"Let me noodle it"

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 07:53 PM 1/24/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard <markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
>Umm. For some reason, this sense of 'noodle' would sound 'more correct' as
>'doodle'. Doodling on the piano is much like doodling on paper: aimless
>designs. I don't use either of them in this sense.
>

In the post to which you're responding here, I was simply describing, to the
best of my ability, and given limited time and my own particular level of
information. I wasn't making a prescriptive evaluation. But all of us are
entitled to our tastes! (And I've noticed that all of us have them, even
when they are expressed not as overtly prescriptivist attitudes but instead
as disapproval of the prescriptivistic tastes of others!)

In any event, here's one of scores if not hundreds of cites I could offer
from music-related emails in my old inboxes. I only had to search six days'
worth of posts before hitting this (emphasis added):


>Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 21:44:36 -0400
>From: Rob -----------
>
>Transatlantic is made up of Roine Stolt (guitar/mellotron/vocals, from
>Flower Kings), Neal Morse (keyboard/guitar/vocals, from Spock's Beard),
>Pete Trevawas (bass/bv's, from Marillion) and Mike Portnoy (drums/bv's,
>from Dream Theater). Basically, if you're familiar with Morse's obsession
>with the hook, Stolt's tendency towards semi-psychedelic **noodling**,
>Trevawas' non-presence in Marillion, and Portnoy's custom of extreme
>overplaying, you may be pleasantly surprised by how well they worked
>together.
>


Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu