicated artist. She's far from rich, but with her art, she's made herself a rich life. I fed the cat, gathered the dishes and listened to the sparks. Creative people have to create. They may not get rich but they get interesting.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I like your idea @WhistlingBadger . Maybe it's the old punk in me, but people should have a chance to make music, even if they aren't great at it. Even if the people who join up have rudimentary skills, that first song that sounds more or less like it's supposed to is magical as a feeling. I was once involved in starting up a fiction writers' group in a blue collar community in a time of high unemployment. 18 people showed up because they wanted to write prose, poetry or songs, and after a year, the majority of them had published something. They wanted to do it, and if they stuck with it, they did it.
None are writers now, but who cares? They accomplished a thing they wanted to do, and who knows where that confidence took them?
Music, writing, painting, all arts - even the art of creating aquascapes - people need that. Give those people musical structure to work with. You have the ability, and they have the need.

I just discovered one of my neighbours up the road had surgery and lives alone. She's a visual artist in her nineties, so I've dropped over to clear snow, and help out a bit. Yesterday I was listening to her as I started up the wood stove. She tries too hard to convert me to her religion, but in between biblical stuff I hear the dedicated artist. She's far from rich, but with her art, she's made herself a rich life. I fed the cat, gathered the dishes and listened to the sparks. Creative people have to create. They may not get rich but they get interesting.

It has always bothered me that for most people, the only entry point for the wind band instruments (flute, clarinet, sax, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, tuba, percussion) is upper elementary school. A lot of us were not prepared, in fifth grade, to make decisions with life-long implications, even one as seemingly insignificant as whether to take up an instrument. So, I aim to change that.

This class is for people with no prior musical experience. By the end of it, I hope to have them play a concert with actual band music. I've talked it around and there's a lot of excitement about it. I wonder if that will translate to people actually signing up, though.