[HN Gopher] Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2...
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Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2015 brain
aneurysm
Author : revorad
Score : 163 points
Date : 2022-07-29 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| marcodiego wrote:
| There's a very interesting Brazilian case: Herbert Vianna, singer
| of the band "Paralamas do Sucesso" crashed his ultra-light
| aircraft and had some brain damage. He can't walk anymore, after
| the accident he couldn't speak Portuguese but could speak
| English. He had to relearn who he was and quickly came become to
| the successful artist he always was. He even recovered hos
| political views.
| labrador wrote:
| Joni Mitchell is a treasure. I have a thought exercise I
| sometimes use for popular musicians: "Will they still be popular
| 100 or 200 years from now, like Mozart or Bach are today?" Pink
| Floyd: yes, Joni Mitchell: yes.
|
| My love of Joni's music goes back to high school in America, but
| as a working class young man the 70's it was best to keep it a
| quiet if you didn't want people to think you were gay. Tough guys
| listened to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, then the Sex Pistols.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I _hope_ she 's still popular. She's a genuine genius, the
| music is astounding, and as a personality she's a force of
| nature.
|
| But I have a theory that you're not destined for immortality
| until at least three generations love your work. Pink Floyd and
| maybe Kate Bush seem to be there, but I'm not sure Joni is yet.
| labrador wrote:
| I'm afraid you are right. Sadly, that means many brilliant
| musicians like Tom Waits are destined to fade into obscurity.
| I'm sure Tom Waits will live on, but fewer people will know
| his brilliance.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I watched the Kennedy Center Honors show for her. Even though
| I've known about her forever, I was blown away by how great
| those songs are, even when performed by someone else. Maybe
| even "especially performed by someone else."
|
| Now I have the super-high-fidelity digital version of _Blue_.
| Along with an outboard D /A converter to take advantage of it.
| [deleted]
| wyclif wrote:
| I love her best albums, like _Blue_ and _Hejira_. Sadly, I don
| 't listen to her much anymore since I listen to all my music on
| Spotify and she pulled all her albums from the platform,
| because Joe Rogan (or something). Disappointing.
| labrador wrote:
| I don't use Spotify. I use YouTube on the desktop with ad
| blockers.
|
| YouTube is doing something amazing which is auto uploading
| music from all over the world in partnership with
| aggregators. For example:
|
| Samoliot - Dzhuna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgeZtWT2gz8
|
| Provided to YouTube by National Digital Aggregator LLC
|
| Samoliot * Dzhuna 2,220 views 2020 Released on: 2017-04-14
| Auto-generated by YouTube.
|
| It's fair to say I've discovered more new music this year
| than all previous years of my life. It's strange to think I
| live in a world where I could listen to music for the rest of
| my life and never listen to the same song twice
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| what are the odds of surviving a brain aneurysm
| JJMcJ wrote:
| With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad one
| can kill someone in minutes.
|
| Untreated, like you're alone and nobody finds you for days,
| much much less, and the recovery of functioning less likely.
|
| Depends on how much bleeding and where.
| Volundr wrote:
| Yeah I'd bet the specifics play in heavily. Anecdotally when
| I was in high school my girlfriend had a siezure from a
| ruptured aneurysm while we were watching her little brother.
| I don't remember how long it took her to regain consciousness
| on her own, but I remember her being fairly lucid talking to
| the paramedics, wanting to know what happened so not long.
| Didn't suffer any long term effects. I have to assume luck of
| the draw plays in heavily.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Very much a matter of luck and details. What part of the
| brain is injured, how bad the bleed is, how quickly it can
| be treated, how good the treatment is.
|
| Anything from dead within a few minutes to no effects at
| all, with great variation in lost or reduced function in
| between.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad
| one can kill someone in minutes.
|
| I'm very far from expert in this and don't work in the field,
| but I think this thread is talking about ruptured aneurysms.
| Unruptured ones do considerably better with coiling, flow
| diverting stents or clips. The first link from 2014 has a
| 15-16% mortality rate at 7 years for treated aneurysms.
