My point is not that he is good, in your girlfriend's sense of the term, but
that he is popular, more popular than your girlfriend or I will ever be, and he
is using that popularity to introduce a "wider audience" to the lute which is
what so many on this list say they want.
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: Omer katzir
To: gary digman
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 2:31 AM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Stung again
well,
my girlfriend is a viol (gamba) player, study at the KCB in belgium with
Phillipe Pierlot (go to vereddagamba.com) when i sent her my copy of "Songs
from the labyrinth", she wanted to kill me :-)
she said that our dear sting, killed the lute and killed the songs with his
bad voice.
well, that what she thinks, i dont hate the CD, but he's not really good.
On Mar 30, 2007, at 1:17 PM, gary digman wrote:
Last night Sting's "Songs From the Labyrinth" Great Performances
show finally made it to my local PBS station. Overall I liked it. Some thoughts
did come to mind as I watched it. Sting's is obviously not a classically
trained voice, but that may be what is called for to "bring this music to a
wider audience". I have heard that classical music amounts to about 3% of the
market and early music is a small fraction of that. So, it seems to me, the
vote is in on classically trained voices. They are not popular. Sting is, or
has been, popular. If one wants to make the lute and lute music popular, as
some have proposed on this list, one must accept that certain concessions to
what is popular will be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If these
concessions to what makes something popular are unacceptable to you, I say, "be
careful what you wish for." Even so, Sting was correct in saying that his
recording of these songs would not be popular in the way he is!
use!
d to. I teach general guitar classes at a local community college and
virtually all of the young hotshot rock guitarists taking my classes who may
like the music of Sting and the Police say his Dowland CD "sucks", and not
because it deviates from HIP. And yet upwards of 500,000 of Sting's fans have
purchased the CD, a smash hit beyond the wildest dreams of Paul O'dette or
Hopkinson Smith.
Sting performs this music with great affection and respect. I think
he truly loves these songs and the lute, and I, for one, applaud him for that.
Also, I cannot understand those on this list who have trashed Edin Karamazov's
performance. I found his playing masterful and impressive. He is a great
lutenist.
I think what Sting and Karamazov have done is a marvelous service to
the lute and the music that will be of benefit to us all in providing more
opportunities to play. So, I say, "Carry on, Sting!"
Gary Digman
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