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Appreciating real work and tallent
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Niklas
Posts: 96
Joined: Aug. 27 2005
From: Finland (Living in Dublin)
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Appreciating real work and tallent
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I was at a part a few days ago with just some friends from all around gathering to have a good time. Anyway, there was one fellow who I had never met brought a guitar with him. I naturally was interested to see the guy playing. Well, after a while the guy picks up the guitar (steel string) and strums a few chords. The guitar is completely out of tune. No problem, he starts tuning it. Well, he tries to tune it... The guitar is completely out of tune when he starts playing. Ok so he starts playing some Finnish pop song and he's singing along. Guitar nothing close to tuned and he's not a fantastic singer either... But what happens? Everybody turns their head to look at this guy (who actually was a realy nice guy in the end) and starts listening. The untuned guitar realy fustrates me and I find it hard to listen to the whole show, being a bit of a perfectionst. But everyone else could not take their eyes off this guy. He's just playing Dminor, C etc and trying to sing in tune. He finnishes the song and i'm not exactly expecting the crowd to go wild, but instead everybody goes "Wow!". I look in amazement as people start complimenting the guy "Damn you can play!", "Wow, you mean you have only been playing for 2 years?". Well he continues to play during the evening and people (girls especially ) are loving the guy. Well all this made me acctually a little mad, here i've been working my *** off for the last 2½ years to get my arpeggios to sound half decent and some guy who has figured out 3 chords gets a standing ovation with a untuned guitar and a less than decent singing voice. Well I guess that the average person without much musical knowledge and ability will simply be fooled by something like this. Looking at some comments on some videos on youtube makes me think, why is it that people don't apreciate real skill? Not saying that anyone should apreciate MY skill since I don't have much of it but what i'm saying is that people who work like mad to become a good guitarist or pianist or anything realy are too often forgotten. Turn on a mtv and you will see what i mean. For example this certain young woman who's father happens to own a certain massive hotel chain and who just released her first album. This person can't sing, her voice has been digitally tuned or what ever for the cd, she has not written a single song and has not worked a day in her life. And yet she is famous and rich. Unfair eh? For some reason people don't just appreciate real work and tallent, and it annoyes the hell out of me. Thanks for reading. I just needed to get that out of my system Feel free to comment Niklas
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Date Sep. 24 2006 17:54:22
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Appreciating real work and tallent (in reply to Niklas)
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It's better to be an interesting loser!? What the heck kind of philosophy is that. I don't agree at all... That's like saying it's better to be a good guitarist than a happy guitarist. Hello!? I think that is a pretty twisted set of priorities. The best guitarist I know has been divorced three times, doesn't talk to his kids, lives in a trailer, and half the time I run into him he's nice the other half he about tears my head off. I wouldn't trade his guitar skills for his life--but he's sure interesting. And definitely a loser. Look, I remember playing Bach and people yawning, and then someone grabbing the guitar and playing a 3 chord song and singing badly, and then getting all the praise. This is a lesson learned. By all means play the Bach at home and for recitals, but play the cheesy Poison song when the chicks are around. Just because they don't have any musical knowledge doesn't mean they're idiots, by the way. I think it was Mark, one of our pros here, who said when he started playing bulerias at gigs, his clients had less fun and so did he.
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Date Sep. 25 2006 16:20:40
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: Appreciating real work and tallent (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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If you can't sing and play the three chord tune as Miguel advised, learn malaguenas. And Granada, and some other general public friendly music. I play with a conga player who can get an ovation out of any audience. He has developed a few techniques which always bring a strong reaction. It's like the guy has a gun in his pocket and can pull it out whenever he wants and slay the audience. This is powerful stuff to have for any musician, and it will make a difference in anyone's success performing music. Few non professional players have these "weapons". For flamenco guitarists, what I've seen work for others and on occasion, myself, has been the following: 1. blazing picado ala PdL-this has never worked for me because I don't have it 2. Continuous ras 3. Alzapua 4. Familiar music 5. fast showy stuff and tricks -use with discretion or risk totally losing any artistic merit............... So, if you are faced with an audience of non flamenco people, and you do malaguena with some hot picado and thunderous ras at the end and you don't kick butt, you need more practise, or maybe a louder PA At the end of the day you have to decide what you want out of your playing-to make yourself happy, to learn something new, to communicate with others, to make money, etc. Then you need to do the things that will help you achieve those goals.
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Date Sep. 25 2006 22:37:44
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Ricardo
Posts: 14833
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Appreciating real work and tallent (in reply to Niklas)
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I respect people who have the guts to play out in front of others and share what they know, even if it is simple or unpolished. Especially in parties, in formal. Lots of people can sit in the back with their arms folded and say "he sucks". But how about going and tuning the guys guitar and singing with him, or back up vocal. Then do something different, your own thing. Be a part of it. If it is so easy I mean. Flamenco is different, but the idea of singing and strumming a few chords is related. The player who can keep the party going, regardless of technique or ability to tune, is the life of the party. Get a room full of classical style soloists and see what kind of party happens. But of course there are some who go overboard and don't know when to quit, or worse, start charging for what they think is "good" music. But it is easy to ignore those folks, and they usually become too self absorbed to perform in formally anyway. In terms of flamenco, the informal "juerga" is real important for learning. Too many new comers want to perform what little they know on stage somewhere, but are shy in the juerga. Should be the opposite. Ricardo
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Date Sep. 26 2006 10:07:11
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JBASHORUN
Posts: 1839
Joined: Jan. 23 2005
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RE: Appreciating real work and tallent (in reply to Mark2)
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quote:
For flamenco guitarists, what I've seen work for others and on occasion, myself, has been the following: 1. blazing picado ala PdL-this has never worked for me because I don't have it 2. Continuous ras 3. Alzapua 4. Familiar music 5. fast showy stuff and tricks -use with discretion or risk totally losing any artistic merit............... Yeah, these would probably make the audience go "Wow, look at that guy!" But its almost like an over-exaggeration of these techniques is needed just to impress some audiences. And if you played them more subtly in an everyday context, they wouldn't be so impressed. The thing about Flamenco is that the rhythm structures themselves are so complex, that it immediately excludes outsiders from fully understanding the songs. Just the other day, I put on a PDL CD at the dinner table... my father (who has a habit of tapping along to the rhythm of virtually every CD I play) tried to tap along to the beat. But he just couldn't do it, because he wasn't familiar with the rhythm pattern. Now my father's a pretty intelligent guy, and very musically literate, with diverse tastes. But if even he can't understand it without guidance, what hope does some poor chav from Croydon have? Jb
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Date Sep. 26 2006 10:08:06
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