| Treatment has got better in the 15 years since those people
| were operated on.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24724850/
|
| https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.STR.29.8.153.
| ..
|
| https://www.bafound.org/about-brain-aneurysms/brain-
| aneurysm...
| ComputerCat wrote:
| Wow, what an incredible story! I can't imagine having to relearn
| simple tasks and skills honed over a lifetime.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I know this gets said a lot. But this is another example why I
| keep coming back to HN, I love all the tech talk for sure, but
| every once in a while, something sweet and inspirational like
| this gets slipped in and sometimes is just what I needed at the
| end of a long week.
| jseutter wrote:
| I tend to experience this as well. For some reason HN on the
| weekends has way more interesting and varied topics. The
| weekday crowd either comes here for more mundane topics, or
| marketers flood the submission queue, I can't tell which. But I
| love opening up HN on Saturday mornings and finding some
| strange retro computing topic.
|
| A similar phenomenon also happens if you open up HN before the
| east coast of north america wakes up on a weekday. The topics
| tend to be more varied.
| barrenko wrote:
| For similar tales in other "discipline" try Meru documentary as
| well.
| coldcode wrote:
| As a guitar player I can't even imagine relearning a lifetime of
| experience from scratch again, much less learning to walk and do
| ordinary things you take for granted. Brains are amazingly
| plastic, but usually not at age 75. It take incredible will power
| to get back to this point.
|
| Without video it might have been impossible to recreate her
| unusual technique.
| worker_person wrote:
| It's not fun. I had a small stroke while in a music lesson.
| Instructor was very confused as to why I suddenly couldn't play
| or follow any instructions.
|
| Programming has been this weird mix where I would see a simple
| problem. Say a fibonacci sequence. Something I could do in my
| sleep.
|
| I would look at it. Understand that I can solve this in
| seconds. Then it would take me a week to muddle through it,
| badly.
|
| So I know how to program just fine, but I somehow I can't
| actually do it. So it's been relearning things I think I know
| how to do.
|
| The saving grace is people would often ask how to approach a
| difficult problem and I could still quickly figure out what the
| issue is, and what approach to take to resolve it. So I was
| very helpful to others, but I couldn't _do_ the work I
| suggested.
|
| Weird stuff.
| ryanianian wrote:
| Glad you are able to see the bright side. Are you employed as
| a developer? I'm curious how disability policies or laws etc
| might impact you.
| [deleted]
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| What you're describing fits well with the description of
| declarative versus imperative knowledge [1], the subject of a
| recent thread here. Perhaps your experience suggests they are
| encoded by different neurological structures! I hope you
| continue to recover.
|
| [1] example: knowing what a square root is, and all the
| common roots, but not knowing Newtons method or any trick for
| finding them.
| klenwell wrote:
| Reminds me of this story from This American Life that they
| replayed recently about a retired physicist diagnosed with
| Alzheimer's who loses the ability to read a clock:
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/583/itll-make-sense-when-
| yo...
|
| What is interesting is he is able to analyze why he has
| difficulty reading a clock. (As he explains, it's a
| surprisingly difficult problem.)
|
| Fascinating and a bit heartbreaking. I'm happy to hear you're
| coping and recovering. Best of luck!
| bavell wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Reminds me a lot of my grandfather who
| survived 10yrs post-diagnosis. Couldn't recognize his
| children most of the time near the end but he was a great
| guy and thankfully he kept most of his affable nature until
| he passed.
| jfarina wrote:
| Can you work in a paired setting?
| worker_person wrote:
| I used to love paired programming. I've done it
| successfully a number of times, but I had a few years where
| I did't know if I could function or not at any given
| moment.
|
| One minute I'm solving the hardest problems a company has.
| Next I can't remember where I'm working, Resolves itself in
| a few minutes, but leaves me exhausted for a couple hours.
| Scares the crap out of people.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Are you better now ? these events taught me patience.. way
| more than I wanted to but still.
| fezfight wrote:
| Will power comes from the brain, too. We are lucky that wasn't
| the part that she needed to relearn.
