Joni Mitchell learned to play guitar again after a 2015 brain aneurysm | Hacker News Reader

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

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189 pointsrevorad74 comments

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.

Will power comes from the brain, too. We are lucky that wasn't the part that she needed to relearn.

It's not fun. I had a small stroke while in a music lesson. Instructor was very confused as to why I suddenly couldn't play or follow any instructions.

Programming has been this weird mix where I would see a simple problem. Say a fibonacci sequence. Something I could do in my sleep.

I would look at it. Understand that I can solve this in seconds. Then it would take me a week to muddle through it, badly.

So I know how to program just fine, but I somehow I can't actually do it. So it's been relearning things I think I know how to do.

The saving grace is people would often ask how to approach a difficult problem and I could still quickly figure out what the issue is, and what approach to take to resolve it. So I was very helpful to others, but I couldn't do the work I suggested.

Weird stuff.

Glad you are able to see the bright side. Are you employed as a developer? I'm curious how disability policies or laws etc might impact you.

Reminds me of this story from This American Life that they replayed recently about a retired physicist diagnosed with Alzheimer's who loses the ability to read a clock:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/583/itll-make-sense-when-yo...

What is interesting is he is able to analyze why he has difficulty reading a clock. (As he explains, it's a surprisingly difficult problem.)

Fascinating and a bit heartbreaking. I'm happy to hear you're coping and recovering. Best of luck!

Thanks for sharing. Reminds me a lot of my grandfather who survived 10yrs post-diagnosis. Couldn't recognize his children most of the time near the end but he was a great guy and thankfully he kept most of his affable nature until he passed.

Can you work in a paired setting?

I used to love paired programming. I've done it successfully a number of times, but I had a few years where I did't know if I could function or not at any given moment.

One minute I'm solving the hardest problems a company has. Next I can't remember where I'm working, Resolves itself in a few minutes, but leaves me exhausted for a couple hours. Scares the crap out of people.

What you're describing fits well with the description of declarative versus imperative knowledge [1], the subject of a recent thread here. Perhaps your experience suggests they are encoded by different neurological structures! I hope you continue to recover.

[1] example: knowing what a square root is, and all the common roots, but not knowing Newtons method or any trick for finding them.

Are you better now ? these events taught me patience.. way more than I wanted to but still.

> As a guitar player I can't even imagine relearning a lifetime of experience from scratch again

Then you should remember, if you practiced an hour everyday, it took you less than a month to learn to play guitar and less than a few to be proficient (especially with folk music as opposed to classical or jazz). Guitar is among the easiest instruments to learn. What is exceptional about Mitchell is that she probably lost fine motor control entirely, and no doubt with great effort and determination, created new neural pathways in her brain in order to duplicate the fine motor control she once had. Learning to play guitar is not all that impressive, but reconfiguring the brain to bypass permanent brain damage truly is.

I don’t know if you’re a guitar player or not, but I am and I disagree with just about everything you said. It also seems like you didn’t read the article.

I'm sorry, you're just being way too specific. Can you please be any more vague about what you disagree with? Thanks.

It's incredibly easy to learn the four guitar chords and a few plucking techniques to play some pop music, like 3 days for strumming chords and a month or two for something like Green Day's "Good Riddance."

Playing at Joni Mitchell's level with all of her alternate tunings is something that fewer than 0.01% of guitar players will ever achieve regardless of the hours invested.

No disrespect to Mitchell, who notably doesn't make many if any mistakes during performances, no small feat, but alternate tunings do not increase the difficulty of fingering 6 strings. In fact, alternate tunings nearly always decrease the difficulty of fingering, requiring less fingers per chord. Folk guitar is folk guitar, it is open chords and strumming, majors and minors, always with 4/4 signature, not much to it. Classical uses the same chords as folk but requires a rather uncomfortable form as well as odd timing signatures such as 5/4, while Jazz employs Majors 7th & 6th, Minors 7th, 6th, 9th, 11th, and 7th b5, dominants 7th, 9th, 13th, diminished 7th, and altered dominants with b9 or #9, b5 or #5, #11 or b13.

Again, no disrespect to the artist, but Joni Mitchell is not Eddie Van Halen or Jerry Garcia or Pat Metheny. She is a folk artist that plays guitar, not a guitar player in the sense of Steve Vai or Carlos Santana. Mitchell's guitar is her accompaniment; her instrument is her voice.

Yeah of course they don't make it harder to finger. They make the song harder to compose in the first place.

The reason the classical guitar is tuned E A D G B E , known as standard tuning, is because it allows for the most possible chords to be fingered with as little movement as necessary, is more efficient, and each chord can be fingered in about 3 to 4 different ways in different positions on the neck. Alternative tunings actually limit what can be chorded compared to standard tuning, often biasing songs towards whatever key the guitar's open strum is.

No matter how the guitar is tuned, it would not make composition more difficult, and it could be argued, because of the limiting nature of alternate tunings, that it is easier to compose in alternate tunings.

