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How's your handwriting? How does it compare to your bass playing?

#41
My handwriting is tiny and exact. People always comment on how it almost looks typed. Perhaps its a little like my bass playing, where I tend to compress phrasing and play in a more staccato manner than I'd like. I have to focus REALLY hard to draw out phrases to perfection and let notes expand for their full length. In some sense, my playing is more rhythmic as opposed to smooth, and maybe that's ok. The phrase compression is a fault that I've lived with for my entire musical life, even when I played trumpet and drums, and I've never trained it out of myself entirely.
 
#42
ficelles said:
My handwriting is an illegible scrawl as I am left-handed but was made to try and write right-handed for years, result is I can hardly write with either hand. My bass playing though is intensely spiritual musical fluidity the like of which has rarely been experienced by mere mortals, on account of I am a lefty who plays righty.
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I'm in the same boat. School district felt left handed people were just lazy, and forced me to be right-handed. I'm now mostly ambidextrous, but the hand writing still stinks. Bass playing is better.
 
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#43
From "Funnier picture" thread:
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Write lefty, play righty; playing incomparably better than writing.
 
#44
Professional handwriter here, as in drafting with ink on mylar. I'm the dinosaur in the office who revises the old drawings - all new work has been done on computer screens for the last 35 years. I enjoy getting out those jewel-tip rapidograph pens and laying down some text, sometimes upside-down or sideways on the board.
My bass skills should be so good.
 
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#47
I've actually been meaning to practice my cursive writing, again. I meet older people with this impeccable handwriting and I don't know how they do it. I can't even remember how to write a G or an S in cursive, because I've been writing bastardized script for so long. I do still write mainly in cursive, but at some point in school, I dropped the all-cursive thing after having to take so many notes. Now, I miss it. I have a couple of nice fountain pens to do it with, too.
 
#48
I’ve definitely had more compliments about my playing than my handwriting. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I don’t even buy greeting cards for fear of defacing them. For the past 25 years, the only handwriting my career has required is signing and dating. A couple years ago, I had to hand write a witness report for an injury accident. No matter how many big words I used, it looked it was written by a 5 year-old armed with a thesaurus. Not to mention my hand cramped up something fierce.
Funny part is that I’m marginally good at drawing. Also, I play finger style with no issues at all.
 
#49
Diminishedfilth said:
I’ve definitely had more compliments about my playing than my handwriting. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I don’t even buy greeting cards for fear of defacing them. For the past 25 years, the only handwriting my career has required is signing and dating. A couple years ago, I had to hand write a witness report for an injury accident. No matter how many big words I used, it looked it was written by a 5 year-old armed with a thesaurus. Not to mention my hand cramped up something fierce.
Funny part is that I’m marginally good at drawing. Also, I play finger style with no issues at all.
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My dad was an art teacher and a great artist. However, his handwriting was scrawly. What's more, he had to sign his name so many times that it just turned into pile of lines. Then, when I had to settle his estate, the same thing happened to me. It took me a couple of years to rebuild my signature. I think it was after that I tried to start writing better, just because I'd literally lost the touch for so long.
 
#50
My handwriting is a mess, but myself and my coworkers can read it so it works.
Im much better at improvising with a pen than a bass however...
I never seem to be able to get what’s in my head out into my fingertips with an instrument in my hands.
I always enjoy playing bass, pen writing on the other hand I detest most all the time! Unless it’s lyrics for a song :bassist:
 
#53
Bassaga said:
My handwriting is often fine and very legible, if a little casual. Occasionally it's way out there with random lines being way too long, circles unclosed, everything at the wrong angle. Usually it's somewhere in between. Basically, I can be good, but when I set pen to paper I never actually know what's going to come out, or how my hands will play along this time.

My bass playing is the same. Often fine, occasionally lousy, usually decent with some "what was that?" mistake moments where my hands just do something wacky. Still working on motor skills and such, I dunno.

Started wondering whether you folks have similar patterns? Like flawless elegance in your handwriting and your playing, or aggressively sloppy playing and writing, or whatever?
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I’m totally cracking up over here, reading your description of all of this. I am in a similar boat: capable of utterly pristine handwriting, but plagued by strange anomalies that appear out of nowhere, as if bumped by an invisible passerby.

My playing takes a similar trajectory: mostly good, with random weird mistakes at times that suggest that my mind is attempting to run ahead of its self. Great idea for a thread. I will be more mindful of this as I practice my bass AND as I try to keep my handwriting uniform.
 
#55
After the car wreck last halloween, my handwriting has been atrocious, bass playing too. It takes a bit to get going some days. Nerve damage sucks. During November I didn't physically write much, didn't type much either. Both were difficult. Playing was bad news, very uncomfortable, shut down for about a month and have been writing fine music and words, playing depends on the day. Cold days were uncomfortable but these warmer days have been easier.
 
#58
ficelles said:
My handwriting is an illegible scrawl as I am left-handed but was made to try and write right-handed for years, result is I can hardly write with either hand. My bass playing though is intensely spiritual musical fluidity the like of which has rarely been experienced by mere mortals, on account of I am a lefty who plays righty.
Click to expand...

No Leftys that Play Righty Club on TB? If not, I want #2 after Ficelles....
 
#59
Exact one-to-one relationship between my 3rd grader's block, all caps writing and my badly muted, finger zinging, fumbling bass playing of three years. I'm gonna blame advanced age and arthritis for it but really I failed handwriting in grammar school and only the keyboard and computers saved me from a lifetime of crime.
 

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