Sleeping with your musical instrument

Subject: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 06:57 AM

One of these days I will calm down and you phoaks will get a rest from me jumping up and down in glee about my new dulcimer, my first ever. Until then:

it is tucked up, safely, on a small table in our bedroom when I am not practising. My 3rd night of owning it, Rog and I turned the covers down and were about to go to bed, when I told him I was so pleased about it, I just felt as though I should cradle it in my arms and go to sleep strumming tunes! Like a little kid with their most treasured new Christmas gift. We just laughed, I gave it a quick strum, then put it back and we went to sleep.

Then, my dad called the next day and of course I was spilling bubbly all through the phone lines raving about it and told him about feeling I should take it to bed and play myself to sleep. He laughed, then told me about an "old boy" he knew in Lousiana who was a travelling salesman. Seems he was so tickled when he first discovered mandolins and got his own, that when he was on the road, he'd go to bed, every night, playing his mando and wake up with it beside him in the morning! So I don't feel so silly now, although I will refrain as I am afraid one of us might crush it before morn!

So, how about it...any of you ever slept with your non-bodily attached instruments? **BG**

kat

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 08:54 AM

Yup.

When I was a teenager I regularly fell asleep with an electric guitar in my hands 'cause I liked to play on my back at bedtime. It got worse when I got my first Telecaster.

Sometimes nowadays I wake up with a mandolin beside me, but only when She is working the graveyard shift. I try not to sleep with flat-tops 'cause I'm afraid of knocking them off the bed and onto the dog.

When I sleep in the tent-trailer there is always a guitar beside me, usually cased. It's even better in the open air. Sigh...there's snow on the trailer now...can't wait for spring.

Mooh.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: GUEST,Bouzouki Bob
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 08:57 AM

Yes of course, I thought everyone did! I usually lay in bed with either a mando or uke, and play a few tunes in the dark, before drifting off.But I always try to shift it to the case at my bedside BEFORE I fall asleep. My wife likes to watch Jay Leno, so my playing does not bother her.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: mkebenn
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 09:01 AM

Never, see flattop reasons above, also never could play flat on my back, guitar that is.*BG* Mike

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 09:12 AM

NEVER ... NO WAY ... (at least not sober!) Besides, my guitars are all VERY old Martins ... too valuable.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 09:41 AM

See the movie, The Red Violin.

~S~

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 11:07 AM

As to "The Red Violin", I don't really remember what incident in it is relevant here, but by all means, see that movie!!!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 12:47 PM

When the young boy has the violin, he sleeps with it.

Remember now? PM me if not!

~Susan (AKA Praise)

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 12:49 PM

... and those other two people in the movie? And how they fiddle around, Dave O? I think they still call that "sleeping" too.

*G*

~S~

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Dave Swan
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 02:41 PM

Not with my bagpipes, but with the cat. Many similarities.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: pict
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 02:45 PM

I slept with my first telecaster and on the first night too(she was a right old whore)

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 04:02 PM

I have thought about it a few times but figured it was probably against the law.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: jeepman (inactive)
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 04:36 PM

My wife said me or that banjo had to go. I miss her

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Willie-O
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 09:03 AM

A guitar case can make a nice pillow in the outdoors...

with adequate padding of course.

I guess I'm too habituated to encasing my stringed things to leave them out. Sides when you share a bed with at least one human and are continually tossing cats and urging children to go find their own bed, it's not a stable enough environment for an instrument.

W-O

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 09:18 AM

So you see, kat, sleeping with your insrtument is not so rare a behaviour as one might think. One does, however, have to be careful about MTDs - musically transmitted disease!

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 10:20 AM

LOL, thanks for that Jed! I am really worried now..is that something I can catch from a music-ridden computer, too?

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: GUEST,jason
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:02 PM

I never sleep with my guitar, but i might do it now that i`ve read these. I used to wake up and start playing right away!

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:26 PM

Not so weird kat, here is the back cover of my brother's new CD

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:30 PM

Hey, Mets! Is he going to become a Mudcatter and send that to Alison for the Calendar? **BG** Great photo!

Thanks, everyone!

kat

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 01:37 PM

Hmmm...only time I slept with any of my instruments, would be when I was on the 'red eye' ferry back from Ireland, and I used my bodhran as a pillow... NO COMMENTS!!!

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 02:27 PM

Yeah, Jed, those whole-instrument condoms are expensive though.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 12:39 PM

I think that's what bodhrans were invented for...

Amy time I'm camping at a festival I reached by public transport, there's no alternative to sleeping alongside her. A bit crowded though. Maybe I should switch to mandolin or get a bigger tent.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 01:02 PM

I've slept with a few harmonicas, who are very cordial bedmates, stay on their own side, and never complain about my snoring. Guitars, on the other hand, hog the covers and make all kinds of noises when you roll over on them. I had a friend who slept with a Hammond organ, but that's another story.

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 01:51 PM

But of course! I sleep with my husband, whose various grunts, farts, snorts and droning snores are really just preparing me to take up and sleep with my true instrument....the Great Highland Bagpipes!

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 12:58 AM

I do so envy you your dulcimer kat, mine is sitting on a shelf in pieces, still awaiting assembly by the master craftsman of the household. It has languished there for at least seven years.......

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 01:10 AM

Mets for under $140 US you can have one just like mine, already assembled. I gave up a long time ago on getting kits and things put together around here. If they aren't done within the first couple of years, out they go and I buy it already made! There's a link to it at Elderly Instruments in the Finally Found My Instrument thread. Do it, it is worth it AND, Black Mtn charges a lot more for them if you buy them direct, so Elderly is giving a good break. Heck I didn't spend much more than a damn kit would've been!

katstilinlovewithhernewbaybee

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 01:19 AM

unfortunately kat, it was a gift, so if I go out and buy one, I will, I'm sure, hurt his feelings and definitely rub salt in his wounds for the miriad of incomplete tasks for which he berates himself, so I guess I will continue to await the Stewart MacDonald Special...

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: Lyrical Lady
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 01:44 AM

I have often had to pry 'ol Willi' (my daughter's guitar) out of her arms when I go to tuck her in. If I did play a musical instument, for sure I would sleep with it! Lyrical Lady

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 02:53 AM

Geez, Mets, that's so sad...maybe we could all chip in and send you a completed one, as a gift, then he'd see how much you enjoy it and maybe be motivated to put it together.**BG** can't turn down a gift, now, canya?

Subject: RE: Sleeping with your musical instrument
From: BanjoRay
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 06:31 PM

I used to keep my banjo by the side of my bed when I was in university, till one night at about three in the morning the calfskin head exploded. My flatmate had to talk me down from the top of the wardrobe.

Cheers
Ray