How do people hold the bassoon again?

October 2, 2023 11:43 AM

Guessing what instrument someone plays... based on photos of their hands. From the comments: If they’re looking at calluses, maybe I should have sent pics to REALLY confuse them 😅. I play flute and piano and just started violin. But my calluses are from climbing and tennis 😂😂😂 But seriously, this is an exception to the rule that you should never read Youtube comments. Read these! Another comment: "That is such a waste of big hands" -TwoSet. But also as a pianist I agree

TwoSetViolin previously and previouslier on MeFi.

posted by spamandkimchi (26 comments total)

I've mentioned before that decades of playing upright bass and cello have left the tendons in my left hand limber enough so that when I spread my fingers, those on my left hand spread an inch or two more than those on my right.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:06 PM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

After 45+ years of drawing I have a deep groove in the side of my middle finger where the pencil rests.

Proud of that void.
posted by chronkite at 12:48 PM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Sent this to my band nerd niece. She was so chuffed that she correctly guessed her fellow flautist.
posted by robotmachine at 1:02 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I still have weird different mouth indents from playing flute with braces and relearning without. I went to one of those fancy audition schools for high school. As a flautist (autocorrect really preferred flutist), even with open holes, you get less calluses, etc. But that braces off stage......whoa. (I expect (and am starting to experience) some odd arthritis, though who knows if that is flute and piano or crochet!?)
posted by atomicstone at 1:03 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ooh can we all share? I've still got a hard bump on my right thumb from my bass clarinet's thumb rest, and I haven't played in a depressingly long time. Bass clarinet is best clarinet! I'm happy to have a little reminder of happy times with my favorite instrument
posted by Baethan at 1:09 PM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

TwoSet Violin are elitist (and kind of racist) assholes who probably shouldn't be linked in any positive way; at least, many in the classical music world regard them with great disdain.
posted by LooseFilter at 1:18 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

(My comment is the kind of purity test that I actually dislike about MetaFilter culture, but the constant, overt musical and intellectual elitism that runs throughout TwoSet's "championing" of classical music is just really offensive to me--as a musician and music professor, but also as someone who just loves music--and is also wrong, considering the actual history of this musical tradition. And the casual racism in their mocking impressions is gross.)
posted by LooseFilter at 1:26 PM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

How do people hold the bassoon again?

Furtively, and with shame and regret at their life choices.
;)
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:43 PM on October 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

LooseFilter, thanks for sharing that critique. I can very well imagine the problematic stereotyping, though I think I have (instinctively?) steered clear of those videos. I haven't ever clicked on the videos about Asian parents, for example. I will look for the criticisms by folks in the classical music world re: their elitism, I probably will have been totally clueless about this because I was a classical music playing kid and grew up with this sort of veneration* of "god-like" playing.

I still hope MeFi folks can enjoy sharing callus stories. As a small-handed person who played piano throughout the entirety of my pre-university education (!!!!) I am ruthless about keeping my nails short.

* My parents still, to this day, tell me whenever a Korean or a diasporic Korean wins a big music competition.
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:07 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

>many in the classical music world regard them with great disdain.

my experience is the exact opposite, as a member of the classical music world.
posted by hollisimo at 2:31 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

TwoSet Violin are elitist

yes, violin is right there in the name
posted by emmling at 2:52 PM on October 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

I played the cello as a teenager and miss the grooves on my left fingertips.
posted by doctornemo at 2:54 PM on October 2, 2023

I only have a casual familiarity with TwoSet but do they have racial jokes that aren’t playing off their own background? Obviously you may feel that it’s poorly calibrated/sending the wrong message regardless but when I read that a YouTube personality is “casually racist” my first thought is something a bit worse than a couple of Asian-Australian guys invoking “Asian parents” stereotypes and joking about this kind of attitude

I probably will have been totally clueless about this because I was a classical music playing kid and grew up with this sort of veneration* of "god-like" playing

Similarly I thought at least some of the classical elitism was self-parody, though maybe not all of it.
posted by atoxyl at 5:15 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Most of the criticism of them I can find basically suggests they overplay that shtick to the point that it’s just spreading the stereotypes - which is a fair enough take when thus explained. But

My comment is the kind of purity test that I actually dislike about MetaFilter culture

while I don’t mind critical comments at all “here are a bunch of totally context-free reasons these people are bad and in fact you probably shouldn’t post them” is a part of MeFi culture that genuinely sucks pretty bad.
posted by atoxyl at 5:36 PM on October 2, 2023 [14 favorites]

I do I do I do have my own callus story!