But this is beside the point. I'm not even sure Mitchell often uses alternate tunings, but if she does, it is likely one of two or both drop D or open G, which are used for the lower bottom note to give more bass, but also to make songs in those keys much easier to play.

What I suspect is that Mitchell uses standard tuning most often, and if she needs to transpose to a different key, she'll use a capo. I also suspect she composes, like nearly all folk music, using I-IV and I-IV-V progressions and in the keys of E, F, C, Am, G, or D, if the capo was actually at the nut (meaning, she might finger a song in D, but because the capo is on the 3rd fret, technically the song is in the key of F).

I haven't listened to enough of Mitchell's catalog to say unequivocally, but I suspect the music itself is not necessarily what is original or so compelling about her work, but instead her poetries and rhythms are what makes her stand out among folk artists.

And just because we like something doesn't mean we need to invent reasons why something is the best. That is more or less tribalism and kind of ridiculous.

LOL

I mean, it's not really like he started from scratch. He had to redevelop muscle memory, sure, but much of guitar playing is knowing what will sound good and that doesn't go away even if you lose the whole arm...

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.

Wow. I had no idea that was something that could happen. I would have expected you to wake up before damaging yourself like that - sort of like falling asleep in the bath tub.

I ninja edited my post to include a short description of his experience.

Iirc he was sobering up at the time (rehab clinic) so it's possible he was drug assisted at the time.

I've heard it called Drunk's Palsy (long term effects) or Saturday Night Palsy (shorter term, less severe). Falling asleep in such a way that circulation is cut off to an area, causing damage that normally your body would move to prevent. Drugs and alcohol impede that input to the brain so you don't toss and turn as much, I guess.

One day last year I noticed I couldn't feel part of my leg after my wife had sat in my lap for a few minutes earlier in the night. It freaked me out as I still had no feeling in it the next day. The doctor told me it was pinched and would regrow over time. It took about a month to get full feeling back.

The phenomenon is well known to bondage affectionados who know what they’re doing. They will regularly get pinched nerves and lose sensation, which is an absolute no-go to just «power through». Communication is essential, and many learn to subtly shift to stop the pinching without completely stopping the scene.

Accidents are really frightening, and can happen due to inexperience, carelessness, lack of communication or just really getting caught up in the monent.

Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous permanently damaged his legs and almost died after passing out / ODing overnight with his legs folded beneath him.

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9745-the-sad-and-beau...

Wow I had no idea! Saw them live around 2007-2009 and was one of the best concerts I've been to, really solid lineup and performances.

Physical nerve damage can be hard but brain damage can fuck perception of limbs entirely, not just fine control. That said music is not just about gesture and technique, higher abstraction about rhythm and harmonic patterns are not related to biomechanics. That may help relearning.

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.

For similar tales in other "discipline" try Meru documentary as well.

I tend to experience this as well. For some reason HN on the weekends has way more interesting and varied topics. The weekday crowd either comes here for more mundane topics, or marketers flood the submission queue, I can't tell which. But I love opening up HN on Saturday mornings and finding some strange retro computing topic.

A similar phenomenon also happens if you open up HN before the east coast of north america wakes up on a weekday. The topics tend to be more varied.

>A similar phenomenon also happens if you open up HN before the east coast of north america wakes up on a weekday. The topics tend to be more varied.

I live in the UK and I definitely find HN more interesting in the morning than the afternoon. It's as much a morning ritual as coffee at this point.

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

I’m a big fan of the title track for Hejira too. Great album!

Not to take the easy way out, but everything on "Hits" is good.

Both Sides Now was her best. That song gets sweeter and sweeter as I age.

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

Joni Mitchell's story and Pat Martino's story are remarkably similar (brain aneurysm). The question is, did they regain access to the part of their brain that allowed them to play guitar, or did they really re-learn?

In Martino's case, after his full amnesia, he was able to retrieve his unique playing style, but was that because he learned by listening to his recordings (just like Joni did), or because the style never left him but was somehow locked?

My understanding is Martino had to learn by listening to his old records

Kind of interesting to imagine the motivation for the former, it's surely different to that which achieved it in the first place: 'I want to be who I was' or something, rather than 'this expresses who I am' or 'I like this sound' or whatever.

Part of it was from listening to his own recordings, part of it was from discovering it inside his brain again. As Pat's aneurysm grew over time, it's likely that his brain had already somewhat remodeled to accommodate it. IIRC, in a TV show about it, they talked with one of his friends/students whom he would play guitar duos with. His friend was playing for Pat after the aneurysm (Pat wasn't back to playing yet) and the guy hit a wrong chord and Pat suddenly said "No, D minor 9th" and grabbed the guitar and played the right chord.

Pat also tells a similar story about meeting Joe Pesci backstage and knowing him only from movies until Joe tells him, "I can tell you what you used to drink at Smalls' Paradise in the '60s". Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niUwDegpYyo

A couple more examples are Oscar Peterson and Rashaan Roland Kirk.

