BS: other strings to your bow

Subject: other strings to your bow
From: Deni
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 12:52 AM

What goes well together? How many mucatters double up or triple up on creative things. does art often go hand in hand with music for example , or does one creative pursuit block out another? I used to write for a job until I increased my music output. Now the writing has dried up...and I mean completely. Shame.

And how many fiddlers clicked on this thread because they thouht it was a discussion on parts of a fiddlers equipment?

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:03 AM

Me. I knew strings weren't part of a bow, but I wondered what it was about. It does seem that "creative" people's brains are wired differently, and being public about your creativity or being an entertainer entails revealing parts of yourself that most people don't want (or need?) to reveal.

"Rosin up your fiddle and string up your bow" (sic)

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:53 AM

I checked, too, knowing there were no strings on my bow:-)

I've been working on a balance between practising and learning new songs and new dulcimer and writing, but writing comes first. I used to design and bead jewelry, BUT I lost the whole past year and haven't done that at all. I can feel the urge coming back, the stones are speaking to me, wanting me to reconnect and I have a client who wants me to do a bunch of hers over with different colours than before. It's funny, when I get away from the stone beads, then go back to them, I always feel better and wonder why I ever quit! I give advice on healing with stones, etc. and forget for myself. I do carry a few in a medicine bag, though, so I guess I don't totally forget. Hmmm...now you've got me thinking! Thanks!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:59 AM

Being an archer of great skill and renown, I will guarantee you that with two strings on your bow you won't hit a damn thing.

So I don't thing the analogy is worth a hoot because I am at one and the same time capable of achieving excellence in multple pursuits(or was). So there.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:03 AM

LOL, don't they ever make you phoaks go to bed back there, Spud? **BG**

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:11 AM

kat, it's probably because his Honey/Mama ain't told him to go to bed yet, so Spud, you go to bed too, ya hear? OK!Then. I have now done sent Deni,her Matthew, Barky,and Amos to bed. Mama Roolz! kat, you and me goin to bed soon too, huh?

(shutup and go to bed sorcha)

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:13 AM

I think your pointing in the wrong direction, Kat. I'm out here on what is properly called the Left Coast, and that's an hour earlier(or later) than WY or CO either one. It's that girlie in Dear Olde England that ought to be told to go to bed.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Monashee
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:58 AM

okay I admit it sounded like a fiddling post for some reason...even though I know there are no strings on a bow... I am torn in countless directions...and at the same time searching for direction... I paint..sing..play guitar and fiddle.. dance.. sing... write..draw..sew...crochet..other crafts etc..oh and did I mention sing? ;) I tend to focus on a few things at a time...

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:34 AM

creativity is a state of mind. As an engineer I have had a lifelong struggle to tell other engineers why something is so obvious to me yet strange to them, the same counter-intuitive connections are being made technically that I would make in a humourous song. But a transistor just isn't funny!

I used to do pottery and I found I could combine work 9-5 (ish) and pottery at home. As I get older there are other lures, and less free space in the brain.

I say yes, creative people are creative first and channel it somewhere (just dun gotta), but doing more than one at a stretch is going to dilute them both.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Llanfair
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:52 AM

I always have had a creative streak, and the music was the one that I could do as well as go to work.
Now that I don't go to work any more, I am beginning to discover how far my creative abilities will go. I have set up a workshop in the spare bedroom, and driftwood windchimes are top of the list at the moment.
Just out of curiosity, how many "creatives" are left-handed?
Cheers, Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Mike
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 07:18 AM

I'd say some creative things go very well together and tend to amplify each other. The series that Yoyo Ma did with the Bach cello suites that included ice skaters, drawings, a garden, etc. come to mind. My "real job" is doing glass and metal sculpture (Yeah, I know the Fun Police will haul me away for having a "job" like this one of these days) and a few years ago, I did a whole series of works based on some of the tunes that I play with a band; things like "Whiskey Before Breakfast", "The Rakes of Mallow" and so forth. It seemed to work fine, i.e. I had a great time doing the pieces and they were all sold. For me at least, art, poetry, music and writing seem to mesh pretty well and build on each other.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 09:09 AM

Wow, Mike, any pictures that we could see? Those sound beautiful and like alot of fun!

Spud, how is it I got you placed in New England, in my mind? Musta been 'cause ya sound like Yankee!**BG** Sorry!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 10:53 AM

I thin transistors are a laugh a minute, Red. They take themselves so seriously! And who'd'a thunk back in 1970that the wee monster from Bell Labs would end up ruling the whole goddam American stock market!!! It's kinda like finding out that little Toto has taken over as the replacement for the Wicked Witch of the West!

A

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:13 AM

Amos: I couldn't have put it better. Or more succinctly. Only, I do believe that current happenings in the market may through into question the authority of that rule. Little Toto may be about to get his comeupance.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:19 AM

Kat: Almost missed your post. It's my dad's fault. He was raised in New Hampshire. Wot??? Me a blinkin' Limey??? Garrrr!!!

