https://www.openculture.com/2022/07/how-joni-mitchell-relearned-to-play-guitar-after-a-2015-brain-aneurysm.html * Online Courses * Certificates * Degrees & Mini-Degrees * Audio Books * Movies * Podcasts * K-12 * eBooks * Languages * Donate * + + + + * [ ] [] * [] How Joni Mitchell Learned to Play Guitar Again After a 2015 Brain Aneurysm-and Made It Back to the Newport Folk Festival in Music | July 28th, 2022 Leave a Comment FacebookTwitterReddit SubscribeGoogleWhatsappPinterestDiggLinkedinStumbleuponVkPrint DeliciousBufferPocketXingTumblrMailYummlyTelegramFlipboard [INS::INS] Joni Mitchell almost quit the music industry in 1996, two years after releasing what critics called her best album since the 70s, 1994's Turbulent Indigo. "I was in a losing fight with a business that basically, you know, was treating me like an also-ran or a has-been, even though I was still doing good work," she told an interviewer at the time. "Everything about the business disgusted me." But show business has never really been about the show or the business for Mitchell. From her deeply personal songwriting to her vocal vulnerability, she imbues her music with the deepest parts of herself. Then there's her brilliantly idiosyncratic guitar playing. "Her guitar doesn't really sound like a guitar," Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers writes at Acoustic Guitar. "The treble strings become a cool-jazz horn section; the bass snaps out of syncopations like a snare drum; the notes ring out in clusters that simply don't come out of a normal six-string." Mitchell "mastered the idea that she could tune the guitar any way she wanted," says David Crosby. She tuned to "the numbers in a date... a piece of music that I liked on the radio," she says. "I'd tune to birdsongs and the landscape I was sitting in." Trying to duplicate Mitchell's tunings is typically a fool's errand; even she forgets them. But "Joni's weird chords," as she says, are indispensable to her sound. (She also says she's only written two songs -- one of them her first -- in standard tuning.) In 1996, a digital guitar pedal that emulated her tunings and allowed a greater range of symphonic tones brought her back to the stage. Or, to put it another way -- what brought her back to music was the guitar, which is exactly what brought her back to the stage at this year's Newport Folk Festival -- playing her first live set in 20 years after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. (She last played Newport 53 years ago in 1969.) Nothing keeps Joni down for long. In this case, however, Mitchell didn't just forget her tunings after her illness. She forgot how to play the guitar altogether. She had to teach herself again by watching videos of her playing online. "I'm learning," she says in the CBS interview at the top. "I'm looking at videos that are on the net, to see where to put my fingers. It's amazing... when you have an aneurysm, you don't know how to get into a chair. You don't know how to get out of bed. You have to learn all these things again. You're going back to infancy, almost." She's come a long way since 2015, when she could neither speak nor walk, "much less play the guitar," notes NPR. "To be able to recover to the point of being able to perform as a musician is really incredible," says Dr. Anthony Wang, a neurosurgeon at Ronald Regan UCLA Hospital. "Playing an instrument and vocal cord coordination, those sort of things are really, super complex fine movements that would take a long time to relearn." Mitchell's commitment to mastering her instrument again was unflagging. See her above pluck out "Joni's weird chords" on one of her Parker Fly guitars in a solo section from the song "Just Like This Train" from Court & Spark. As we noted in an earlier post, she was joined at Newport by a host of celebrity friends, including Brandi Carlisle, who sits with her in the CBS interview and confirms the amount of "will