Working on reader of Rick's music tips..

Subject: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Marion
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:09 PM

Hello friends. I have had in mind that I should find and put together some of the advice that Rick posted on Mudcat about guitar and other musicianship topics. Having seen some similar suggestions posted, and having discussed it some with Allan C., I've started work on this project with a view to making it publicly available rather than just for my benefit.

What I intend to do is browse through his postings to find the practical music advice he was so generous with, then organize them into a document. I don't know yet if the final product would be a permathread or some kind of booklet that could be sold for Heather's benefit.

I've started this thread to ask you lot for three things:

1. Is anyone else doing any kind of similar project? If so, please contact me so we can distinguish our mandates from each other (i.e., if I do music stuff and you do interesting BS...) or decide how to cooperate if we both want to do something similar.

2. I expect that I would be including some material that Rick sent as PMs to me. Do you have a stored PM from Rick with musical advice that would be of general interest, that you'd be willing to pass on to me and have appear in the final, public product?

3. My plan is to browse through Rick's list of postings and click on thread titles that sound promising. Do you know of a good music-tips post under a thread title that you think I'd be likely to overlook?

Thanks, Marion

This may take a while as I'm on the road, but I expect to work on it a bit here and there while at people's houses.

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:16 PM

Good project Marion!

Definitely include his advice on modifying capos! It's been posted several times and I'll have a look for one of the better ones.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:18 PM

I think it is a great idea and know others have talked about it, too. My only suggestion is that it all be copyrighted to benefit Heather, if it gets printed into a booklet, with your costs covered, of course. Thanks for doing this, Marion.

kat

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Mark Clark
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:40 PM

Interesting idea, Marion. I've thought for a long time that we (Mudcat members) should edit a book or books containing all the musicianship tips found here and produce a Mudcat Guide to the techniques. My thought was that sales of such volumes could be used to help support Mudcat.

To be sure, Rick supplied more than his share of tips here. But often, Rick would start a thread just to draw out tips from the rest of us. Occasionally, he would even admit to learning from them. How do we separate the tips Rick offered from the tips he elicited from the rest of us? Rick's threads were usually meant to enrich the Mudcat content by shaming or enticing the rest of us to help build something larger than any of us. This is the same spirit with which Dick and Susan began The Digital Tradition and with which Max began The Mudcat Café.

My thought was that everyone whose tips were used would be listed as a contributor but the book(s) would be Mudcat books. Do you think it would make sense to publish only tips that Rick personally offered? Would it then make sense to publish all other tips without including any of Rick's? Is that what Heather or the people closest to Rick would want to see?

The form of all of the Mudcat tips, as they appear in posts, is certainly not suitable for publication. A great deal of work needs to be done with editing and supporting graphics before any of it is really ready for publication. I should think the work would take a year or two to properly accomplish. Anything less than the most useful, most professional guide(s) available would be a failure of purpose in my view.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 12:21 AM

Yes I had thought of it, but am not doing it. Needs to be a guitar player, and I am not. I thought of it as a CD-ROM, tho, to avoid a print cost, and yes, to benefit Heather, but not deleting the threads or closing them, but inserting something about the availability of the product.

That was what I THOUGHT. I am not sure it is what someone should DO.

There is a fine line there about what Rick would have wanted done with it... he posted it here, after all, and didn't ask it to be limited before he left. He gave it away, didn't he?

I think you should see what Joe Offer and Pene say about how to organize it right here, and then make a CD-ROM from that base as an option. And I think Heather (with the help of Rick's closest music associates) should decide what is done, and how, or IF.... and in the meantime, looking up all the stuff you described would be a huge project and a welcome help for them to depend upon once they decide what they would like to have happen.

It has been pointed out to me, articulately, that folks closest to Rick need to let the dust settle a bit before diving in to this sort of thing. So I would focus on the research, and let them chime in as they are able.

~Susan
~Susan

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 09:40 PM

Get others to gather.

Publish and reap.

A gypsy/busker type thing

While the body's scarce cold.

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 09:47 PM

Marion, ignore the naysayer. Beginning the compilation is fine, as long as Heather has the say as to what is done with it. And now is not the time to bother her with that. But it is a wonderful sentiment, and one worth serious consideration. I would, in fact, counsel letting the dust settle a bit, and then we can talk with Heather and see how she feels about it.

Rick shared himself and his knowledge with this place. Let us give Heather the courtesy of input on to how to properly share it. When the time is right .........

Mick

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 09:50 PM

Did Gargoyle forget to sign his name?

This is a project that will take time, and the pain of loss needs to pass, but it is good to start discussing what categories of material will be collected. Ultimately the choices may lie with the last editor standing.

SRS

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:46 AM

This seemed like a good idea to me, as well--I started looking a few things up, the Merle Travis threads particularly. Mark Clark is exactly right--

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Tinker
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 10:43 AM

Marion, I've been practicing out of a notebook filed mostly with Rick's guitar tips, and briefly talked to him about the fact it was almost a book at one point. There is definately "something " to take shape from these pages, but it's exact definiton may prove illusive until they get shuffled around a few times. Let me know what kind of help you you might want. My door is open if you head this far north.

Kathy

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Marion
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 03:59 PM

Thank you for your comments, and the PMs.

I feel I should clarify one thing: when I said that I don't know yet what form the final collection would take, all I meant was that I don't know yet (in answer to an anticipated question). I'm not, right now, hoping for a discussion on what the form would be. Naturally, that can be decided later and in consultation with Heather.

But what I can do now - and am doing - is the work of looking for material for inclusion. And already somebody has pointed out to me one of the smart-ass-titled threads that I had never noticed was a tips thread. That's the kind of help I'm looking for right now.

Love, Marion

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 08:29 AM

You might also like to know that many of Rick's students have extended tape libraries of lessons -- I have at least 30 hours of tapes.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:17 PM

Great idea. And Rick's advice spread out beyond instrumental technique too, and I'd hope that could be reflected. As well as the way he stimulated other people to chip in with good advice in the threads he started.

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Ed.
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:25 PM

It is a lovely idea, but Big Mick says it best:

"I would, in fact, counsel letting the dust settle a bit"

Maybe next year, eh?

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:03 PM

It is ALL Public Domain

The quickest to publish...without his name

Reaps the glory and the fame.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

As I was saying....a grifting/sifting/busking Gypsey's domain!@

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:53 PM

Arguably, the lessons are proprietary information that you paid to use in a very specific way(so that you could learn to play the guitar)--you can use them to learn to play the guitar, but if you publish(copy and distribute) them or transcribe them and publish that, you would probably be infringing on Rick's intellectual property rights, not something any of us want to do, because the object here is to preserve and continue his work, not to create legal problems.

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: Mark Clark
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:06 PM

At the bottom of the threads page it says

All original material is copyright © 1998 by the Mudcat Café Music Foundation, Inc. All photos, music, images, etc. are copyright © by their rightful owners. Every effort is taken to attribute appropriate copyright to images, content, music, etc. We are not a copyright resource.

Does this message have any legal meaning? It seem to say that our individual contributions are copyrighted by the Mudcat Café Music Foundation, Inc. If that has any meaning, we can't do anything with the material without written approval from Max.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Working on reader of Rick's music tips..
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 12:06 AM

MANY, many years ago....I stopped posting the oral-traditions of my family....They are ours, Max can't have them, they belong to us.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle