On Saturday, December 6, 2003, at 11:27 PM, Vance Wood wrote: > Trouble is-----a lot of them drop out or go underground because the > group > that should be supporting them and encouraging them is by far and > away as > friendly as a pack of junk yard dogs. As a whole I have never been > exposed > to a group, boasting interest passionately in a particular endeavor, > that is > more driven by ego, pride, condescension, duplicity and judgementalism.
Scathing indictments, Vance, but I have to say that I've been on this list for about nine years now, and I think this recent "facsimele" thread has been one of the worst flare-ups we've had. > Before you get mad at me read through the posts that have flooded email > servers world wide over the last week or so and ask yourself: If you > were > new to the Lute would you feel safe and confident in posting a > question to > this bunch of brigands? No, I wouldn't; in fact, I was thinking that very same thing a couple of days ago: what would any newbies think of all this turmoil? And also: what do the quieter, more thoughtful members of the list think? When I first took up the lute in 1980, I found a small but dedicated group of people who were brought together by a common bond: we all loved the lute, and were fascinated by it. We congregated for "lute hoots" in Topanga Canyon once a month, and we used to refer to the sprawling LA megalopolis below us as the Land of Mordor. It took Bobbie and me nearly two hours to get to Topanga from Orange County, but we made the journey gladly because it refreshed our spirits. We played, we sang, and the people there were sincere, gentle and dedicated to learning all they could about early music and the lute. When I look back at those times, they seem like some romanticized dream; but they weren't, they were for real, and I will never forget them. There was a spirit alive in that lute community which I kept by me through the years following the end of the Topanga days. I played a lot of lute gigs around Orange County, and got involved in a lot of EM projects with Andrew Charlton at CSUF. But eventually we all went our separate ways, and my interest in the lute became totally eclipsed by graduate school and part-time teaching. By 1987 I was not playing lute at all. And I continued like that until 1993. when I heard a CD of Ronn McFarlane''s Scottish music. I called Ronn, and he put me in touch with the LSA. I met Terry Schumacher around that time, Dick Hoban Pat O'Brian, Jim Stimson and Caroline Usher. Slowly my acquaintance with the lute world became renewed. Over the last 10 years, some of that original Topanga spirit has remained: at times the lute community still seem like a fairly Bohemian bunch, and I really like it that way. I think that there are plenty of lute folks who can relate to those old days, and will know what I'm talking about. I hope that that old spirit has not entirely disappeared. I hope that the spirit of trust and kinship still prevails on the lute list; and that the flame wars are simply storms in a teacup. NaivelyYours, David Rastall
