from Hacker News

Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2015 brain aneurysm

by revorad on 7/29/22, 12:14 PM with 74 comments

  • by coldcode on 7/29/22, 2:08 PM

    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.

  • by CWuestefeld on 7/29/22, 6:31 PM

    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.

  • by zw123456 on 7/29/22, 5:25 PM

    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.

  • by cmckn on 7/29/22, 11:47 PM

    Joni Mitchell's music is precious to me. There is something about her lyrics--poetic but folksy--that is so disarming and enchanting. Her songs always catch you off-guard. A friend introduced me to her album "Hejira" years ago, and it's given me so much comfort in dark times, and so much joy in light times. She's a once-in-a-generation kind of artist, just consistently brilliant.

    Some entrypoints, if I may (and please reply with your favorites):

    - Refuge of the roads - Hejira

    - Blue motel room - Hejira

    - You turn me on, I'm a radio - For the roses

    - Edith and the kingpin - The hissing of summer lawns

  • by mahathu on 7/29/22, 1:53 PM

    Fascinating story. Pat Martino is another (jazz) guitarist who relearned to play after a brain injury

  • by pgodzin on 7/29/22, 9:14 PM

    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

  • by marcodiego on 7/29/22, 4:14 PM

    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.

  • by labrador on 7/29/22, 6:36 PM

    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.

  • by maukdaddy on 7/29/22, 5:09 PM

  • by xsmasher on 7/29/22, 7:12 PM

    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...

  • by bredren on 7/29/22, 4:28 PM

    Jerry Garcia had a similar situation iirc.

  • by ComputerCat on 7/29/22, 5:22 PM

    Wow, what an incredible story! I can't imagine having to relearn simple tasks and skills honed over a lifetime.

  • by dukeofdoom on 7/29/22, 3:19 PM

    what are the odds of surviving a brain aneurysm