That Memorial Day concert at Folklife was great! Bob has a good, solid baritone voice that he uses well, and you can hear every word of whatever song he happens to be singing because his diction is crisp and clear without calling attention to itself. And his guitar accompaniments are solid, tasteful, and straightforward. As far as I know, Bob has never studied classic guitar, but he plays a great-sounding old Martin classic and his general technique looks classic to me.   I'm sure if he wanted to, with a few hours in the woodshed with the sheet music, he could whip off a bit of Sor or Tarrega. Bob's musicianship is solid as a rock, and it works in the service of putting the song across. And he knows a heck of a lot of great songs. It was a real kick working together again! [By the way, my sister got some pretty good pictures, so when I get them scanned in, I'll see about getting them posted on the "Member Photos & Info / Events" page. That'll be a bit yet.]

Jim, read my post above (03 Jul 03 - 06:05 PM), paragraph four, where I talk about symphony orchestra musicians. We agree on most things.

I think beginning orientation has a fair amount to do with it, but it doesn't have to rule your life. A musician who has had a lot of classical training with the idea of becoming a classical musician, and then decides to do some serious forays into folk music may have some difficulty in loosening up sufficiently, at least at first. Classical training and practice concentrates pretty heavily on precision and beauty of tone (at least by classical standards), whereas a lot of folk-style playing is pretty sloppy (again, by classical standards), with less emphasis on beauty of tone. Once the classical musician does loosen up enough to say, "Oh, what the hell!" and just lets 'er rip, he or she is going to be essentially indistinguishable from any other folk musician—except for playing very well and sounding pretty darned good. I've heard this happen on a number of occasions. Above, Bob mentions Vivian Williams, who started out with classical violin training, turned to bluegrass, and was the first woman to win a national country fiddling contest back in the early Sixties (which means she had to be better than everyone else, especially the men, by a pretty wide margin). She can saw that sucker with the best of them (obviously!), but when she wants to, she can back off and milk a beautiful, sweet tone out of that violin/fiddle. Unless she decides to try to unseat Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, she has all the technique she'll ever need and then some.

It's nice to be able to do both

Horrible example: Some years ago, I heard a prominent operatic tenor do Lord Randal in one of his recitals. He was great with the operatic arias and the art songs, but he didn't know Lord Randal from Fred Mertz! He gave it the full, Italianate operatic treatment, making it sound like the final aria in Lucia di Lamermoor, as Edgardo lays there dying with a dagger in his chest. Gawdawful! The tenor was strictly opera-oriented, and he had no idea of how to put a folk song across. Bad choice. Even some of the opera buffs in the audience were a bit turned off. Oddly enough, John Jacob Niles used to get away with that sort of thing! I've heard that during his rendition of Hangman, Hangman, Slack Your Rope, he's all over the stage, writhing, falling to his knees, gasping, and clutching at his throat. . . .

I repeat: classical training is not going to erase your ability to do folk music well (or any other kind of music, for that matter) unless you let it. Quite the contrary. It gives you the ability to do all kinds of things that you would not be able to do otherwise.

Glorious example: Wynton Marsalis. He had classical training in the beginning, and he is one of the top jazz trumpet players in the world, highly respected by jazz musicians and classical musicians alike. All I had ever heard of him was his jazz, and then one night on the tube, I saw him and heard him play Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. I've heard that a lot, but I've never heard it played better.

Don Firth