Hello Stephen, Edward and David, and everybody else,
Ahh, digital edits. I work with Sound Forge
on a regular basis, and the temptation is to
remove all squeaks and splats, and copy/paste
good notes over bad, so as to render a
recording "perfect". Listen to a recording by
somebody like Walther Gerwig, made before
digital, and you will hear much more of a real
performance. Of course, razor edits were
possible, but very dangerous territory as they could not be undone.
I read somewhere once that we get discouraged
from playing and performing ourselves
because we are constantly comparing our own
playing to recordings of acknowledged
masters - the top .0001% in the world. We are
somehow led to believe that if we can't play
like that we "ain't $#!+". It's a totally
un-realistic expectation. While it's a noble goal to aspire
to, we need to remember that there will always
be somebody out there who can play circles
around us (unless we happen to BE Paul, Nigel, Robert, or Ron).
I just named 4 people. 4 people out of how many billions in the world?
And these people have access to technology
that can eliminate all of their fluffs and
marginally played passages.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that I think
we shouldn't be overly hard on ourselves for the
squeaks and splats that, really, are a natural
part of playing a stringed instrument. They are
actually a part of the overall sound. We tend
to forgive them in performance and forget them
quickly. On recordings they live forever, so
that's why the pros do 2000 edits.
One of the down-sides of modern recordings is
that we are inadvertently led to feel that we
should give it up and let the pros do it. But,
think about people who played lutes in, say,
1630. They were mostly ordinary folks playing
in their parlours for enjoyment. They had no
CD players, etc. It was the only way to have
music unless you were fabulously wealthy. And,
while there may have been a high standard
amongst performers and teachers of the time,
most of that music was probably fraught with squeaks, splats, and worse.
So, Stephen, take heart. There will always
be a virtuoso that can make us look and feel
puny (I feel like hanging up my guitar every
time I see John Renbourn play), but we can still
make a lot of beautiful sounds for our own
enjoyment, and probably for the enjoyment of
others as well.
Tom
Tom Draughon
Heartistry Music
http://www.heartistry.com/artists/tom.html
714 9th Avenue West
Ashland, WI 54806
715-682-9362
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
>
Tom Draughon
Heartistry Music
http://www.heartistry.com/artists/tom.html
714 9th Avenue West
Ashland, WI 54806
715-682-9362
