[HN Gopher] Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2... ___________________________________________________________________ Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2015 brain aneurysm Author : revorad Score : 163 points Date : 2022-07-29 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.openculture.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com) | marcodiego wrote: | There's a very interesting Brazilian case: Herbert Vianna, singer | of the band "Paralamas do Sucesso" crashed his ultra-light | aircraft and had some brain damage. He can't walk anymore, after | the accident he couldn't speak Portuguese but could speak | English. He had to relearn who he was and quickly came become to | the successful artist he always was. He even recovered hos | political views. | labrador wrote: | Joni Mitchell is a treasure. I have a thought exercise I | sometimes use for popular musicians: "Will they still be popular | 100 or 200 years from now, like Mozart or Bach are today?" Pink | Floyd: yes, Joni Mitchell: yes. | | My love of Joni's music goes back to high school in America, but | as a working class young man the 70's it was best to keep it a | quiet if you didn't want people to think you were gay. Tough guys | listened to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, then the Sex Pistols. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | I _hope_ she 's still popular. She's a genuine genius, the | music is astounding, and as a personality she's a force of | nature. | | But I have a theory that you're not destined for immortality | until at least three generations love your work. Pink Floyd and | maybe Kate Bush seem to be there, but I'm not sure Joni is yet. | labrador wrote: | I'm afraid you are right. Sadly, that means many brilliant | musicians like Tom Waits are destined to fade into obscurity. | I'm sure Tom Waits will live on, but fewer people will know | his brilliance. | Cupertino95014 wrote: | I watched the Kennedy Center Honors show for her. Even though | I've known about her forever, I was blown away by how great | those songs are, even when performed by someone else. Maybe | even "especially performed by someone else." | | Now I have the super-high-fidelity digital version of _Blue_. | Along with an outboard D /A converter to take advantage of it. | [deleted] | wyclif wrote: | I love her best albums, like _Blue_ and _Hejira_. Sadly, I don | 't listen to her much anymore since I listen to all my music on | Spotify and she pulled all her albums from the platform, | because Joe Rogan (or something). Disappointing. | labrador wrote: | I don't use Spotify. I use YouTube on the desktop with ad | blockers. | | YouTube is doing something amazing which is auto uploading | music from all over the world in partnership with | aggregators. For example: | | Samoliot - Dzhuna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgeZtWT2gz8 | | Provided to YouTube by National Digital Aggregator LLC | | Samoliot * Dzhuna 2,220 views 2020 Released on: 2017-04-14 | Auto-generated by YouTube. | | It's fair to say I've discovered more new music this year | than all previous years of my life. It's strange to think I | live in a world where I could listen to music for the rest of | my life and never listen to the same song twice | dukeofdoom wrote: | what are the odds of surviving a brain aneurysm | JJMcJ wrote: | With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad one | can kill someone in minutes. | | Untreated, like you're alone and nobody finds you for days, | much much less, and the recovery of functioning less likely. | | Depends on how much bleeding and where. | Volundr wrote: | Yeah I'd bet the specifics play in heavily. Anecdotally when | I was in high school my girlfriend had a siezure from a | ruptured aneurysm while we were watching her little brother. | I don't remember how long it took her to regain consciousness | on her own, but I remember her being fairly lucid talking to | the paramedics, wanting to know what happened so not long. | Didn't suffer any long term effects. I have to assume luck of | the draw plays in heavily. | JJMcJ wrote: | Very much a matter of luck and details. What part of the | brain is injured, how bad the bleed is, how quickly it can | be treated, how good the treatment is. | | Anything from dead within a few minutes to no effects at | all, with great variation in lost or reduced function in | between. | lostlogin wrote: | > With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad | one can kill someone in minutes. | | I'm very far from expert in this and don't work in the field, | but I think this thread is talking about ruptured aneurysms. | Unruptured ones do considerably better with coiling, flow | diverting stents or clips. The first link from 2014 has a | 15-16% mortality rate at 7 years for treated aneurysms. | Treatment has got better in the 15 years since those people | were operated on. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24724850/ | | https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.STR.29.8.153. | .. | | https://www.bafound.org/about-brain-aneurysms/brain- | aneurysm... | ComputerCat wrote: | Wow, what an incredible story! I can't imagine having to relearn | simple tasks and skills honed over a lifetime. | zw123456 wrote: | I know this gets said a lot. But this is another example why I | keep coming back to HN, I love all the tech talk for sure, but | every once in a while, something sweet and inspirational like | this gets slipped in and sometimes is just what I needed at the | end of a long week. | jseutter wrote: | I tend to experience this as well. For some reason HN on the | weekends has way more interesting and varied topics. The | weekday crowd either comes here for more mundane topics, or | marketers flood the submission queue, I can't tell which. But I | love opening up HN on Saturday mornings and finding some | strange retro computing topic. | | A similar phenomenon also happens if you open up HN before the | east coast of north america wakes up on a weekday. The topics | tend to be more varied. | barrenko wrote: | For similar tales in other "discipline" try Meru documentary as | well. | coldcode wrote: | As a guitar player I can't even imagine relearning a lifetime of | experience from scratch again, much less learning to walk and do | ordinary things you take for granted. Brains are amazingly | plastic, but usually not at age 75. It take incredible will power | to get back to this point. | | Without video it might have been impossible to recreate her | unusual technique. | worker_person wrote: | It's not fun. I had a small stroke while in a music lesson. | Instructor was very confused as to why I suddenly couldn't play | or follow any instructions. | | Programming has been this weird mix where I would see a simple | problem. Say a fibonacci sequence. Something I could do in my | sleep. | | I would look at it. Understand that I can solve this in | seconds. Then it would take me a week to muddle through it, | badly. | | So I know how to program just fine, but I somehow I can't | actually do it. So it's been relearning things I think I know | how to do. | | The saving grace is people would often ask how to approach a | difficult problem and I could still quickly figure out what the | issue is, and what approach to take to resolve it. So I was | very helpful to others, but I couldn't _do_ the work I | suggested. | | Weird stuff. | ryanianian wrote: | Glad you are able to see the bright side. Are you employed as | a developer? I'm curious how disability policies or laws etc | might impact you. | [deleted] | nonrandomstring wrote: | What you're describing fits well with the description of | declarative versus imperative knowledge [1], the subject of a | recent thread here. Perhaps your experience suggests they are | encoded by different neurological structures! I hope you | continue to recover. | | [1] example: knowing what a square root is, and all the | common roots, but not knowing Newtons method or any trick for | finding them. | klenwell wrote: | Reminds me of this story from This American Life that they | replayed recently about a retired physicist diagnosed with | Alzheimer's who loses the ability to read a clock: | | https://www.thisamericanlife.org/583/itll-make-sense-when- | yo... | | What is interesting is he is able to analyze why he has | difficulty reading a clock. (As he explains, it's a | surprisingly difficult problem.) | | Fascinating and a bit heartbreaking. I'm happy to hear you're | coping and recovering. Best of luck! | bavell wrote: | Thanks for sharing. Reminds me a lot of my grandfather who | survived 10yrs post-diagnosis. Couldn't recognize his | children most of the time near the end but he was a great | guy and thankfully he kept most of his affable nature until | he passed. | jfarina wrote: | Can you work in a paired setting? | worker_person wrote: | I used to love paired programming. I've done it | successfully a number of times, but I had a few years where | I did't know if I could function or not at any given | moment. | | One minute I'm solving the hardest problems a company has. | Next I can't remember where I'm working, Resolves itself in | a few minutes, but leaves me exhausted for a couple hours. | Scares the crap out of people. | agumonkey wrote: | Are you better now ? these events taught me patience.. way | more than I wanted to