Monday 15 June 2015

Doom 4

This warrants its own post.

Because it's not Doom 4. It's yet another swamp gas sucking reboot, and it has been named Doom. And it looks like rubbish. As expected.

Perfect, more time for playing the violin and programming my own things. I looked into the chin and shoulder rests on my violin yesterday, and after some research decided to throw away the shoulder rest. I was never (for the few months I've had the violin) comfortable with the setup, and eliminating one part of the problem should save me some money. So now that I won't have to buy 10 shoulder rests until I'm happy, I can focus on the chin rest. My shoulders are rather tall and far back, so I should get a chin rest that covers the tailpiece. Thinking about getting some doughy thing to put on the violin that I can depress with my chin to see what shape I should go for.

Playing without a shoulder rest comes with pros and cons (of course). I'll start with the one, single con: It's bleeding difficult. A minor con people might think of is that unless you're really "fleshy", you will not be able to keep the violin up only with your head, you have to provide support with your left hand. However, if the violin is under you chin, you're probably playing the thing, so the left hand should be on the violin anyway. Now for the several pros: one less thing to worry about (i.e. cheaper!), less "stuff" on the violin (improved tone according to some, definitely less weight to hold up), improved poise (no chance you can slouch), you are forced vehemently to relax (or fingering/vibrato will be impossible), left hand technique gets lighter and better (since you cannot grip anything due to the need to relax), and it's just the cooler way to play :p I like the simplicity of it, and if it comes with major benefits only for being much harder, then what's the problem? Ergonomics is as much about adapting as finding the perfect adapter.

Programming-wise, doing a lot at work and started a new unit tested widget toolkit for my htools repository. It only provides the logics, input and output (i.e. user events and drawing) have to be provided.

Toilet-time!