Stewart, I probably should have written this off list to you, I didn't correspond with Dawn. But your final paragraph, about playing in a pub and being "subbed" for during a break - and that taken from her thoughts in her email - rang a bell. I think I'll have to print her message as you transcribed it, and like you think of it now and then. It is trivial to say that in October when my old (50 years ago) group was singing in a restaurant that had invited us, and took a break, the juke box started. We said "to hell with it" and paid our bill and went to another place (actually a rather large mansion where the host took care of all the booze). But that is not my point.
Dawn said it well, but I'm afraid she was wrong. We are dinosaurs, we who can make a mistake and grin at the audience and then do better. The world is living on canned music, so much so that the "live" artists go on stage and gyrate and lip synch to their own canned music. One of the nice things about live music is that mistakes disappear. I've heard tapes of my performances and wondered how I got away with them, but we all know that the missed note vanishes as the new verse is played. And that is the bad thing about canned music, it isn't perfect - it is created perfection. What a wonderful thing is silence, fifty years ago when I was actively performing we didn't have silence between the sets, we had people coming up to talk (no CD or whatever being played). A good time, and a less hyper time. And one could say that today's format is more entertaining and more to the needs of the audience. Well, I'll agree, but I'll not admire that audience. When I hear a good piece played I want to hear it again in my mind, or speak with the performer. These people are not hearing music, they are requiring noise. May Dawn rest in peace, and may her griping words live. I share her gripe, as do we all. And thank you for bringing them back to our attention. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