| xsmasher wrote:
| Before the aneurysm Joni Mitchell used alternate guitar tunings
| because they were much easier on her left hand, which was
| weakened by childhood polio.
|
| Neil Young also contracted polio as a child; so did Robert Anton
| Wilson. We're not that far removed from a generation that was
| ravaged by the disease, which was then nearly eradicated by the
| vaccine.
|
| https://kawarthanow.com/2020/04/15/covid-19-pandemic-reminds...
| maukdaddy wrote:
| Original article is here:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113608539/joni-mitchell-newp...
| dang wrote:
| Also https://www.guitarworld.com/news/joni-mitchell-relearned-
| gui....
| mahathu wrote:
| Fascinating story. Pat Martino is another (jazz) guitarist who
| relearned to play after a brain injury
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| Neil Young too was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in March
| 2005, while working on the Prairie Wind album in Nashville [0].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Young#Health_condition_an...
| analog31 wrote:
| A couple more examples are Oscar Peterson and Rashaan Roland
| Kirk.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Judith Durham, Australian singer and songwriter famous with
| The Seekers in the 1960s but active ever since, had a stroke.
|
| Afterwards she could still sing but had lost the ability to
| write songs.
| worker_person wrote:
| Agraphia is an impairment or loss of a previous ability to
| write.
|
| I can read fine. I can type fine. Drawing is mostly fine.
| Physical writing is total gibberish. Think severe alzheimer
| level.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Oscar had a stroke, which he didn't really recover from -- he
| just played mostly one-armed.
|
| I just saw this incredible video [1] last week about him and
| "the greatest solo ever recorded."
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj93v9j2A4A
| jacquesm wrote:
| Great video. Note the signature on that guitar by the way
| (2:49).
| nereye wrote:
| One more: Edwyn Collins, from Wikipedia:
|
| In February 2005, Collins was hospitalised after two cerebral
| haemorrhages which resulted in aphasia, and he needed months
| to recover. He resumed his musical career in 2007. A
| documentary film on his recovery, The Possibilities Are
| Endless, was released in 2014.
| paradygm wrote:
| 'Martino Unstrung' is a documentary about him and talks a lot
| about what he was like leading up to and after the aneurysm was
| discovered. A great look into one of the giants of jazz guitar
| but also fascinating to learn the things he could remember and
| what he couldn't, personality changes, etc.
| barrenko wrote:
| Not sure if I remember the documentary correctly, but didn't he
| re-learn to play with a different hand orientation, e.g. right
| then left hand?
| agumonkey wrote:
| There are odd videos of him in his early public reappearance
| after his illness:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotxdCS9xm0
|
| (odd in the sense of semi private recordings)
| rtsil wrote:
| Joni Mitchell's story and Pat Martino's story are remarkably
| similar (brain aneurysm). The question is, did they regain
| access to the part of their brain that allowed them to play
| guitar, or did they really re-learn?
|
| In Martino's case, after his full amnesia, he was able to
| retrieve his unique playing style, but was that because he
| learned by listening to his recordings (just like Joni did), or
| because the style never left him but was somehow locked?
| seanhunter wrote:
| My understanding is Martino had to learn by listening to his
| old records
| OJFord wrote:
| Kind of interesting to imagine the motivation for the former,
| it's surely different to that which achieved it in the first
| place: 'I want to be who I was' or something, rather than
| 'this expresses who I am' or 'I like this sound' or whatever.
| biggieshellz wrote:
| Part of it was from listening to his own recordings, part of
| it was from discovering it inside his brain again. As Pat's
| aneurysm grew over time, it's likely that his brain had
| already somewhat remodeled to accommodate it. IIRC, in a TV
| show about it, they talked with one of his friends/students
| whom he would play guitar duos with. His friend was playing
| for Pat after the aneurysm (Pat wasn't back to playing yet)
| and the guy hit a wrong chord and Pat suddenly said "No, D
| minor 9th" and grabbed the guitar and played the right chord.
|
| Pat also tells a similar story about meeting Joe Pesci
| backstage and knowing him only from movies until Joe tells
| him, "I can tell you what you used to drink at Smalls'
| Paradise in the '60s". Video here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niUwDegpYyo
| bredren wrote:
| Jerry Garcia had a similar situation iirc.
| ilamont wrote:
| Yes. https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/jerry-garcia-grateful-
| dead...
