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
A quote (not verbatim though...) from William Blake apropos -
"The proclivities that could be controlled are not worth cultivating".
'
RT
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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