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Author Topic: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.  (Read 3651 times)

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Chris Brimley

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #20 on: November 11, 2014, 11:57:38 AM »

Interesting discussion.  I don't see why you can't get the best of both worlds, if you want - edit out and redo the complete cock-ups, but keep the minor fumbles that don't really sound too bad.  And if that is the attitude you adopt in advance at the recording stage, nerves can be largely overcome, I think.  However a video fade-out/fade-in is nothing like as easy as an audio one, and I greatly respect Anahata and those others who are prepared to put up high quality live video performances - personally I prefer audio only, partly because it's so much easier for the player, and partly because, for a viewer, spotting the fingering used is not actually very easy to do anyway.

But I also have to support the 'acid test' thing.  I'm afraid that it's easy to imagine we're playing an awful lot better than we are, and the simple process of recording one's best efforts and listening to them can be an edifying experience, demonstrating in horrible clarity exactly what one hasn't learnt.  Luckily, a real audience will often 'fill in the gaps' for you, and will usually be on your side in creating your own good performance, so it's perhaps not as awful as one may think, but that doesn't take away from one's responsibility as a musician to perform as well as possible in the first place.




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Anahata

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #21 on: November 11, 2014, 12:09:33 PM »

personally I prefer audio only ... partly because, for a viewer, spotting the fingering used is not actually very easy to do anyway.

Funny that - I agree it's not very easy, but quite a few people have posted to melnet that it's really useful to see how other people play things, so they do take the trouble to watch and work it out. I got some very positive reactions, too, when I posted a slowed down version of The Sloe once. (because someone asked, and done as a new recording playing it slower, not by technical trickery. It was surprisingly hard to do, which is a lesson in itself.)
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A.J. Walker

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #22 on: November 11, 2014, 01:02:41 PM »

but quite a few people have posted to melnet that it's really useful to see how other people play things,
Absolutely! I just started learning this instrument a few weeks ago. I'm using a G/C instrument, and as so many of the players here use D/G, I can at least see the pattern of the LH accompaniment and which octave (where on the keyboard) one can play the tune.
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Chris Brimley

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #23 on: November 11, 2014, 03:02:31 PM »

Ah, others obviously do find videos useful - it always seems to happen too quickly for me, so perhaps I should persevere on this a bit more.
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Eric Barker

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #24 on: November 12, 2014, 05:49:44 AM »

When I used to play gigs, I learned that I would always mess up a tune if said tune was being played in public for the first time. It did not matter how well I thought I knew the piece. I finally started to air the new pieces in public sessions in order to get the mistakes out before the next gig. It worked fairly well.
eric in montana
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Mike Gott

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #25 on: November 20, 2014, 03:20:07 PM »

I tend to find that if I can just play something decently in the privacy of my living room, there is no way I can get away with it in front of an audience - and that includes an audience of a video camera! That added pressure tends to put you off just enough to make it go to pieces. It's best keep practicing in private until you can play whatever it is comfortably before you let it loose on the rest of the world.

Mike
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Rob2Hook

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Re: Sometimes you can do it - sometimes you can't.
« Reply #26 on: November 23, 2014, 01:08:01 PM »

I recognised the one from Lester about the tune just vanishing from memory just as you are about to play the fourth measure!  It is usually connected with an observed incident that has taken your attention so you're running purely on muscle memory.  In morris terms that explains why if the dancers cock-up the music can crash along with them.  At a ceilidh I find the worst thing is either a dancer you fancy dancing right in front of you or a long, boring walk through during which you day dream about something far more interesting than the task at hand.

It's certainly true that after a while the fear diminishes to an insignificant level - but a new piece still requires the level of concentration that yields a great melodeon face and much studying of one's own feet (don't wear new shoes, could distract yourself).

Rob
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