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) writes about a kinda similar experience.
| He fell asleep with his arm hanging over the back of a chair.
| This pinched a nerve and caused permanent damage, such that he
| was no longer able to play. IIRC, he needed surgery to get any
| muscular control at all, and then needed to relearn to play.
|
| Mustaine's damage was probably less profound, but I think the
| fine control needed for the kind of thing he does is rather more
| extreme than Mitchell's.
|
| ETA: here's a lousy article on it, from a music industry rag. He
| talks about it in much more detail in his autobiography. Below is
| a quote from https://blabbermouth.net/news/megadeth-s-dave-
| mustaine-how-i...
|
| On January 7th, 2002, while at the [drug rehab] hospital, I sat
| on a chair which I hung my arm over the back of. The hard edge
| along the top of the seat back cut off the circulation to my
| radial ulnar nerve. After approximately two hours I woke up and
| my left hand was numb. I went to the nurse's station and they
| said it was the hair-tie I had on my wrist. I wish. I had to go
| into town to see a specialist and he said that I would be lucky
| if I ever gained even 80% of the use of my arm again. This was
| unacceptable for me, so I left the rehab, against medical advice
| and when home to Scottsdale, Az. to get my arm checked out by a
| city doctor. My Dr. Rahj Singh, a expert in nerve damage, spinal
| damage, etc. said that I may get 100% use of my arm, but that I
| would never play the same. He then prescribed the braces you see
| [here]: Photo#1, Photo#2, Photo#3. I then proceeded to Nathan
| Koch for physical therapy for 4 months of sessions, three times a
| week, 1-1.5 hours a day. After I finally got my feeling back in
| my hand, I realized that I could not even hold a feather in that
| hand and started a grueling 1-year weight-training program. 13
| months after I hurt myself, a personal assistant that had worked
| for me died in hospice of drug damage, and I was asked to play.
| It was the first time I had held a guitar since November 17,
| 2001. Since then, I have completely healed and started taking
| lessons intermittently to re-learn my trade. After an additional
| 5 months I decided that I was going to play again, but that is
| another story.
| [deleted]
| bavell wrote:
| Wow I had no idea! Saw them live around 2007-2009 and was one
| of the best concerts I've been to, really solid lineup and
| performances.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Physical nerve damage can be hard but brain damage can fuck
| perception of limbs entirely, not just fine control. That said
| music is not just about gesture and technique, higher
| abstraction about rhythm and harmonic patterns are not related
| to biomechanics. That may help relearning.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| Wow. I had no idea that was something that could happen. I
| would have expected you to wake up before damaging yourself
| like that - sort of like falling asleep in the bath tub.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I've heard it called Drunk's Palsy (long term effects) or
| Saturday Night Palsy (shorter term, less severe). Falling
| asleep in such a way that circulation is cut off to an area,
| causing damage that normally your body would move to prevent.
| Drugs and alcohol impede that input to the brain so you don't
| toss and turn as much, I guess.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| I ninja edited my post to include a short description of his
| experience.
| JauntyHatAngle wrote:
| Iirc he was sobering up at the time (rehab clinic) so it's
| possible he was drug assisted at the time.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| One day last year I noticed I couldn't feel part of my leg
| after my wife had sat in my lap for a few minutes earlier in
| the night. It freaked me out as I still had no feeling in it
| the next day. The doctor told me it was pinched and would
| regrow over time. It took about a month to get full feeling
| back.
| adamesque wrote:
| Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous permanently damaged his legs and
| almost died after passing out / ODing overnight with his legs
| folded beneath him.
|
| https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9745-the-sad-and-beau...
| pgodzin wrote:
| Watching the video of her singing Both Sides Now at the Newport
| Folk Festival last week was really moving:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8
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