I wish I could play the piano well. What skill that you lack do you most wish you possessed?
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57 comments to Friday quiz |
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I wish I could bowl legspin like Shane Warne.
I really should be able to speak at least one other language. Being an Anglophone allows me to be linguistically lazy. I should at least learn an easy language like Bahasa – which I started in high school but didn’t follow through with.
I also would dearly love to play the piano well, Johnathan. That too I learnt as a young tacker and didn’t continue. I also learnt to play the trombone, but I gave that up because
a) I wasn’t exactly diligent when it came to practicing
b) I noticed all the good trombone players had massive muscly lips (anyone who’s played the trombone knows the critical role of the performer’s lips); a look I wasn’t that keen on as a vain youth.
And, yes, I will second the wish that I spoke at least one more language. I was particularly struck by this in Paris last week, when I realised that speaking French (as well as helping me in my culinary and oenophile pursuits) would allow me to better
hit on beautiful French women in Parisian cafesappreciate la gloire.It’s just a matter of personal discipline though. I could learn to speak French if I wanted to. I was and am never going to be able to bowl like Shane Warne.
Oh, come on Michael. Don’t sell yourself short.
Wish I was proficient in Latin.
Stuff modern languages, don’t see any value in being ignorant in both English and French (or Russian, or Spanish or anything else).
The ability to avoid trivia.
I always quite fancied being a world class skateboarder
I wish I could write coherently, succinctly and convincingly.
I wish I could do the stuff Derren Brown does.
I would use my powers for evil.
I wish I could write coherently, succinctly and convincingly.
Well, I understand that. You convinced me.
I suspect I’m more likely to succeed at learning a foreign language properly, because that calls only for hard work and concentration, which I can do (sometimes). If I’m being offered a gift however, I’ll go for infallible charm, so men will do my bidding, and beautiful women are unable to resist my advances. No amount of hard work will turn a plug ugly, charmless slaphead into that infallible seducer
Chris,
Yeah I can do it in short bursts, but anything longer turns into a bit of a ramble. I also have a tendency to use one long word where the reader would be better served by a few short ones. One of the drawbacks of an extensive vocabulary is the feeling that it should be used. Leaves me coming across as slightly condescending and pretentious, which is never my intention.
Another skill I’d quite like to have is being able to show off with a quarterstaff (like they do in kung fu films, all the spinning and jumping and stuff). It’d also give me an excuse to walk about with a big stick, looking all brooding and interesting.
I would love to be creative- i.e. blank sheet creative (vital spark) rather than honing talents of others (shaper).
I wish I had a cracking singing voice.
I wish I could tell funny stories that would hold audiences in rapt attention like Billy Connolly.
I wish I could stay within the bounds of the questions, i.e. choose one instead of three. If it had to be one, it would be the third one.
I wish I could turn the music in my head that acompanies my lyrics into notes on the piano or guitar. Inotherwords I would like to be able to write music.
I have always been rubbish at having sex with three women at the same time, but I am convinced all I need is practice. So if a trio of friendly ladies are passing Bristol…
Seriously though- To play guitar as well as John Fahey, Leo Kotkke or John McLaughlin. I am fortunate to have an ace pianist on the premises already.
I wish I could play the harp.
I wish for me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to tell the difference.
A super spot-on memory would be excellent, so I could remember everything I saw and heard, perfectly, first time – if I wanted.
Then I could learn Latin, French, etc. and have a fair stab at the piano.
I wish I had the self-control to restrain myself from looking over to samizdata when I should be doing some work.
I have always been rubbish at having sex with three women at the same time, but I am convinced all I need is practice. So if a trio of friendly ladies are passing Bristol…
Ok, I guess in saying Wish I was proficient in Latin I was setting my expectations a bit low.
Amended wish – I wish I were renowned for the depth of both my ability and experience in making long, deep and passionate love to multiple beautiful, cooperative and enthusiastic young but post pubescent and legal human women simultaneously, and that I will have opportunity to extend this experience as often as I wish in the future, and that I live a respectable lifespan.
There. Have I left a loophole that the nasty wish fairy can exploit in order to shaft me and deprive me of the spirit of the wish?
Welding.
The wish fairy will probably slip a sex change on you Chris.
Could be interesting though!
Can we watch?
Chris,
You left a monster hole for the wish fairy. You say you wish “you were renowned” for your sexual prowess. Well, it’s possible to be renowned for something completely without justification in reality.
Now, if we take “respectable lifespan” from a global average, including AIDS-ridden Sub-Saharan Africa…
I’d make an evil genie!
RAB,
There are many websites out there for preverts like yourself contaminating the precious bodily fluids of Samizdata.
