Fiddle-de-dee
I have to admit, I’m a bit of a hoarder. I blame it on genetics. My grandma was the queen of hoarding. My bedroom is, shall we say, a little cluttered. It’s not really surprising when you consider that I’ve been living in it for nigh on 18 years. I still love it though. It says so much about me. For one thing it is jam-packed full of giraffes! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that type of stock-piling. It makes my room cosy and reassuring. But there is a slightly less healthy side of hoarding. It’s probably best illustrated by my unwillingness to get rid of my violin.
I started playing the violin when I was roughly 9 years old. I shudder to think of the pain that I put my poor parents’ ears through, but by the time I reached 13 I could play fairly decently (I can’t remember if I got to Grade 3 or 4, but it was about that level). I enjoyed it immensely. I was always quite a musical kid and I loved playing in the school orchestra (where my mistakes weren’t so obvious!). Then along came the M.E. and I couldn’t even hold the violin in place long enough to use it. That’s been the case for 10 years now and yet my much-loved violin is still in the back of the wardrobe in our spare room. I just can’t bring myself to part with it. I suppose that ultimately it’s a fairly harmless thing to hang on to. But it is perhaps symptomatic of an unwillingness to move on and accept that I’ll never play it again. On the other hand maybe it’s a symbol of the hope that I have, that one day I might be well enough to start again. I’m not sure, but either way I have a feeling that the poor little un-played instrument is still going to be living in that wardrobe for a few years to come.
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I have e-mailed you at the weekend :)
How's it going? I can relate to what you're going through. I was in the middle of music performance degree (I play guitar) when a nerve got trapped in my left arm. I knew it was too painful to play, but a couple of doctors misdiagnosed the problem, and in the end, it took a year until I got diagnosed correctly and got the necessary physiotherapy to recover. The reason I mention this is that during that time, I learned that nowadays, writing and creating music isn't necessarily dependant on playing a musical instrument. If you're still mobile enough to use a computer, there's no reason why, with the necessary knowledge and software, you can't still make music. The satisfaction you get from hearing your creation at the end of the process is all the motivation you need to keep attacking the learning curve. Even if you're unable to use a computer (I've assumed that you can since you've posted a blog, although I suppose you might've dictated it...), if you bone up on your music theory there's no reason you can't collaborate with other musicians who are able to operate the necessary equipment. You might end up chucking your violin out after all, if you end up able to create music another way!
I've got fibromyalgia along side the hypermobility issues and I hang on to my violin also. I manage to play for about 10 minutes a week and pay for it in pain, but it's worth it for a bit of musical release. The only reason I can get to play it for those 10 minutes is I stopped putting it away in the case and left it all set up on the stand so for those 10 minutes I am desperate to play, it is easy to get to.
For something easier to play give the Tin Whistle a go, it's light, fits easily by the bed and is better than nothing. But don't get one of those blue plastic ended ones from a "music" shop they sound horribly shrill, I got some nice ones from a traditional toy shop that sound lovely.