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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
Is the OP a sadist and/or masochist(?) getting some kind of perverse pleasure by posting and soliciting answers to such a question? Who, in his right mind, would choose ....?
offnote: I wouldn't like to lose any of my fingers, but I would give you the middle one if I had the chance.
Man, you guys are tough. I find it kinda interesting. And the guillotine was definitely worth a laugh.
In my opinion it's at least as intriguing as "what did you practice today?" or "happiness and playing the piano." Oh wait, that last one is mine.
If I were sitting around drinking a beer with another pianist I can easily see this being an interesting and amusing topic of conversation. If that makes me weird or worse, dull, or worse yet, inane, then so be it. I've been called worse.
If one finds himself in a situation where they are able to choose which finger to lose, then they need to take piano off their list of things to worry about and completely reassess their life choices.
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt)
... Or they can learn to play with their toes like that Chines guy who won China's Got Talent, but of course he is still young. I think it would be much more difficult to learn to do this later in life.
I once saw a thread about whether you would rather be blind or deaf... Sort of macabre too, but more interesting I think...
I once put one up about what to do if you go blind. :-). I can think of plenty of topics I've started that I wish I'd reconsidered. I just can't understand jumping all over the poor guy. Kreisler and the rest, relax. Have a sense of humor. Or just don't respond. Would you guys be so rude in person?
Or you can look at it this way: with surgery nowadays they can replace certain fingers by taking a toe and putting it there on your hand. I've heard of it so far happening with thumbs, so in this case I would say:
Left thumb. I don't know if I would have the dexterity with a "toe" thumb to play the piano, but it should still be fine for the violin or viola. Maybe the oboe.
(and I don't think any of my toes would be long enough to replace any other fingers adequately.)
One of the accompanists in our dance department only has part of a 4th finger. Listening to him you'd never know, but he makes it work with some ingenious arranging and improv on the fly.
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt)
I saw a concert with an excellent guitar player (I think his name is Phil Keaggy) and a good part of the middle finger of his right hand is gone. He's a very good guitar player, and has a nice voice. He writes primarily Christian music, but Christian or not, I find his music very enjoyable to listen to.
He also uses a really cool "looping" effect which lets him record a couple bars at a time and play them back while playing something new, to sound like two guitarists. But he can stack these temporary "looping" tracks on top of each other again and again for a while. Check this one out, this is my favorite song by him:
I just can't understand jumping all over the poor guy.
It's in response not to this individual thread but to a large group of threads over the past day or two. He may have started out as a "poor guy" but has turned himself into an intentional irritant.