Back in the pre-Fender-Rhodes era when I started playing professionally, I found work primarily in Oʻahu military clubs, which all seemed to offer terribly beat-up off-tune spinet pianos for me to play on. To get the low end of these pianos less shallow sounding, I developed the habit of karateishly chopping at the bass notes, using the space between side-of-hand and first pinkie joint. A nice thick unique callus quickly developed, which only melted away years after the need for such action was no longer necessary.

Slightly OT, first time I gigged as part of a Loud Rock Music band, impulsively I took up playing a tambourine whenever the song in question had no need of a keyboard. Whacked it Loud and Enthusiastically too, at least during those heady first days on the gig, until I discovered the mid-thigh blue bruise the Whacking was making.
posted by Droll Lord at 6:02 PM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don’t mean to be context-free, but also have neither the time nor the inclination to find and link citations to prove my argument to the court. My comment is a heads-up to any who may be interested, and not a Final Judgment About TwoSet nor any Pronouncement About Those Who Dare to Like Them.

Videos where they mock other musicians, especially beginner-level lessons and other content aimed toward amateurs, are easy to find on their channel if anyone’s curious. The nature of that mockery was often (in the videos I saw some time ago) imitating the person they were mocking, and some of that was also questionable to me. I also recall a fair bit of disdain for popular music of any kind—not as a matter of taste, but because it’s (supposedly, intrinsically) simplistic. But I stopped viewing their content some time ago; hopefully they’ve matured.

(OK, I lied, here’s an example.)

yes, violin is right there in the name

QED.
posted by LooseFilter at 6:38 PM on October 2, 2023

I never learned how to play an instrument, really. A little saxophone in fourth grade.
I had calluses on my right thumb and index finger for several years from opening and closing soda bottles, though.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 7:31 PM on October 2, 2023

I had a little moment there where I thought this might be "...from looking at photos of their mouths".
'Oh, that's a trombonist for sure. You can tell by the top lip.'
Not a musician, so I can't say if that's a thing.

(I say this as a person who labors under the delusion that they can sometimes tell a person's primary languages by looking at the fine muscles of their face. This goes back to an incident watching something with Kristin Scott Thomas and thinking 'why does her face seem different somehow? Is it just me?'. Then when she switches to fluent Francais, it clicks and I say 'ah yes of course, French Mouth'.)
posted by bartleby at 8:08 PM on October 2, 2023

Trombonist in public school; cymbalist briefly in college; faked my way drumming for a time after graduation (it was easier than I thought it would be, not that I was any good). No calluses.
posted by lhauser at 8:41 PM on October 2, 2023

One of my first-ever AskMe comments, before I knew that smartass non-answers weren't cool (and yet I guess there was enough actual content first to get away with it?).
posted by dr. boludo at 9:01 PM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hands allow for a certain amount of nature-nurture speculation [it's hard to do a controlled experiment]. My twin sister and I both have a peculiar right-hand thumb where the last joint / phalange blurfs out wider than the left and the nail-bed is shorter. As kids we only noticed my sister's version and put it down to thumb-sucking. As an adult evolutionary biologist, paying attention to my own asymmetry as well as hers, I conclude that it might have something to do with the swirling in utero growth hormone soup that helps determine that, in general, the arms finish up the same length - left a bit, right a bit, right a bit more etc. I wonder if I coulda been a contender as a clarinetist which, as baethan points out, requires / acquires a right thumb callus.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:21 AM on October 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

As a once-upon-a-time sax player, the callouses I remember having were on the inside of my lower lip, not on my hands. Not sure if double-reed instrumentalists get something similar though.
posted by aught at 4:51 AM on October 3, 2023

My recorders never really left calluses, but while I was playing it would have been possible to tell by how carefully I trimmed my left thumbnail. (You have to crook your left thumb on the thumbhole to get to the instrument's higher register. It's more precise with a good thumbnail.)
posted by humbug at 5:48 AM on October 3, 2023

As a once-upon-a-time sax player, the callouses I remember having were on the inside of my lower lip, not on my hands.

Same. Also, callouses on my left hand from carrying the case to/from school.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:08 PM on October 3, 2023

carrying the case to/from school

Ask any euphonium player about that.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:17 PM on October 3, 2023

Writers’ Bumps: An Endangered Condition?
posted by Rhaomi at 10:02 PM on October 4, 2023