Music study is a lifelong process. Enjoy the ride. The only reason to do
this is because you love doing it. If you can quit, you should.
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Mast" <[email protected]>
To: "Stephen Arndt" <[email protected]>
Cc: "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <[email protected]>; "David Tayler"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 6:17 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: OT: Baroque Guitar technique
Hi Stephen,
My ability to get through a lute piece without mistakes or "twangs,
splats, and squeaks" may be similar to yours. Very occasionally I do
question myself about the sense of continuing an uphill struggle, but
mostly not. As long as I sense any progress at all - and that may not be
daily, but rather like a plateau learning process where a week can go by
with no noticeable improvement and then suddenly you notice that a passage
in a piece that didn't come out before now does - I'm encouraged to
continue. And, beyond that, as with many endeavors, there is satisfaction
in the process - in the discipline involved. To face a challenge and deal
with it on a regular basis is reward in itself. So I say, be not
discouraged. Keep practicing - keep playing!
Best, Ned
On Nov 7, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Stephen Arndt wrote:
Dear David,
I had a very mixed reaction to your post. I am in no way a professional
musician, though I consider myself a serious, if not a very accomplished,
amateur (at least in the etymological sense of the word). Often times I
have listened to lute recordings and thought, "I might as well just quit.
I'll never play like that." I can get through any given piece without an
actual mistake (i.e., playing a wrong note) only one time in a hundred
perhaps and never without "twangs, splats, and squeaks." So, I was
consoled to learn that even professional musicians may have up to 2,200
edits per CD. Perhaps if I could edit myself "every 2 seconds," I
wouldn't sound so bad after all. It could well be that commercial CDs set
artificially and therefore unrealistically high standards of performance.
On the other hand, your most recent video (I think), "It's a Wonder to
See," has absolutely no "twangs, splats, and squeaks" or any other
imperfections that could be edited out, so I am back to thin!
king, "I might as well just quit. I'll never play like that."
I am not addressing myself now to the Paul O'Dettes, Nigel Norths, or
Robert Bartos among us (or even to the highly accomplished Daniel Shoskes
or Valéry Sauvages among us), but just to the average lute player,
whoever you may be. Do you have similar thoughts and feelings? Do you
alternate between "I love this more than anything" and "I'll never be any
good at this"? Maybe we should form a support group. Please let me hear
from you.
Stephen Arndt
--------------------------------------------------
From: "David Tayler" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 2:55 PM
To: "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: OT: Baroque Guitar technique
Live music is great!
A typical classical music CD has 800 edits, a typical solo CD, such
as guitar, lute, harpsichord, etc, varies, but the high and low
numbers for the albums I hvae worked range from 450-2200
Now 2200 edits is a a very large number, that's 2200 twangs splats
and squeeks that have been removed. Basically, a correction has been
applied every 2 seconds.
So, live music is better. By going to a real concert, you hear
something that is real, and support musicians directly.
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
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