and grit" she applied to her recovery. She's survived polio, personal tragedy, the 60s, chain smoking, and a debilitating aneurysm: the 78-year-old living legend won't be with us forever, but we might expect she'll have a guitar in her hand when she finally makes her exit from the music business for the last time. via NPR Related Content: Joni Mitchell Sings "Both Sides Now" at the Newport Folk Festival: Watch Clips from Her First Full Concert Since 2002 Hear Demos & Outtakes of Joni Mitchell's Blue on the 50th Anniversary of the Classic Album How Joni Mitchell Wrote "Woodstock," the Song that Defined the Legendary Music Festival, Even Though She Wasn't There (1969) Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness. FacebookTwitterReddit SubscribeGoogleWhatsappPinterestDiggLinkedinStumbleuponVkPrint DeliciousBufferPocketXingTumblrMailYummlyTelegramFlipboard by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (0) | Support Open Culture We're hoping to rely on our loyal readers rather than erratic ads. To support Open Culture's educational mission, please consider making a donation. We accept PayPal, Venmo (@openculture), Patreon and Crypto! Please find all options here. We thank you! [lazy_placeholder] [btn_donate_cc_147x4] Comments (0) Be the first to comment. Leave a Reply Name (required) [ ] Email (required) [ ] Message [ ] [Submit] Click here to cancel reply. Wordpress Hashcash needs javascript to work, but your browser has javascript disabled. Your comment will be queued in Akismet! [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] * Essentials + 1,700 Free Online Courses + 200 Online Certificate Programs + 100+ Online Degree & Mini-Degree Programs + 1,150 Free Movies + 1,000 Free Audio Books + 150+ Best Podcasts + 800 Free eBooks + 200 Free Textbooks + 300 Free Language Lessons + 150 Free Business Courses + Free K-12 Education + Get Our Daily Email * Support Us We're hoping to rely on loyal readers, rather than erratic ads. Please click the Donate button and support Open Culture. You can use Paypal, Venmo, Patreon, even Crypto! We thank you! [lazy_placeholder][btn_donate_cc_147x4] * Free Courses + Art & Art History + Astronomy + Biology + Business + Chemistry + Classics/Ancient World + Computer Science + Data Science + Economics + Engineering + Environment + History + Literature + Math + Philosophy + Physics + Political Science + Psychology + Religion + Writing & Journalism + All 1500 Free Courses + 1000+ MOOCs & Certificate Courses * * Free Movies + 1150 Free Movies Online + Free Film Noir + Silent Films + Documentaries + Martial Arts/Kung Fu + Animations + Free Hitchcock Films + Free Charlie Chaplin + Free John Wayne Movies + Free Tarkovsky Films + Free Dziga Vertov + Free Oscar Winners * Free Language Lessons + Arabic + Chinese + English + French + German + Italian + Russian + Spanish + All Languages * Free eBooks + 700 Free eBooks + Free Philosophy eBooks + The Harvard Classics + Philip K. Dick Stories + Neil Gaiman Stories + David Foster Wallace Stories & Essays + Hemingway Stories + Great Gatsby & Other Fitzgerald Novels + HP Lovecraft + Edgar Allan Poe + Free Alice Munro Stories + Jennifer Egan Stories + George Saunders Stories + Hunter S. Thompson Essays + Joan Didion Essays + Gabriel Garcia Marquez Stories + David Sedaris Stories + Stephen King + Chomsky + Golden Age Comics + Free Books by UC Press + Life Changing Books * Free Audio Books + 700 Free Audio Books + Free Audio Books: Fiction + Free Audio Books: Poetry + Free Audio Books: Non-Fiction * Free Textbooks + 200 Free Textbooks + Free Physics Textbooks + Free Computer Science Textbooks + Free Math Textbooks * K-12 Resources + Free Books + Free Video Lessons + Web Resources by Subject + Free Language Lessons + Quality YouTube Channels + Teacher Resources + Test Prep + All Free Kids Resources * FREE UPDATES! GET OUR DAILY EMAIL Get the best cultural and educational resources on the web curated