Random apple crumb.

The title was random.

I quote or paraphrase all this from: The Musician's Hand: A Clinical Guide by Ian Winspur and Christopher B Wynn Parry (which is what I'm reading at present.)

- The violin is a masterpiece of bad engineering. .... Given the starting premise that performers are prone to handshake, the very last thing they want to hold in a shaking hand is a metre-long wooden object which will go through a motion of several centimetres at the opposite end of a minute hand movement of a few millimetres. No wonder string players refer to stage fright as 'the shakes'.

-The top ten stresses reported (by orchestra musicians) were:
1. conductors who sap your confidence
2. incompetent conductors
3 having problems with the instrument
4. illegible music (i.e. music photocopied many times until the notes start to disappear)
(etc.)

- A certain renowned English orchestra was involved in a charity cricket match, a sport notorious for finger injuries, and volunteered 11 of its finest from the woodwind and string sections.

-Some stereotypes put forward by strings players and brass players:

String players saw brass players as lacking refinement and noisy behaviour. Interestingly brasss players claim to be gregarious and confident. The brass saw string players as frustrated, quiet and feminine. String players saw themselves as sensitive, insecure and neurotic. String playing is particularly complex, with the interrelation of finger, wrist and arm movement and posture, with acute aural skills and sensitivity to pitch and nuance (that note is flat!) .

-Hobee