Standards - what do we mean?

Subject: RE: Standards - what do we mean?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:42 PM

Look'ee here-
Every sort of venue, whether it be a paid club performance, an informal singaround or a concert hall, has its own standards....based on what works for that venue. For professional performers, the box office is the gauge; for other venues, it's whatever works. Clearly the aesthetic for folk music is not the same as that for, say, grand opera or jazz; that doesn't mean it's worse...just different.

Subject: RE: Standards - what do we mean?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:11 PM

lets take Jazz,no way are incompetent performers asked up to do a spot with the gigging band.
for professional performers the box office is not necessarily the gauge.
an arts centre which is heavily subsidised,can pay more for a performer than a folk club,and still pay the guest,even if only three men and a dog turn up.

Subject: RE: Standards - what do we mean?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:56 PM

My two cents: Do the homework. Study the song, style, phrasing, history,culture and if it comes from your own personal cultural background, so much the better. Get behind the words. That's part of the research. Know what you're singing about and why.

Standards are arbitrary and kind of like navels (you know that one). There too many self-styled authorities. The audience will often tell you eventually.

Frank

Subject: RE: Standards - what do we mean?
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 06:17 PM

"… the punters in the pub definitely prefer their repetitive, unadventurous, poorly- delivered, but familiar stuff, in a familiar format, to any amount of well- played music of a type they see as alien, judging by their reactions."

Yes Paul, I've encountered that attitude too, and sometimes suffered as a result. Nevertheless, those punters are perfectly entitled to continue enjoying their "familiar stuff" – just as Linus (in Peanuts) is entitled to keep holding his blanket and sucking his thumb until he feels grown up enough to stop.

In both cases the underlying cause is insecurity, manifesting itself as a hunger for reassurance in an unpredictable world.   And if the world around you seems to become more alien and more threatening every day, then holing up in the pub and embracing the old familiar formats may be the simplest answer.

Only two ways of dealing with this situation have worked for me. One is to begin by giving the audience what they want (or think they want), and then gradually introduce them to material that's less familiar to them, but more satisfying to me. If that doesn't work, then the only other option is to walk away, and leave them to carry on doing their own thing – which in a free society is their undoubted right.

Wassail!
Wassail!

Subject: RE: Standards - what do we mean?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 06:36 PM

I have today concluded that the music is not dying,

See my recent post here