Jingle Hell: Suffering a Musician’s Fate Each December
“If I hear Jingle Bells one more time I’m going to jump off a cliff!” -Rhiannon Schmitt, December, 1997.
I had just immigrated to Canada one month earlier as a self-employed musician. I made my living by playing hours of Christmas music at malls, craft fairs and parties. I was happy to have the work, but the long hours playing lively violin carols were physically and mentally exhausting.
I started to keep track of how many times I played Jingle Bells that season and lost count somewhere around 200. Every night as I tried to fall asleep, the annoying chorus rang deafeningly in my ears. My digits involuntarily twitched and repeated the irritating fingering patterns incessantly. Then I thought of the
...a band and it goes in tune and rhythm with the drums and percussion. A bass guitar s neck or fret board is much longer than the fret boards of any other guitars and it has four strings called the ...