but still. | fezfight wrote: | Will power comes from the brain, too. We are lucky that wasn't | the part that she needed to relearn. | xsmasher wrote: | Before the aneurysm Joni Mitchell used alternate guitar tunings | because they were much easier on her left hand, which was | weakened by childhood polio. | | Neil Young also contracted polio as a child; so did Robert Anton | Wilson. We're not that far removed from a generation that was | ravaged by the disease, which was then nearly eradicated by the | vaccine. | | https://kawarthanow.com/2020/04/15/covid-19-pandemic-reminds... | maukdaddy wrote: | Original article is here: | | https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113608539/joni-mitchell-newp... | dang wrote: | Also https://www.guitarworld.com/news/joni-mitchell-relearned- | gui.... | mahathu wrote: | Fascinating story. Pat Martino is another (jazz) guitarist who | relearned to play after a brain injury | stevenjgarner wrote: | Neil Young too was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in March | 2005, while working on the Prairie Wind album in Nashville [0]. | | [0] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Young#Health_condition_an... | analog31 wrote: | A couple more examples are Oscar Peterson and Rashaan Roland | Kirk. | JJMcJ wrote: | Judith Durham, Australian singer and songwriter famous with | The Seekers in the 1960s but active ever since, had a stroke. | | Afterwards she could still sing but had lost the ability to | write songs. | worker_person wrote: | Agraphia is an impairment or loss of a previous ability to | write. | | I can read fine. I can type fine. Drawing is mostly fine. | Physical writing is total gibberish. Think severe alzheimer | level. | AlbertCory wrote: | Oscar had a stroke, which he didn't really recover from -- he | just played mostly one-armed. | | I just saw this incredible video [1] last week about him and | "the greatest solo ever recorded." | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj93v9j2A4A | jacquesm wrote: | Great video. Note the signature on that guitar by the way | (2:49). | nereye wrote: | One more: Edwyn Collins, from Wikipedia: | | In February 2005, Collins was hospitalised after two cerebral | haemorrhages which resulted in aphasia, and he needed months | to recover. He resumed his musical career in 2007. A | documentary film on his recovery, The Possibilities Are | Endless, was released in 2014. | paradygm wrote: | 'Martino Unstrung' is a documentary about him and talks a lot | about what he was like leading up to and after the aneurysm was | discovered. A great look into one of the giants of jazz guitar | but also fascinating to learn the things he could remember and | what he couldn't, personality changes, etc. | barrenko wrote: | Not sure if I remember the documentary correctly, but didn't he | re-learn to play with a different hand orientation, e.g. right | then left hand? | agumonkey wrote: | There are odd videos of him in his early public reappearance | after his illness: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotxdCS9xm0 | | (odd in the sense of semi private recordings) | rtsil wrote: | Joni Mitchell's story and Pat Martino's story are remarkably | similar (brain aneurysm). The question is, did they regain | access to the part of their brain that allowed them to play | guitar, or did they really re-learn? | | In Martino's case, after his full amnesia, he was able to | retrieve his unique playing style, but was that because he | learned by listening to his recordings (just like Joni did), or | because the style never left him but was somehow locked? | seanhunter wrote: | My understanding is Martino had to learn by listening to his | old records | OJFord wrote: | Kind of interesting to imagine the motivation for the former, | it's surely different to that which achieved it in the first | place: 'I want to be who I was' or something, rather than | 'this expresses who I am' or 'I like this sound' or whatever. | biggieshellz wrote: | Part of it was from listening to his own recordings, part of | it was from discovering it inside his brain again. As Pat's | aneurysm grew over time, it's likely that his brain had | already somewhat remodeled to accommodate it. IIRC, in a TV | show about it, they talked with one of his friends/students | whom he would play guitar duos with. His friend was playing | for Pat after the aneurysm (Pat wasn't back to playing yet) | and the guy hit a wrong chord and Pat suddenly said "No, D | minor 9th" and grabbed the guitar and played the right chord. | | Pat also tells a similar story about meeting Joe Pesci | backstage and knowing him only from movies until Joe tells | him, "I can tell you what you used