OT - what good things came for you or those you know from the covid year?

OscarSouth

@mrufino1 said:

@OscarSouth said:

@Gavinski said:

@OscarSouth said:
I'd suffered a chronic forearm injury from overworking on double bass gigs while living in Dublin (high rent -> more gigs). Was seriously impairing my ability to earn an income as I was constantly pushing against the physical threshold in my primary income stream and never really healing.

No gigs for a whole year and experimenting with analogue synths and orchestration in that time over guitars has allowed me to reach a point in my healing where I can attend 2-3 rehearsals a week (possible under MU rules as it's on label premises) and practice at home in between without feeling any of my previous pain and post-exertion symptoms. I'm going to keep up the healthy rhythm I'm in now and slowly re-introduce the double bass starting a few weeks from now.

Feels good!

That's great. Have you tried anything like Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais or Egoscue Method for that issue?

I never really considered it as the issue was already reducing my income and I keep myself busy so didn’t really feel like I had time to start out on my own.

Perhaps I should look for some long term exercises to do or something. I saw an NHS physio for about 6 months who gave me some stretches but she really has no idea what the problem was — basically just said to follow whatever advice the musicians union or colleagues in music might provide as the issue was too specific for her to help.

Have you read “The bassist’s guide to injury management” by Randy Kertz? It might be worth a read. I have the first edition and it is good. It focuses primarily on electric bass but still could be helpful.

The Bassist's Guide to Injury Management, Prevention and Better Health (Musician's Health Resources Book 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077XVSBKT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_XVFB3M51QRB9J1616ZYZ

Unfortunately upright is such a physical instrument. I don’t own one anymore and there are times I think I might want to get back into it, but I really don’t have room for one. By the time I stopped playing upright though I really excelled more at making noise with it in a rockabilly fashion than at making music with it.

Currently I have a 34” scale electric upright that someone built for me, but I don’t use it much. I really only play electric bass now. I do get to do sound for some amazing bassists though and when someone really knows how to play the upright it is a wonderful thing.

I wish you the best with this, I have psoriatic arthritis, and wasn’t surprised as I dealt previous autoimmune stuff, so for me it was a countdown for a while when my basses had to get smaller and lighter. A 5 string kala u bass was my primary instrument for a few years, then a marleaux Consat sopran strung up in standard tuning. Luckily my health has improved with some (sometimes, I’m not that disciplined sadly) lifestyle changes as well as a medication that has been helping greatly, so I can play 30” scale instruments comfortably for whole gigs again. Of course, 4 month breaks between each bass gigs have certainly allowed rest!

Anyway. Before I ramble too far, I was considering sending as a PM but then thought maybe the info could help others too, so I hope you don’t mind. Happy to move it to another discussion so as not to derail the thread.

Thanks very much for that and for sharing your experience — I will absolutely read that book.

GovernorSilver

When I lost my last job - layoff due to loss of my employer's contract with the client - the upside was getting unexpected phone calls from colleagues expressing condolences, saying they're going to miss me, they loved working with me, etc. Ironically, the job loss had nothing to do with COVID. The contract just happened to expire in March 2020 and the client simply chose another vendor. Sure these phone calls didn't pay for my living expenses or whatever, but they made huge difference for my emotional health.

My former boss from a different, earlier, job called me and recommended I take one of the Carnegie-Mellon courses on Database Fundamentals on Youtube. He thought that even though I wasn't a specialist by any means in the database area, enough concepts related to system design/architecture would be taught that might help in my job search. So I watched all the videos in the course, took notes... and months later I got hired as a software architect because I was now better prepared to answer questions about system design.

Family started calling me more often, because the isolation made them hungrier for social contact. In particular, a young nephew of mine who had visited me the year before. I don't remember spoiling him or doing whatever it is that an uncle does to earn "favorite uncle" status, but for some reason he started asking his mom to call me just so he can have me watch him eat breakfast, play with his toys, etc. Maybe in a different time period I might have found this annoying? Dunno... instead these calls made me feel pretty good.