Sorry this is so long...
The recent Igor = The Devil thread has been gnawing away at me. He might have been clumsy in the way he expressed himself, but he was entitled to his view. However, he has highlighted the topic of the Online Lute Player, and what one might expect that to be, and that is what I would like to turn our attention to. In the days before YouTube, one would have expected a degree of professional standard from a recording artist (setting aside personal preference for one artist over another). Professional reviewers (rightly or wrongly) saw it as part of their job to inform their readers of who was hot and who was not, and why they thought so. YouTube has blown all that away. Someone who has just picked up his/her first guitar and decides to pluck it with a banana (not you, Val!), can reach an audience of thousands within days. You, the watcher-listener, have to make up your own mind whether something is 'good' or not. You can watch the video or not. I imagine Igor (and he is not alone) would like to see a return to a situation where one would expect a professional standard of performance and presentation. But that just isn't going to happen - well, I can't see any signs of it at the moment. David Taylor has raised two interesting points: 1. These videos give an insight into how the lute/guitar is actually played, and 2. the professionals are waiting until they can completely control the production process before submitting their 'performances' for public scrutiny (they can already do this, of course, if they have enough money or their record company are willing to pay for it). It would be wonderful if we could hear how the average lute player played in the 16th/17th centuries. We tend to assume that someone like Mary Burwel or Logy or some other high-profile amateur, would play well (within our present-day aesthetics). We have lute players today copying right-hand positions from paintings of amateurs who, for all we know, might have sounded terrible to their contemporaries. YT allows us to hear how (dare I say?) 'ordinary' people at the start of the 21st century played. That will be of use to future researchers, I'm sure. I consider myself as a semi-professional player. I have CD recordings and play concerts. Some years have been more busy than others, but I have never been in a position to make a living exclusively from lute playing. A few weeks ago the reality of who my audience is was brought home to me. I recorded the video of me playing the so-called archguitar. I did that early in the morning. I uploaded it, and then left the house to play a lunchtime concert in the local church in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh International Festival when the population of the city almost doubles. Bearing in mind that I have had three number one CDs in the Scottish classical charts, I might have been expected to get a decent-sized audience. There were six people. And that included my wife, daughter and the guy who opened the church doors. Three people paid - all pensioners, and therefore paid the lower rate - and two of them were blind. Why do I mention this? Well, their companion spent the entire time talking them through what I looked like, what the instrument looked like, what the church looked like, etc, etc - while I was playing. The point of all this? By the time I returned home, ninety minutes after leaving the house, the video had over 200 plays. Earlier this week, when I added up all my video plays from YT, Vimeo and my own web pages, I was surprised to learn I had over 16,000 plays in just a few months. How many concerts would I have to play to reach so many people? These figures are not special - many of our lute-video contributors could mention similar figures. There is no money in it, of course, but at least there is the satisfaction that someone somewhere is listening and hopefully enjoying the music. The downside? Even though the concert I played that lunchtime was on the face of it a negative experience, my wife and daughter stated that they had never heard me play so well. Why? I think there were two contributing factors - the acoustics were marvelous, and opened up for me subtleties in the music I never imagined were there - I was experiencing the music afresh, and that inspired me. And, there is a HUGE difference between playing to an audience, no matter how small, and playing to a camera. So, I for one will continue making mp3 files and videos, because I know there are people who get something positive out of it, and I will continue to try to play concerts even though I live in a country which has no interest whatsoever in Early Music. And I hope that my lute-playing colleagues do so too, no matter what their 'standard'. I am in their audience. Rob MacKillop [1]www.songoftherose.co.uk - free mp3 files and videos :-) PS I've just remembered...it is interesting to note the difference between my acoustic guitar audience and my Early Music audience: I have a 'donations' button on various pages. The Acoustic guitar pages (Scottish/Celtic stuff - some of it arrangements of Scottish lute pieces) has had enough hits to allow me to purchase an instrument. The Song of the Rose site - lute and baroque guitar - has raised only six pounds. Enough to buy two first strings. Don't worry, this is not a criticism, just a humorous observation :-) -- References 1. http://www.songoftherose.co.uk/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