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:06 PM

In my youth, back in the late Pleistocene, I was developing to be a painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Finally decided that, while I had had some mild honors, I was not going to be a real standout. Went into an unrelated field, where I've made my living to this day.

I was at that time into theater too. Somehow time wouldn't allow that, and it slipped away, but about twenty-five years ago I got into magic, mainly close-up magic, which I do to some extent to this day.

But back in that early time I was also enthusiastically into folk-singing with guitar. This was before the onset of Peter Paul & Mary, the Weavers, the Limelighters, and on and on, and "the great folk scare". I was somewhat turned off by the slick pop-rock stuff, and between that and the pressures of making a living I let it slide.

About four to five years ago, coming up to retirement from my job after thirty-six years with the US courts, I looked around for what was to be my central interest in retirement. Well, I'd always wanted to learn the 5-string banjo since I first heard Pete Seeger in about 1950. And of course that revived my interest in folk-songs, and I've learned banjo to a usable degree and retreaded my neglected skills on the guitar. Having a ball!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: guest(intruder-inactive)
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:52 PM

speaking as a gray putty-like mass, i have nary a clue about this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:34 PM

I read tarot cards, and I find that it is quite a creative process. You have to have a good imagination to 'get stuff' from the imagery on the cards, and then you have to relay that information to the querent in a way they'll understand and will be of use to them. It's like being a storyteller. And it gives me INTERESTING stuff to write songs about!!!

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:50 PM

"Two Strings to a Bow" is a song of about 1660 (ZN209 in my broadside ballad index). It's about creativity; getting a brat with each sting almost simultaneously, but with a 9 month time delay. It's to a tune that the Irish changed to "Star of the County Down" about 215 years later.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Hawker
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:01 PM

Deni,
You know about my strings
- And who's pulling them!
but I think like you, for me things have taken a turn around, I used to be more of a maker, now I am more of a do-er
Poor Kevin, who's been doing this years longer than me was gracious enough to sit in my shadow the other night - God Bless him - Oh HOW I LOVE THAT MAN, BRIDGE JUMPING AND ALL!!!!!LOL
Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:15 PM

I thought it was about being someone's psaltery dog.

I can't quite figure out how to bow my autoharp but I am working on it. As soon as I get a capo big enough.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:19 PM

WAIT a minute-- could you put a lap dulcimer (a big one) on a peg and stand it up, and bow it with quadruple stops? Or put it on your feet like a penguin with an egg or a daddy dancing his toddler daughter?

Bowed chords, or bowed drones upon a fingered melody note. Really, could you? Bow instead of strum, with a big ole cello bow?

Kat-- you have a dulcimer and a bow-- can it be done?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Mike
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 09:01 PM

Kat, I've got some stuff up at: http://www.localline.com/~corvos The site is out-of-date by about three years, but it will give you an idea. Within this year, I hope to have some of the new stuff up with much better photos. And this isn't a "business" website, it's just my "having fun" place. Well, it's all sort of "having fun", isn't it? I once made a capo for a hammered dulcimer out of a bear trap and a couple of springs from a 1949 Ford, but our hammered dulcimer player was afraid of it and wouldn't give it a try. And you can bow a mountain dulcimer: with a little tinder this is know as a "fire drill" and is quite handy on camping trips.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: rangeroger
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:36 PM

Gawd,Spaw has to see this one.I'm laughing my ass off.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:49 PM

Yeh, especially Guest mixing up me and Kat.

Help! Dying of laughter-- the tinder and fire drill thing!

Chinese harp + bear trap capo + bow = Chinese fire drill? (USA slang for a romp around a car, sort of musical chairs at the stoplight)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Deni
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 01:17 AM

Yes chaps. Just as I thought, multi-talented, faceted and everything.

I might have a look at that song, two Strings to a Bow, BruceO. That's just the sort of thing these threads are good for throwing up,like the fact we've got 'mudcatters with art' we can look at etc.. interesting stuff!

Best of British from a blinking limey. (Spud's words.)

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 01:31 AM

Deni, the text of that one's not on my website, but click on 'Shooting Arrow' in the Scarce Songs 1 file (in the mock hunting songs section) for something along those lines. Scarce Songs 1 and 2 files on my website aren't for minors (who probably can't figure out old metaphors anyhow, or more direct old words like swive).

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Blind Desert Pete
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 03:48 PM

Little thread creep: Its an old archery advice. in the days before dacron. bowstrings broke so often you carried a spare just like an extra set of strings in your instrument case.

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: Bert
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 03:49 PM

Back in the early days of Dr Who this commedian comes on stage dressed as a Dalek. He going on making lame jokes, then he gets to talking about his reletives. He has one who is a toaster and then he says he has one who is a radio "She's my tran-sister".

Cor! it's no wonder I have CRS with my brain cluttered up with junk like that.

Bert (Thought I'd beat you to it with an old joke Skiff)

Subject: RE: BS: other strings to your bow
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 04:58 PM

A long time ago I had a real bow, wood and string, with a little leather around the grip. Now with the pullies and other high tech gadgetry on them, I'm sure there are some I failed to recognize as such. PS: Arrows still used real feathers in these old days.