Ed,
Right after I came out with my Hurel album, I received a private email from
someone who regularly contributes to this list. This was one of the first
comments I got about the project. In the rudest, most brusk manner, this
person told me A) What an awful job I had done with the repertoire B) How could
I be so thoughtless as to use synthetic strings? C) I was being irresponsible
to the repertoire and instrument by even presuming to have such a wretched
recording out there D) I should just hang it all up right then. This was from
someone who was definitely informed about the lute, but constructive criticism
it was not.
Who knows? Maybe the guy was totally right about all those things, but he
knew very well that I was a young guy and that this was my first recording. I
knew that the album wasn't perfect, but felt that I had accomplished something
just by doing it. Fortunately, it hasn't brought me to too many tears. (I
wrote him back a message politely thanking him for his insights.)
I don't believe this individual would have ever had the guts to make these
statements in an educated public forum. I say again - for those who don't want
negative comments on their videos, disable the comment feature on your account.
(I believe so few do this because they secretly crave the positive comments.)
If you do keep the comments, you have the option of deleting any you find
offensive.
Chris
--- On Fri, 1/15/10, Ed Durbrow <edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp> wrote:
> From: Ed Durbrow <edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp>
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: constructive critical commentary
> To: "LuteNet list" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
> Date: Friday, January 15, 2010, 6:03 AM
> On Jan 12, 2010, at
> 9:08 AM, David Tayler wrote:
>
> I appreciate it when people point out
> mistakes, but it has to be
> handled well.
> For example, there are some videos where
> people are playing something
> twice as fast or twice as slow, double or
> half timing.
> Now it is obvious in this case that the
> player is not aware of it,
> and one *might* send a personal email
> alerting someone, or then again,
> not!
> If I had a glaring error I would probably
> take the video down and be
> grateful, or in some cases if it is just
> a wrong note I would leave
> it up and say, hey, I played a wrong
> note.
>
> That exact situation happened to me. I
> had a video up on the ning lute
> page playing a fantasia by Huwet.
>
> I got this comment from Miles Dempster.
>
> I very much enjoyed your performance of
> the Huwet fantasia, played with
> panache and understanding!
> This is has been one of my favourite
> pieces for a long time, and there
> are a couple of things that interest me
> about it that might interest
> you too. Just in case you haven't noticed
> them....
> 1. There is most likely a mistake in
> barring/flags in the original at
> bar 35. The theme appears to be played at
> twice the speed, when in fact
> it probably is meant to be played at the
> same speed.
> 2. Bars 38-43 (with the repeated rising
> figures) seem to have the main
> theme hidden in them - Eliott Chapin
> pointed this out to me.
> I will send you my own edited version
> which reflects the above.
> Best wishes,
> Miles Dempster
>
> I hope you don't mind my putting this up,
> Miles, if you are reading. I
> just wanted to show an example of
> constructive criticism as it should
> be done.
>
> In fact, after playing the passage as
> Miles suggested a few times, I
> was sold and took down the video.
> Couldn't stand listening to the old
> way anymore. Oddly, I was inspired to
> learn the piece when I heard a
> famous player read through it at a master
> class. He played the bar
> twice as fast too.
>
> Ed Durbrow
> Saitama, Japan
> [1]edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp
> [2]http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
>
> --
>
> References
>
> 1. mailto:edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp
> 2. http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
>
>
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>
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