Judith Durham, Australian singer and songwriter famous with The Seekers in the 1960s but active ever since, had a stroke.

Afterwards she could still sing but had lost the ability to write songs.

Agraphia is an impairment or loss of a previous ability to write.

I can read fine. I can type fine. Drawing is mostly fine. Physical writing is total gibberish. Think severe alzheimer level.

For Judith Durham, I don't know if the problem is the physical writing of the songs, or the ability to compose a song. Sources aren't clear on that.

Oscar had a stroke, which he didn't really recover from -- he just played mostly one-armed.

I just saw this incredible video [1] last week about him and "the greatest solo ever recorded."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj93v9j2A4A

Great video. Note the signature on that guitar by the way (2:49).

One more: Edwyn Collins, from Wikipedia:

In February 2005, Collins was hospitalised after two cerebral haemorrhages which resulted in aphasia, and he needed months to recover. He resumed his musical career in 2007. A documentary film on his recovery, The Possibilities Are Endless, was released in 2014.

Well Kirk was cheating because he could just play the other sax.

‘Martino Unstrung’ is a documentary about him and talks a lot about what he was like leading up to and after the aneurysm was discovered. A great look into one of the giants of jazz guitar but also fascinating to learn the things he could remember and what he couldn’t, personality changes, etc.

Neil Young too was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in March 2005, while working on the Prairie Wind album in Nashville [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Young#Health_condition_an...

Not sure if I remember the documentary correctly, but didn't he re-learn to play with a different hand orientation, e.g. right then left hand?

There are odd videos of him in his early public reappearance after his illness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotxdCS9xm0

(odd in the sense of semi private recordings)

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

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.

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.

I love her best albums, like Blue and Hejira. Sadly, I don't listen to her much anymore since I listen to all my music on Spotify and she pulled all her albums from the platform, because Joe Rogan (or something). Disappointing.

I don't use Spotify. I use YouTube on the desktop with ad blockers.

YouTube is doing something amazing which is auto uploading music from all over the world in partnership with aggregators. For example:

Самолёт - Джуна https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgeZtWT2gz8

Provided to YouTube by National Digital Aggregator LLC

Самолёт · Джуна 2,220 views ℗ 2020 Released on: 2017-04-14 Auto-generated by YouTube.

It's fair to say I've discovered more new music this year than all previous years of my life. It's strange to think I live in a world where I could listen to music for the rest of my life and never listen to the same song twice

I hope she's still popular. She's a genuine genius, the music is astounding, and as a personality she's a force of nature.

But I have a theory that you're not destined for immortality until at least three generations love your work. Pink Floyd and maybe Kate Bush seem to be there, but I'm not sure Joni is yet.

I'm afraid you are right. Sadly, that means many brilliant musicians like Tom Waits are destined to fade into obscurity. I'm sure Tom Waits will live on, but fewer people will know his brilliance.

I doubt it.

When was the last time you even heard Elvis anywhere? What male singer can you name from the 1940s other than Sinatra? When was the last time you heard anything from Bing Crosby other than Christmas songs?

And they were gigantic relative to anybody in the last 40 years short of maybe Michael Jackson.

I watched the Kennedy Center Honors show for her. Even though I've known about her forever, I was blown away by how great those songs are, even when performed by someone else. Maybe even "especially performed by someone else."

Now I have the super-high-fidelity digital version of Blue. Along with an outboard D/A converter to take advantage of it.

Original article is here:

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113608539/joni-mitchell-newp...

Also https://www.guitarworld.com/news/joni-mitchell-relearned-gui....

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...

Jerry Garcia had a similar situation iirc.

Yes. https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/jerry-garcia-grateful-dead...

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

what are the odds of surviving a brain aneurysm

With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad one can kill someone in minutes.

Untreated, like you're alone and nobody finds you for days, much much less, and the recovery of functioning less likely.

Depends on how much bleeding and where.

Yeah I'd bet the specifics play in heavily. Anecdotally when I was in high school my girlfriend had a siezure from a ruptured aneurysm while we were watching her little brother. I don't remember how long it took her to regain consciousness on her own, but I remember her being fairly lucid talking to the paramedics, wanting to know what happened so not long. Didn't suffer any long term effects. I have to assume luck of the draw plays in heavily.

Very much a matter of luck and details. What part of the brain is injured, how bad the bleed is, how quickly it can be treated, how good the treatment is.

Anything from dead within a few minutes to no effects at all, with great variation in lost or reduced function in between.

> With prompt treatment, somewhere around 50%. A really bad one can kill someone in minutes.

I'm very far from expert in this and don't work in the field, but I think this thread is talking about ruptured aneurysms. Unruptured ones do considerably better with coiling, flow diverting stents or clips. The first link from 2014 has a 15-16% mortality rate at 7 years for treated aneurysms. Treatment has got better in the 15 years since those people were operated on.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24724850/

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.STR.29.8.153...

https://www.bafound.org/about-brain-aneurysms/brain-aneurysm...

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