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Loving too much

9/21/2011

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Someone reading my last post emailed to remind me of another aspect of the performer/audience synergy that definitely should be mentioned. It has to do with what should be expected from the audience. This is a delicate matter, for sure. No one is obliged to attend a performance of any type and as I’ve said before – much to the disgust of one of my pro musician friends – we are up there but for the grace of the audience. But still…

In the town where a live there is a very active and long-standing folk music society that puts on concerts all winter long. Some world-class musicians have played in the concert series over the years. One person is particularly well loved, the singer-songwriter Bill Staines. He has played for the society for better than 30 years and his concert every year is a much anticipated event. Bill is a true troubadour – he has essentially lived on the road, performing all over the U.S. and Canada for about 40 years. His wonderful raw honey baritone voice has only improved with age and his left handed upside-down-and-backwards guitar style is very cool to hear and see. His songs are “old school” in the best way. Ballads, love songs and tales of characters he has met over those long years. Some of them have become true classics of the American folk music genre, including “Roseville Fair”, “All God’s Critters” and “River” – one of my favorites. But herein lies the problem.

Everyone knows and loves his songs, which is great. BUT….at his show here every year, many, many audience members feel it’s perfectly fine to sing along. Loudly. With every song.

OK, call me a curmudgeon. Call me a stick in the mud. But damn it, when I go to a concert, I want to hear the PERFORMER, not some person bellowing out the songs, most likely with shall we say, a somewhat challenged ability to sing in tune. And at this event I’m not kidding when I say that there is almost a macho folkie vibe of, hey, I know the words to EVERY BILL STAINES SONG! It got so bad that I finally stopped going.

I want to say to the grey haired pony tailed flannel shirt guy next to me, pleeeeez, sing all you want at home. But not here! Pleeeeez let me hear Bill!

Another example of audience love or respect or whatever it is that goes too far. It is standard practice at any jazz show to applaud after every solo of every instrument. On paper this shows respect and admiration of the performer’s abilities and interpretation of what can be very complex music. But in reality, for at least some audience members, I am convinced it is more like an ego statement. Hey, check me out – I’m a cool jazz fan who “gets it” when a player testifies.

I am totally in favor of spontaneous applause any time a player offers an outstanding performance, whether at the end of the tune or in the middle. But if you have a band on stage that has six or more members, and all six take solos, and the audience feels they must clap at the end of every solo – is it possible that they are disrupting something larger, that is, the entirety of the complexity of the piece? Not to mention my own desire to get into the music and connect in some way with the player. The absolute extreme of this disruptive intrusion is something I witnessed at a Diana Krall concert a couple years ago. A lady a couple seats down from us felt compelled to exclaim, “Yeah!” “That’s it!”
”I hear you, Diana!” and various other ditties throughout the show. It was distracting to the point that I was almost embarrassed for the pathetic display.

So here’s the bottom line. Love the music! Let it touch you in ways that are yours. If everyone is touched in the same way, even better. Clap if you feel the solo or performance deserves it, not just because you’re “supposed to.” And always consider the enjoyment of the other audience members who may not want to hear you sing. Yes, it can be a wonderful bonding moment but it adds NOTHING to the overall experience and may in fact diminish it.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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Is he as good as me?!?

9/19/2011

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Old joke:

How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?

Four. One to change the bulb and three to say, “I could do that!”

A student of mine was describing a performance at a local watering he witnessed recently. A guy was playing some music – loudly… way too loudly. The bar owner (not someone to be trifled with by the way – a former pro hockey “enforcer”) asked the guy to turn down, not once but a few times. Finally he did, but then sarcastically asked the audience, “So, can you hear me now?”

My guess is it was that guy’s first and last performance at that place. My student then went on to describe another guitarist who plays there, a very well respected and talented guy who sometimes cannot be heard due to the crowd noise. This can certainly be frustrating if you want to hear a performance but it bears mentioning that a person playing in a bar is NOT doing a concert. His function is at least partially to fill in the gaps in conversation. Sorry to sound so cynical but that is a fact.

This all gets to another question. How do you react to a performer, not someone famous but a local musician? I think we guitarists all suffer from an almost immediate reaction of comparing our own musical abilities to those of the person performing. I used to be horrible about this, truth be known! To the point that my wife just about refused to go out with me to places with entertainment knowing that at some point I was likely to make some snide remark about the performer. That was just dumb of me and I sincerely hope I’ve matured enough to put that useless attitude aside.

But in just about anything in this life – our jobs, hitting a baseball, doing something creative in the arts – we can’t help being at least a little judgmental about someone doing something we too can do. The trick I think is to consider the circumstances and for lack of better description, the honesty of what that person is doing. Do you sense that they are playing to best of their abilities and that they are enjoying what they’re doing? If so, it doesn’t matter that you know the player should be playing an Em7b5 when he’s just playing a straight Em.

