matesic

Heifetz's 1961 recording of Bach's double concerto with Erick Friedman is lighter and swifter than contemporary accounts by e.g. Menuhin and Oistrakh. I applaud him for that bit I feel that his concerto recordings sometimes sound egocentric, not least his previous recording of the double where he plays both solo parts himself.

Sometimes, no, no. My definition of "see" is to be able to correctly identify objects by their pattern of reflected light. What's yours?

Your own definition of consciousness as "seeing stuff, feeling stuff, hearing stuff" seems somewhat inadequate. Surely any creature or robot with sense organs does that?

The most persuasive definition of a consciousness that I know (although I can't remember where I got it from) is that it constructs and maintains a model of itself that it can compare with the models it makes of external entities.

How can a label possibly get to be in a state like that in situ?

Digital independence is also a factor that I believe is "hardwired" and varies hugely between individuals. I see what this guy can do with his pinkie (about 50% longer than mine) and am awestruck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR8cyJknO6E

My trilling has always been weak and slow. I often call on vibrato for assistance. I don't imagine my case is typical but it supports my theory that the overriding factor in determining which way round to play isn't the dexterity of the fingers but the dominance of the left cerebral hemisphere and the "executive" right arm. How often do you see a conductor with the baton in their left hand?

As one "altgeiger" to another that would have been before 1961...

Same result, my left hand notably slower.

It's an interesting corollary. With my right hand I can drum my index and middle fingers regularly at 8 strokes per second. My left hand is and always was completely hopeless, 5 sps at best and very irregular. But that's the one I finger my violin with.

I think of the right arm of left-hemisphere dominant people as the "executive" arm - the one that calls the shots. The left hand is the secretary who actually does most of the work. Ironically though, in other tasks the fingers of my right hand are far more dextrous. Most left-handed people are actually left-hemisphere dominant but the minority whose brains are wired the other way should be given a chance to play a left-handed violin.

"Great" is a word that's suffered badly from adjective inflation. I took the op's intention to imply "as by Stradivari" or as in "Alexander the ..."

Whoever it was defined the second as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom must have had perfect pitch.

Can you make a great sounding violin deliberately? If not, then it has to occur by mistake, or a fortuitous confluence of unrelated factors.

These crop up quite frequently in UK auctions. A few years ago I acquired one out of curiosity but on playing it a few times decided it wasn't a "keeper". Attaching a chin rest can be a bit of a problem.