for you in a daily email. We never spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Click Here to sign up for our newsletter FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA + + + + * Free Art & Images + All Art Images & Books + The Met + The Getty + The Rijksmuseum + Smithsonian + The Guggenheim + The Tate + The National Gallery + The Whitney + LA County Museum + Stanford University + British Library + Google Art Project + French Revolution + Getty Images + Guggenheim Art Books + Met Art Books + Getty Art Books + New York Public Library Maps + Museum of New Zealand + Street Art + Smarthistory + Rembrandt + Van Gogh + Coloring Books * Free Music + All Bach Organ Works + All of Bach + 80,000 Classical Music Scores + Free Classical Music + Live Classical Music + 9,000 Grateful Dead Concerts + Alan Lomax Blues & Folk Archive * Writing Tips + Hemingway + Fitzgerald + Stephen King + Ray Bradbury + William Zinsser + Kurt Vonnegut + Toni Morrison + Edgar Allan Poe + Margaret Atwood + David Ogilvy + Steinbeck + Billy Wilder * Archive + All posts by date * Categories + Amazon Kindle + Animation + Apple + Architecture + Archives + Art + Astronomy + Audio Books + Beat & Tweets + Biology + Books + Business + Chemistry + Coloring Books + Comedy + Comics/Cartoons + Computer Science + Creativity + Current Affairs + Dance + Data + Deals + Design + e-books + Economics + Education + English Language + Entrepreneurship + Environment + Fashion + Film + Finance + Food & Drink + Games + Gender + Google + Graduation Speech + Harvard + Health + History + How to Learn for Free + Internet Archive + iPad + iPhone + Jazz + K-12 + Language + Language Lessons + Law + Letters + Libraries + Life + Literature + Magazines + Maps + Math + Media + MIT + MOOCs + Most Popular + Museums + Music + Nature + Neuroscience + Online Courses + Opera + Philosophy + Photography + Physics + Podcasts + Poetry + Politics + Pretty Much Pop + Productivity + Psychology + Radio + Random + Religion + Sci Fi + Science + Software + Sports + Stanford + Technology + TED Talks + Television + Theatre + Travel + Twitter + UC Berkeley + Uncategorized + Video - Arts & Culture + Video - Politics/Society + Video - Science + Video Games + Web/Tech + Wikipedia + Writing + Yale + YouTube * * Great Lectures + Michel Foucault + Sun Ra at UC Berkeley + Richard Feynman + Joseph Campbell + Carl Sagan + Margaret Atwood + Jorge Luis Borges + Leonard Bernstein + Richard Dawkins + Buckminster Fuller + Walter Kaufmann on Existentialism + Jacques Lacan + Roland Barthes + Nobel Lectures by Writers + Toni Morrison + Bertrand Russell + Oxford Philosophy Lectures * About Us [lazy_place][open-cultu] Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between. Advertise With Us * Receive our Daily Email Get the best cultural and educational resources delivered to your inbox Subscribe * Great Recordings + T.S. Eliot Reads Waste Land + Sylvia Plath - Ariel + Joyce Reads Ulysses + Joyce - Finnegans Wake + Patti Smith Reads Virginia Woolf + Albert Einstein + Charles Bukowski + Bill Murray + Hemingway + Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare + William Faulkner + Flannery O'Connor + Tolkien - The Hobbit + Allen Ginsberg - Howl + W.B Yeats + Ezra Pound + Dylan Thomas + Anne Sexton + John Cheever + David Foster Wallace * Book Lists By + Neil deGrasse Tyson + Ernest Hemingway + F. Scott Fitzgerald + Allen Ginsberg + Patti Smith + Brian Eno + Henry Miller + Christopher Hitchens + Joseph Brodsky + W.H. Auden + Donald Barthelme + Carl Sagan + David Bowie + Samuel Beckett + Art Garfunkel + Marilyn Monroe + Jorge Luis Borges + Picks by Female Creatives * * Syllabi + WH Auden + David Foster Wallace + Donald Barthelme + Allen Ginsberg + Zadie Smith & Gary Shteyngart + Spike Lee + Lynda Barry + Junot Diaz * Favorite Movies + Kubrick + Kurosawa's 100 + Tarantino + Scorsese + Tarkovsky + David Lynch + Werner Herzog + Woody Allen + Wes Anderson + Luis Bunuel + Roger Ebert + Susan Sontag + Scorsese Foreign Films + Philosophy Films * Archives + July 2022 + June 2022 + May 2022 + April 2022 + March 2022 + February 2022 + January 2022 + December 2021 + November 2021 + October 2021 + September 2021 + August 2021 + July 2021 + June 2021 + May 2021 + April 2021 + March 2021 + February 2021 + January 2021 + December 2020 + November 2020 + October 2020 + September 2020 + August 2020 + July 2020 + June 2020 + May 2020 + April 2020 + March 2020 + February 2020 + January 2020 + December 2019 + November 2019 + October 2019 + September 2019 + August 2019 + July 2019 + June 2019 + May 2019 + April 2019 + March 2019 + February 2019 + January 2019 + December 2018 + November 2018 + October 2018 + September 2018 + August 2018 + July 2018 + June 2018 + May 2018 + April 2018 + March 2018 + February 2018 + January 2018 + December 2017 + November 2017 + October 2017 + September 2017 + August 2017 + July 2017 + June 2017 + May 2017 + April 2017 + March 2017 + February 2017 + January 2017 + December 2016 + November 2016 + October 2016 + September 2016 + August 2016 + July 2016 + June 2016 + May 2016 + April 2016 + March 2016 + February 2016 + January 2016 + December 2015 + November 2015 + October 2015 + September 2015 + August 2015 + July 2015 + June 2015 + May 2015 + April 2015 + March 2015 + February 2015 + January 2015 + December 2014 + November 2014 + October 2014 + September 2014 + August 2014 + July 2014 + June 2014 + May 2014 + April 2014 + March 2014 + February 2014 + January 2014 + December 2013 + November 2013 + October 2013 + September 2013 + August 2013 + July 2013 + June 2013 + May 2013 + April 2013 + March 2013 + February 2013 + January 2013 + December 2012 + November 2012 + October 2012 + September 2012 + August 2012 + July 2012 + June 2012 + May 2012 + April 2012 + March 2012 + February 2012 + January 2012 + December 2011 + November 2011 + October 2011 + September 2011 + August 2011 + July 2011 + June 2011 + May 2011 + April 2011 + March 2011 + February 2011 + January 2011 + December 2010 + November 2010 + October 2010 + September 2010 + August 2010 + July 2010 + June 2010 + May 2010 + April 2010 + March 2010 + February 2010 + January 2010 + December 2009 + November 2009 + October 2009 + September 2009 + August 2009 + July 2009 + June 2009 + May 2009 + April 2009 + March 2009 + February 2009 + January 2009 + December 2008 + November 2008 + October 2008 + September 2008 + August 2008 + July 2008 + June 2008 + May 2008 + April 2008 + March 2008 + February 2008 + January 2008 + December 2007 + November 2007 + October 2007 + September 2007 + August 2007 + July 2007 + June 2007 + May 2007 + April 2007 + March 2007 + February 2007 + January 2007 + December 2006 + November 2006 + October 2006 + September 2006 * Search [open-cultu] (c)2006-2022 Open Culture, LLC. All rights reserved. * Home * About Us * Advertise with Us * Copyright Policy * Privacy Policy * Terms of Use * Bio * Audio Books * Online Courses * MOOCs * Movies * Languages * Textbooks * eBooks * * * * Quantcast Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman. Cleantalk Pixel Open Culture (openculture.com) and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyze our traffic. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. Cookie settingsACCEPT Privacy & Cookies Policy Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Necessary [*] Necessary Always Enabled Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information. Non-necessary [*] Non-necessary Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. SAVE & ACCEPT Close Do you want more open culture? if you like our Facebook fanpage, you'll receive more articles like the one you just read! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you already like us on Facebook? Do not ask me again for Facebook --------------------------------------------------------------------- Continue to the article >>