I’m not saying you have to enjoy a performance every time. But at the very least you should be able to take away something that will help with your own performances. If someone is playing way too loudly, or just doesn’t care that his guitar is painfully out of tune, time to go. However, if a performer is up there giving his or her best, cut them some slack, maybe a lot of it. We should always remember that playing in front of any kind of audience is a very “naked” thing. Supporting and encouraging live music is the bottom line.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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Old dog, new tricks

9/13/2011

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I don't know, maybe it's because my dad (an ordinarily very mellow and humorous guy) was so downright rigid about correct technique when I was a kid taking drum lessons from him, or my grandfather when I briefly took clarinet lessons from him, but for many years I was absolutely unbending with my students about the "right" way to play chords. My way or the highway. I don't care how (fill in the blank with the name of a famous guitar player) so-and-so plays an A Major, you MUST use your first three fingers in first position! Or so I thought.

But in recent years I've been teaching more and more adults who are essentially self-taught and have come to me to take their same old, same old playing to the next level. The problem is - when someone has been playing a first position G Major with their first, second and third finger for 30 or more years, when I tell them a much better way is with the second, third and fourth fingers, they sometimes resist. There's a reason, I tell them, and a good one. Playing that and other chords with the fingerings I prefer foster faster and more accurate chord changes, not to mention (many times) a clearer, cleaner sound.

I stand by that, for the most part. I'm a firm believer that the less a player moves his or her fretting hand, the better their playing will be. Plus, it's just easier! Or so I thought.....

What I've come to realize lately is that a self-taught player who has been playing chords a certain way for a long time is really not going to benefit a whole lot from re-learning "my" fingerings. Most of the time, anyway. If a student can make the changes without breaking the beat and his version of the chords sound OK, why change?!

I still introduce chords to less experienced players using the fingerings I prefer. And I absolutely believe that person will ultimately learn their chords faster and with more accuracy than a player who used alternates that may have been initially easier but made changes - the essence of keeping a beat through a piece of music - much more difficult.

So I guess all I'm saying is, if you're comfortable with the ease and sound of chords you've learned on your own, so be it. But if you've been struggling with a certain progression or a section of a song, think hard about the fingering of the chords you're playing. I'd bet 10-spot that's the root of the problem.


Peace & good music,
Gene



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Of this and that....

9/5/2011

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Well, in spite of the dire predictions of The End Of The World As We Know It by breathless television weather and news people, all trying to out-disaster each other, we did in fact escape from Tropical Storm Irene relatively unscathed. I did take the precaution of moving my guitars out of the studio and into the house in case the big oak tree in back fell into the studio but that proved unnecessary. The whole event did remind me however of a great song, an old blues number covered by folksinger Tom Rush many years ago called "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm?" which I've been meaning to learn for years. Gotta get to that one.

Not to downplay the seriousness of the storm for some folks - it was devastating for many in western New England and Vermont due primarily to the flooding. But when the main hurricane guy at The Weather Channel is making statements like the potential effects of the storm being "unlike anything anyone has ever experienced..." it's hard not to be at least bemused by the coverage.

On a different note...
Here's a recommendation, thanks to my son Matt:  www.grooveshark.com
While it is similar to other free music sites in some ways, the beauty of grooveshark is that you create your own playlists and the audio quality is excellent. If you want to burn copies of tunes you download you still have to pay for them of course, which I heartily endorse. But as long as you have internet access you can play virtually any song that exists, thanks to a massive library. Recommended if you'd like to check out an artist's work before you buy it!

I need to learn more about the home recording game. I'm reasonably satisfied with the couple CDs I've recorded and mastered on my Tascam DP-02 and I use the Tascam BB-1000CD for recording lessons with my students - I'm so happy with that machine (although not quite as easy to use as an old-school cassette recorder, God I miss them....) that I even bought a new back-up in case Tascam decides to discontinue that wonderful little unit. It has mic inputs, plus FOUR internal mics and recording can be done either directly onto a CD or onto a SD card. Has a built in limiter/compressor so there is no danger of distorted recordings and also includes features like overdubbing, a metronome, guitar tuner and more. Needless to say, as with the DP-02 on a much, much larger scale, I have only barely scratched the surface (no pun intended!) regarding the capabilities of these recorders. And to think - the Beatles did ALL their recording on a 4-track, analog machine. Gives me even more respect for the genius of Sir George Martin, without whom you have to wonder if the Beatles would have ever been heard at all....

Until the next End of the World storm (!)....

Peace and good music,
Gene


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