Should good players play out?

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 10:13 AM

I have to say that since I started to get interested in folky stuff, I now know quite a number of songs that lend themselves to being sung unaccompanied, and would acquit myself much better if the scene was repeated today. WHETHER I should inflict them on anyne is another matter :-)

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: Steve Howlett
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:24 AM

"Good players should stay at home basking in the light of their own genius, so poor to middling players (like me) sound better in public."

Corona.

And really crap players should play in public to encourage those hovering in the wings to think "#$%@ me! If I can't do better than that I'll stand shooting!", and get out there and play themselves!

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 12:17 PM

Could it be those players who are happy just to play for and with their friends do not feel the need to go out and show they can do better?

It seems to me going out just to show the world you can do better than others is a pretty poor motivation for playing music in public.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:04 PM

no PETER. That is an over simplification, I get asked to go out and sing and play,and get paid for it,I do it because I enjoy it and because people think I am worth going to see, I do not do it because I want to show off.
I recently did three gigs in England, they were well received, and I enjoyed myself the audiences also enjoyed my performances, I spend hours practising my material, and I resent people who say that I do it to show off,Ido it because it gives pleasure to other people and because i enjoy playing.
I also enjoy playing for my own pleasure, when it comes to tunes i sometimes enjoy it more than going to a session, because i dont have to put up with someone who has a rhythym problem, or some bad djembe drummer, however i have had some great tune sessions ,these days I ALWAYS GO EXPECTING IT NOT TO BE GOOD ,THEN INVARIABLY I AM PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:16 PM

I was responding to the previous post Dick. You really should learn to read and understand what's written before you hit the caps lock.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:24 PM

and you should stop being a bloody idiot.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:25 PM

Dick Miles' last resort. As per usual.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:32 PM

Peter, why have you started this thread?.
if you dont want to go out and play, stay at home, if you want to go out and play do so.
let others do what they want, and please stop asking banal questions.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:56 PM

The issue was touched on, on the Best English concertina thread. Which you may have read if you weren't busy making an fool of yourself by posting your own name to it.

Alan Day and others, including myself, thought it merited a separate discussion. Michael Sam Wild suggested Istarted the topic. And I did.

At the top of this thread I made it very clear I only used myself as an example and didn't want this to be about me. I am quite secure in my own situation and am not looking for advice. I am curious about different points of view, certainly given the few reactions I quoted earlier.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 02:30 PM

making a fool of myself? I was having a joke, but you seem to be entirely lacking in any sense of humour, so i am not surprised at your reaction.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 03:32 PM

Yes Dick, totally.

Always resorting to the ad hominem don't you? If you don't like a discussion you start throwing about 'laughable' 'clueless' 'idiot' 'you lack sense of a humour'. And you wonder why people think you're making a fool of yourself.

You know what the best thing is if you don't like the question put forward in a discussion? Go to another thread you do like and leave the one you don't like alone. Good luck, dick.

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 04:17 PM

Quite a few different interesting observations here, before the personal invective, er, I mean, misunderstandings, started.

Some folks who are excellent players and/or singers are simply not motivated to "play out." I am reminded of the long ongoing discussion we've had about YouTube personality "fretkillr," a quite-good guitar player with a nice singing voice. So many of us assumed that he simply had to be someone famous, or at the very least, a professional session player accustomed to working with "big names."

I, on the other hand, have always figured that he's just as likely to be a complete unknown, perhaps someone who's been playing mostly alone and among a few close friends, someone who never wanted to go onstage, even in the friendliest small-time local venues, but who found an outlet, perhaps for the first time, by posting anonymous videos.

For those not already familiar, "fretkillr" never shows his face, only his guitar and his hands. Judging by his repertoire of familiar "cover songs," he's probably at least 50-55 years old, and been playing since his teens or early 20s.

It may be that, for years after first taking up his instrument, he truly was minimally competent, "not ready for prime time," and therefore gave up on any ambitions to play in public ~ but after decades of woodshedding on his own, he gradually became a much better musician but did not become any more interested in "playing out."

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: WildBilly
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 04:21 PM

If you enjoy playing by tourself, who the hell cares. If music becomes competition, it loses its intrinsic value. play on!

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 04:34 PM

After some fifteen years of concretizing, the idiosyncratic Canadian concert pianist Glenn Gould decided that he really didn't enjoy going on concert tours. The constant traveling, the hotels, playing in different concert halls with sometimes good, sometimes rotten acoustics, the whole schtick. So he quit. Much to the general upset of a lot of audiences and music critics.

But then, he devoted himself to recording, and committed an incredible amount of piano literature to tape/vinyl/CD. Huge library of stuff.

Gould was once stopped by a traffic cop. When Gould asked why he'd been stopped, the cop said, "You just ran a red light back there." To which Gould responded, "But officer, I've stopped for a lot of green lights that that I haven't gotten credit for."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 10:00 PM

Don - I think G. Gould should have made up his mind: either lay concrete or be a pianist. It's hard to do both. The concretizing can be murder on a concert pianist's hands. :>)

Subject: RE: Should good players play out?
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 01:16 AM

Well spotted!! I missed that entirely in proof reading.

Ain't typos a snort?

Don Firth