With the coronavirus going on in the world right now, it will be harder for me to do some of these things, such as play a piano, when I don’t have on in my house, or golf/lawn bowling(though I don’t know where I would do this anyway). I did play some video games today, and maybe I will watch some TV tonight or tomorrow since everything is shutting down. It really got bad Wednesday night/Thursday morning around here. Now schools are closing and grocery stores are madhouses. I might cook, but not anything too fancy because I might not have all of the ingredients. I also may have to cancel my travel plans in the spring/early summer, and I won’t be spending a bunch of time watching sports on TV since they are all canceled. This also means no MM bracket challenge this year. @Vsotvep I would try to study that book for you but I keep forgetting about it and the libraries are closed near me now. I might try and find something online, also partly because I probably don’t know what leads up to whatever math that is and I am going to have questions. I will attempt to learn Japanese although I usually end up failing at some point. Thanks for understanding if I am slow to do some of these.
I would start with undergraduate mathematics first, or you’ll have an even harder time than is supposed. If you want me to recommend books at the right level for every reader, from junior high school student to professor emeritus: try to find one of the puzzle books by Martin Gardner, or a puzzle book by Raymond Smullyan (not the academic ones). They’re both interesting mathematically and fun to read (contrary to the average graduate level books, which are not so “fun”).
Only do this if you’re actually interested in Japanese. Otherwise I recommend studying a language that you really want to learn.
28 posts were merged into an existing topic: Language Learners’ Library
This is an appealing topic, but I have been puzzling over how to answer, because i am such a has-been. I no longer do many of my favorite things due to life obligations or age. I used to be quite an outdoorsman (except hunting), distance runner, musician, and active science fiction fan. I also used to do car trips all over the U.S., mainly visiting geological and archaeological sites. All gone. I do hope to get back to some serious hiking and mineral collecting in the field, when I am retired in two or three years. Now, however, all I do is read, walk some in a park, watch old movies on TCM or DVD, listen to or watch classical music performances, and watch some miscellaneous videos such as juggling, or dramatizations of famous stories (e.g., at least 15 of M.R. James’s ghost stories are available on YouTube in productions of varying quality).
What instrument(s) did you play?
Cello. A little piano, very badly, which I learned from my awful, required “class (en mass) piano” in college.
good choice, king of the strings in my book (ofc serving as a vassal to the Emperor Double Bass)
Neat! I was classically trained on the violin (ages 8-16). Nowadays, playing funk bass/slap bass is one of my main interests. Still a stringed instrument, but such a different style of playing, etc.
Assuming you were classically trained on the cello - have you ever thought about exploring that instrument in a different way? Playing a different style of music? I found that my musical imagination really opened up when I put away the sheet music, and started learning to improvise / play the music I wanted etc.
Cello can lend itself really well to ambient, drone, jazz, funk, and all these other styles of music. Have you ever tried making other types of music with it?
There’s that band from Canada, The Dead South, who have a cellist instead of a bassist, but he holds the cello like a guitar.
When I was about seven or eight, my father taught me the walking bass and I messed around with it making up some boogie-style music. (I think he learned it from one of the jazz joints he frequented between the end of WW 2 and his marriage.) Later when I got some technique, I could do a little more coherent boogie, but never great shakes. They had some informal improvisational training at my school but I never took advantage of it. At our “coffee-house”—a basement room with comfy chairs and couches and free, self-service coffee funded by the university to the tune of $50 a semester ($50 bought a lot of coffee in those days)—students who didn’t care for the local beer garden would play chess or bridge, strum guitars, etc., this being the waning days of the hippie era. I met a guitarist there and after some discussion of improvisation, we got together and gave it a try. I had Bach’s 3rd suite memorized at the time, so I thought that might provide some foundation, but it was too hard for both of us. Also tried some pop sheet music, but it just didn’t work. Later, when I was in a quartet (subsequently a trio) playing gigs pretty regularly, I did a lot of arrangement of pop music including six Joplin rags. I have mentioned in another thread (https://forums.online-go.com/t/super-secret-hit-list-may-contain-traces-of-old-man-midriff-and-quality-visuals/24697) about our great good luck to get a free coaching session with Gunther Schuller. I think this was two years after he won a Grammy for his classical ragtime album. People used to love hearing us play those rags, it was all the rage then. However, none of that was improvisational. I no longer play, as my arthritis in my fingers is pretty bad.
My favorite things to do would be rock climbing, Russian kettlebell lifting, and playing videogames.
Escape from tarkov is the best videogame I have ever played
I’m trying to learn piano in my spare time! I also play Go, spend more time than I probably should on the forums, breathe, eat, sleep, etc.
Many people do that, including me at this point. Since January 24, I have read 11k posts in 52 days. To me at least, that seems a little excessive, although I know that staying inside for the corona virus has had an effect on this.
And I thought my 2.1k posts in 6 days was impressive!
Where are your 2.1k posts in 6 days? What site?
Posts read then? You have 2.2k posts read in those 6 days.
Yeah.
(Not posted 2.2k posts!)
Other hobbies of mine include:
- Playing, officiating, and coaching roller derby
- Video games
- “Making” (I.e. DIY electronics hobbyist, own a small CNC and laser etcher, etc.)
- Scuba diving
I have read 3.3k posts all time