>Many years ago, one of our famous colleagues >gave a concert at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, and one of our >other learned colleagues* accosted him afterwards in the green room, >launching immediately into a detailed critique of everything he did >wrong, that could be improved, and how- but the performer shushed him >in mid-sentence and said "NOT NOW, damn it! Talk to me tomorrow, if >you must!" Even if the criticism is well meant, there is always a >proper time, way, and place. It's hard to determine "the proper time" to potentially make a person sad and evoke that "tundra-esque" reaction David talked about... sometimes one should simply leave it or utter a friendly "white" lie, I agree. But as it seems one has to ask one self how honest one is with one's urge to utter this and that... (difficult, I know...:-) The above critic - if I got the story right - intruded the post-concert celebration with inpolite and harsh negativity only, made himself important in the most inadequate way to the poor artist - who certainly had a right to be proud and happy and have a wondeful time in the first place after having performed at such a prestigious place, it probably was a big event for him.
Regarding postings on YouTube, I would say however, if and only if someone has an interesting contribution to make, he or she should do it, but try do offer his or her best in the given circumstances. For instance, putting some rare Conradi-Stuff on the net is almost in itself a good thing. But, say, a teenager who just managed to stutter an a-minor chord on his guitar should certainly not be encouraged to put the 10000000000th "cover version" of Angie on the net... to the effect that you will never be able to find a really interesting new version. I often look for this and that in YouTube, and often have to waste quite some time to struggle through mediocre recordings until I find something interesting and inspiring, if at all. Just yesterday I looked how interesting people might play a certain piece by Thomas Robinson. There was one stuttered boring version, with the player admitting that he did neither think much of it nor practice the piece... so why not, was my reaction, and was a little angry about him... Other people invest a lot of time, effort and intelligence to make worthwhile postings... Cheers F -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
