Thoughts on Ringo's instrumental ability
 

With all the talk in the other thread about Ringo's various guitarists, I got to wondering: where does Ringo herself stand? Not just in terms of guitar, but with any of the various instruments she's played over her career. I'm curious about what those in the know think.

Just to get it started, here are a few thoughts from my extremely unsophisticated perspective. Please educate me!

• When I was first getting into Ringo, I was kind of disappointed that it seemed like she mostly played *rhythm* guitar. What, if anything, does this say about her ability?
• Ringo's guitar playing on NIPPON was, for me, the one bright spot in that song. Granted, the bar was not very high there.
• I've heard people on EMF say that they liked her bass playing. Which performances are her best?
• Her melodica performances are always a treat, and she should do more of them. Kurumaya-san could've been a little cleaner though, IMO, but I still loved it.
• Looking back over it, she has played piano a lot more than I had remembered. On the studio recordings, these performances seem competent but don't really jump out at me (with one or two significant exceptions).
• Live, she plays piano *exactly* the same way she sings, and it's glorious.

She was raised to play classical piano. I can't remember where I read it, but supposedly her father allowed her to play one hour MAX per day (I guess it got annoying after a while?). I think her best piano performances were at the 1999 Rising Sun Rock festival, particularly her rendition of "Akane Sasu, Kiro Terasaredo...". There is also footage of her from the TJ Phase 1 years where she can be seen playing a piano solo - if I remember correctly, it was either Chopin's op. 34 #2 (which was the basis for "Komori Uta"), or Bizet's theme that was used for "Chiisana Kinomi". I think it may be on Dynamite In.