Send me a ‘mail and I’ll suggest some 😉
It’s nice to know I’m not alone in regretting gving up the piano. I’ll wish for modest proficiency at any instrument (including my singing voice). More proficiency would be better, and an instrument that would easily allow me to make music with others would be best (guitar, piano, or voice, for example).
I wish I coudl play keyboard like Keith Emerson.
I would love to be able to speak to people (both in person and on stage) easily.
Before reading everybody else’s, I wanted to:
*Not just hunt game, but actually find it.
*Write music or English well.
*Finish and not just start reading Russian novels.
*Halve my twelve-pack abs.
But after reading the rest, you were right to ask for infallible charm and multiple women (multiple brunettes even better). I suppose I need more good sense, then, as well.
Now that it’s been mentioned, I’d love to possess a characterful singing voice with a wide vocal range – that would just beat being a piano virtuoso. My singing voice is very boy-bandish – good pitch control but thin with little timbre. Typical white boy voice, really.
When I was a brash twenty something I wanted to be published and was in Punch (under my maiden non- woody name); then I wanted children and had them. Now I want to be able to ice a cake with flowers and folderols of exotic provenance and sadly I know I’m too klutzy to ever make it happen.
Butterflies dear Millie
Butterflies.
I’ll apologise for this in advance
Do you have two female friends who can read a map!!?
“To play guitar as well as John Fahey, Leo Kotkke or John McLaughlin.”
A Leo Kotkke fan here on Samizdata — nice.
I’ve seen him many times up here in the New England area. Always a good time. He plays the guitar like 3 men.
Duncan
This is one of those “Oh God, where do I start” kind of questions.
I wish I hadn’t given up the piano at age 12 and, when I took it up again at university, had listened to Ms. Lipp and actually practiced instead of bluffing.
I wish I could improvise and play the piano by ear, instead of needing to rely on having every note written down.
I wish I could play stride like Fats Waller.
I wish I could carry a tune in a basket, which I can’t.
I wish I could read a story out loud in a way that’s pleasant to listen to.
I wish I had done more than 1 year of High School French.
I wish I had learned Latin and Greek as a schoolboy and had kept up the skill.
I wish I could write non-fiction without first putting on my pompous hat and could fiction at all.
And most of all, I really, really wish I had learned to play the violin.
OK, I’m not sure what you are rambling on about, but if you meant to say that you would like to be able to write better, sorry but I find that hard to believe.
So do I. Moe, Larry and Curly.
On a more serious note. E flat.
E didn’t used to be, though.
Too many bar chords.
‘swat ‘appens when musicians make scale.
I wish I had a singer’s voice. I’d probably have to give it back, though.
While I’m at it, I wish I had better jokes.
I wish I could:
Speak other languages fluently (I tried French and Spanish, but proved a poor linguist)
Play guitar (I tried learning, but never had any flare for it)
Ride a horde (never tried, intend to do so someday though)
Make lots and lots of money and make beautiful women fall in love with me (’nuff said)
Whoops, in the above post read “horde” as “horse” 😉
Midwesterner –
Are they putting something in the water in Madison or have you been possessed by the spirit of Basil Brush?
Here I was thinking your wish to ride a horde was merely a function of an indiscriminate nature.
But what about all those poor, unridden hordes? I can just see them now, wandering aimlessly across the prairie, disconsolate because no one wants to ride them.
It’s enough to break your heart.
Anyway, I know there is no devil, because if there was, he would have gotten my soul a long time ago by promising me I could be a major league baseball player. I’m pretty sure I would have signed anything to get that, at least when I was younger.
Now, I only envy people who can write really well, or create music at a high quality level. I enjoy those things so much, I would love to be on the other side.
Finally, I have to say, you guys with the “three women” fantasy are crazy. Why have three of them po’ed at you? Isn’t one enough?
It’s the piano for me too, I think. Mind you, William Hague took it up after the Tories kicked him out, so there’s still time…
To be honest, though, I’d settle for being more than adequately competent at anything.
RobtE,
I really like Terry Thomas’ stuff. Does that count?
TCL,
I liked it better with the typo. I was figuring your’s to be a far more ambitious form of RAB’s wish.
‘I wish I could improvise and play the piano by ear…”
I wish I could play guitar like my brother, who’s also a bitch mandolin player. He doesn’t have my clock — my sense of time — but he can pick a melody line out of thin air and just wail it. He hears it once, and it’s down. I have sweat bood over every note, by comparison.
J.D. Harper —
“I would love to be able to speak to people (both in person and on stage) easily.”
The single most valuable class that I ever took in high school was a speech class. It was a little backwater in the curriculum: a fairly odd group of people took it, most just to fill out an elective square with something they thought they could coast on. Every single week of that course, we had to spend all week working up a speech on something or other, in some variant of format or other, and then stand right up in front of everybody in the room on Friday and deliver it.
I had absolutely no skill at this whatever, being a remarkably shy and withdrawn character in those years. Well…
It’s funny that you mention a “stage”. I work as a lighting director on rock tours. I’ve often worked as a master electrician or production rigger, and that last gig is particularly interesting: the rigger is the first one on deck in the morning, and generally sets a lot of the tone for the whole day. And a lot of the responsibility involves summarily marshalling the efforts of a whole new crowd of workers — every day — and doing it with knowledge of the work plus command presence: being able to look people in the eye in public and impart to them the confidence that you know what you’re doing.
That course is one of the best moves that I ever made. Entirely by accident, of course, but it’s plain as day when I look back at it.
I don’t know how old you are, where you live, or what, but I might suggest looking around for something like that at maybe a community college or what.
I wish I could play the cello or the violin. I love listening to any kind of music that has it. It could be a completely crap song by Eisbrecher and I’d still love it.
Nick,
Renowned is fine, I thought that one through. I do specify opportunity to extend the level of experience as often as I wish in the future.
Maybe I will go back to Latin. A knowledge of Latin is a mark of the truly educated and informed, and none of the usual arguments for any other second language cut much ice with me. They usually boil down to some multi culti knocking of the Anglos.
Chris,
Latin’s for wimps. The truly erudite long ago moved onto Chaldean and Sanskrit. Personally, I’m well past that and have almost deciphered Linear A and I can talk to the cat and though I do not yet know what I am saying to him he seems to understand.
I wish I’d been able to do Latin at school. My mother did! Of course it’s “elitist” now. Recent UK edjookashun planz inculde stuff like “15 minutes of Mandarin Chinese” a day and bringing multiculturalism into all subjects.
Nick,
I understand your point about Chaldean, and I certainly regard gaining knowledge of Linear A as a respectable intellectual enterprise, however, a knowledge of Latin, of itself, implies a greater knowledge of European history, philosophy, philology, law, jurisprudence, formal logic and constitutionalism than any other single subject I can think of.
A knowledge of Sanskrit, I grant you, may have similar implications, but for Indian civilisation, rather than European.
Billy. So you’re a Lights man.My next door neighbour is a sound man. Runs the Jazz and Accustic stages at Glastonbury, builds systems etc.
Do you get any UK gigs?
I’ll add another wish if I may-
To sometime sit down and have a drink with some of my favorite Samizdatas face to face.
I wish I could play the piano to concert standard.
Failing that, I wish I was born American.
Nick and Chris,
If Chaldean is your bag, I can direct you to many 24-hour check-cashing package-liquor stores in Detroit where you can brush up on it. Communication through the bullet resistant glass is a challenge, though.
A trick I learned from an English teacher years ago is to learn a language by reading the naughtier things available. French lad magazines and Muscovite web sites featuring, ahem, the true Girl Friend Experience, focus the concentration slightly better than standard educational fare.
If Hugh Hefner ever gets around to a Sanskrit edition, I will be right there with the elites–at least I will be fluent in birthdates, measurements, turn-ons, and turn-offs.
RAB —
“My next door neighbour is a sound man.”
“Hum-head.” They call us “squints”.
“Do you get any UK gigs?”
Not lately. It’s actually been quite a little while since I’ve been over there. I’ve been working for the same artist for nine years, now, and most of the international action has been in the far east, Caribbean, and smatterings on the Continent. I’ll tell you what: the next time I land on The Oulde Sod, I’ll see if I can let you know, but it’s hard sometimes. I recently blew through Hollywood (it was an odd schedule) without the sense to ring Matt Welch and I always hate it when that happens but it can happen.
We’ll see.
Nice one!
Look forward to it.
I would love to be able to consistently hit a 30″ steel target at 1200 yards with some heavy duty rifle – like a .338 Lapua or something. Iron sights and without glasses.
I would be cool with playing guitar well. Its guarantees you are the life of the party. (Then, of course, I would have to learn how to sing & play.)
I wish I could seduce and satisfy girls, instead of turning them into lesbians just by talking to them. We don’t all get the super-powers that impress, but I suppose mine, by decreasing the pool of breeding women, is essential in today’s overcrowded world. My semi-hero name is Nick (Niceguy) Gray. Any other differently-superpowered mutants out there?
P.S. Chris Harper, another flaw is that you may become renowned for being a carrier of every STD in the land, so you’d be locked up for society’s good, where you could experience the gay lifestyle firsthand, thus broadening your experience. Don’t do it man! Hand the wish back in unused, and we can all get out alive!