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math · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:59 pm

hi everybody,

quite some itme has passed since i played an instrument the last time.
i played guitar for some years...some years ago.
im tending to play cello now, cuz i just love the sound of it.
now i have a problem. on my left hand , small finger, the fingernail part is missing. i lost it. its not the whole first joint missing. its just the fingernail part and some little tiny rest of the joint is left (about 14mm of the finger missing). does anybody know if this makes it impossible for me to play a cello properly?
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quit pro quo

stacy · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:39 pm

I don't know about the Cello...
...but you'll never be able to pick
your nose right. ...You know... those
little bitty dried-out hard ones that
lodge way up in your nose that
you can only reach with your
little finger.
Bloody bad luck, what?
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Try sneezing real hard, that usually works.

Gort · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:22 pm

Uh . . . what?

Cello? Buddy . . . wrong forum, me thinks.

Smile

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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

Impaler · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 8:52 pm

The quick and dirty answer is that you do have a musical disability. The typical vagueness. however, that accompanies setting down absolutes in a subjective area comes from your own sense of motivation.

How well you play the cello comes less from how little your pinky is and more from how ardently you practice. Skill comes from how much dedication and time you're willing to devote to perfecting your passion, not from how many or few hurdles are in your way.

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder both play the hell out of the piano; they're blind. Beethoven composed some of his best work when he couldn't hear it. The Dave Matthews Band somehow continues to cobble together popyuppie hits year after year, despite having no obvious musical talent whatsoever.

If these people can all do it, handicaps notwithstanding, why the hell can't you?

(If you're still nervous that your pinky just can't do the job on the cello, switch to viola. They're nearly the same instrument, except one makes you look like a genius while the other exudes a more.. . peasant-class fiddle charm.)
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QED, sort of.

Sumaleth · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:01 pm

Best post in this forum for a long time.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

math · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:38 am

Gort · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:29 pm

oh yeah . . . I need some sleep

y a w n
_________________
- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

tyron · Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:00 am

ergh. you can make sounds huh? then you can play it!
maybe the most complicated classical pieces will be hard but what the hell, who cares? have fun! start an experimental indieband or whatever you want to...
it's what comes out of your head that matters when you play.

Greensun · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:47 am

dude.. my left-hand middle finger is deformed, yet I still use it to rock on my guitare.. it's not that you cant play the cello due to the missing of a part of your finger, its what you do with it.. all it needs is some practice, and you will be able to use it like someone with a complete finger.
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Rabies up your bunghole

Capt. Fred · Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:48 am

and to add to luna's lists of handicapped musicians, Michel Petrucciani is a midget and can't reach the pedals on a piano without special modifications. Nevertheless, he's amazing (if a little cheesy and clich� on occasion) - (pianist).
Not quite the response you were looking for though, l'm guessing.

Impaler · Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 10:36 am

kochun · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:22 pm

Ng Mui · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 6:51 pm

oh absolutely you can play, and with practice you ought to be able to play anything as well as anybody else can play it.

I don't remember the guys name, but a famous violinist from an orchestra (in NY I think)(I bet you could google it) cut one of the fingers on his left hand completely off while making salad one night, and in less than a week he reworked his part with his other fingers and performed it flawlessly. I'm a bass player in an orchestra, and it's just a matter of adapting a fingering system that will work for you.

(I also played clarinet as a little kid, and I got in a car accident and sliced the shit out of my lip, but I can still play around the scar tissue....)

Good Luck! Keep working hard!