to drink at Smalls' | Paradise in the '60s". Video here: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niUwDegpYyo | bredren wrote: | Jerry Garcia had a similar situation iirc. | ilamont wrote: | Yes. https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/jerry-garcia-grateful- | dead... | CWuestefeld wrote: | Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) writes about a kinda similar experience. | He fell asleep with his arm hanging over the back of a chair. | This pinched a nerve and caused permanent damage, such that he | was no longer able to play. IIRC, he needed surgery to get any | muscular control at all, and then needed to relearn to play. | | Mustaine's damage was probably less profound, but I think the | fine control needed for the kind of thing he does is rather more | extreme than Mitchell's. | | ETA: here's a lousy article on it, from a music industry rag. He | talks about it in much more detail in his autobiography. Below is | a quote from https://blabbermouth.net/news/megadeth-s-dave- | mustaine-how-i... | | On January 7th, 2002, while at the [drug rehab] hospital, I sat | on a chair which I hung my arm over the back of. The hard edge | along the top of the seat back cut off the circulation to my | radial ulnar nerve. After approximately two hours I woke up and | my left hand was numb. I went to the nurse's station and they | said it was the hair-tie I had on my wrist. I wish. I had to go | into town to see a specialist and he said that I would be lucky | if I ever gained even 80% of the use of my arm again. This was | unacceptable for me, so I left the rehab, against medical advice | and when home to Scottsdale, Az. to get my arm checked out by a | city doctor. My Dr. Rahj Singh, a expert in nerve damage, spinal | damage, etc. said that I may get 100% use of my arm, but that I | would never play the same. He then prescribed the braces you see | [here]: Photo#1, Photo#2, Photo#3. I then proceeded to Nathan | Koch for physical therapy for 4 months of sessions, three times a | week, 1-1.5 hours a day. After I finally got my feeling back in | my hand, I realized that I could not even hold a feather in that | hand and started a grueling 1-year weight-training program. 13 | months after I hurt myself, a personal assistant that had worked | for me died in hospice of drug damage, and I was asked to play. | It was the first time I had held a guitar since November 17, | 2001. Since then, I have completely healed and started taking | lessons intermittently to re-learn my trade. After an additional | 5 months I decided that I was going to play again, but that is | another story. | [deleted] | bavell wrote: | Wow I had no idea! Saw them live around 2007-2009 and was one | of the best concerts I've been to, really solid lineup and | performances. | agumonkey wrote: | Physical nerve damage can be hard but brain damage can fuck | perception of limbs entirely, not just fine control. That said | music is not just about gesture and technique, higher | abstraction about rhythm and harmonic patterns are not related | to biomechanics. That may help relearning. | Unklejoe wrote: | Wow. I had no idea that was something that could happen. I | would have expected you to wake up before damaging yourself | like that - sort of like falling asleep in the bath tub. | WaxProlix wrote: | I've heard it called Drunk's Palsy (long term effects) or | Saturday Night Palsy (shorter term, less severe). Falling | asleep in such a way that circulation is cut off to an area, | causing damage that normally your body would move to prevent. | Drugs and alcohol impede that input to the brain so you don't | toss and turn as much, I guess. | CWuestefeld wrote: | I ninja edited my post to include a short description of his | experience. | JauntyHatAngle wrote: | Iirc he was sobering up at the time (rehab clinic) so it's | possible he was drug assisted at the time. | 7thaccount wrote: | One day last year I noticed I couldn't feel part of my leg | after my wife had sat in my lap for a few minutes earlier in | the night. It freaked me out as I still had no feeling in it | the next day. The doctor told me it was pinched and would | regrow over time. It took about a month to get full feeling | back. | adamesque wrote: | Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous permanently damaged his legs and | almost died after passing out / ODing overnight with his legs | folded beneath him. | | https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9745-the-sad-and-beau... | pgodzin wrote: | Watching the video of her singing Both Sides Now at the Newport | Folk Festival last week was really moving: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-29 23:00 UTC)