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Post by coachdoc on Sept 30, 2014 19:27:32 GMT -5
I'm always surprised when I am well received. Really gets me juiced though. There are very few things that I can get lost in by myself. Playing my adaptation 'Hard Times' is the most reliable.
I've always played in duos where the other person is the star. Now I'm playing with a beginning performer who sings harmony quite well, is ADD,and brings out my brusque and impatient side. I feel bad for her, and often unsatisfied with our music, but often we really nail it and it becomes worthwhile again. Think I'll pick up the guitar and play HT now.
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Post by Doug on Sept 30, 2014 19:34:09 GMT -5
Well the duo thing fell through and I"m not too upset. I was mostly sure that our styles were just too different to work together. I'm glad that she was the one that put the stop on things even though I was ok to give it a couple of more sessions to work out. This way I don't have to be the bad guy.
But the music goes on.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2014 19:39:24 GMT -5
Doug, admit it. You brought up shirtless bunny ears and she bailed.
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Post by Russell Letson on Sept 30, 2014 19:59:23 GMT -5
People want to hear you play. You are already validated. So you don't have to keep moving the car. Just don't lose the ticket.
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Post by PaulKay on Oct 1, 2014 10:34:49 GMT -5
Yesterday I played the guitar and sang to the plants in the backyard for an hour. I really enjoyed it. I fell in love with the sound of my D-18 all over again. I found myself wondering if I should get a set scheduled and go play for people again. I didn't feel much impulse to do it. Today I was talking to a friend who used to play a lot for audiences, and I realized why I don't feel much urge to perform any more. I never enjoyed playing solo, although I've done it. To me, rehearsals with my friends in the group were the best part of it. That, and getting the songs I wrote heard, were my main motivations. I'm not writing any more. I'm not interested in playing frequently enough to justify weekly practices with a group, unless I was a backup player, and I'm not good enough at any instrument for anyone to want me as a backup player. If I played a set of my old songs, I'd get maybe fifty more people to hear them, and I'd have to practice a lot to get to where I needed to be. The effort-to-reward ratio doesn't pan out. A lot of you are still playing a lot. What are your motivations? I'm really curious. These days I am in exactly the same place as you. I enjoy playing and teaching guitar, but it's too much effort to prepare for performing and I don't have any compelling desire to do it for tips. I've never actually had a strong desire to perform for people anyway. Kinda weird that I became a guitar player without that, but so it is.
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 1, 2014 10:40:28 GMT -5
I've never actually had a strong desire to perform for people anyway. Kinda weird that I became a guitar player without that, but so it is. Not all that unusual--at workshops I meet a lot of pickers who don't play out, and some who don't even play socially. Myself, I played just at home for more than thirty years before getting tempted out into the open.
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Post by PaulKay on Oct 1, 2014 10:45:35 GMT -5
I've never actually had a strong desire to perform for people anyway. Kinda weird that I became a guitar player without that, but so it is. Not all that unusual--at workshops I meet a lot of pickers who don't play out, and some who don't even play socially. Myself, I played just at home for more than thirty years before getting tempted out into the open. I was the opposite really. I did the vast majority of my public performing in my younger days (all pretty much for free), then a hiatus for 15 years or so. Then started again just to prove to myself I could I guess. But as I age, the motivation has ebbed to the point that unless somebody offers to pay me, I don't want to bother. Those paying gigs pretty much dried up a few years ago and I didn't do anything to turn that around. And I'm okay with that.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,869
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Post by Dub on Oct 1, 2014 11:00:11 GMT -5
I don't play out BECAUSE there is an audience. I'm actually indifferent to that. It's just that most of what I play was created as performance music and thinking about the demands and expectations of a paying audience provides an incentive and maybe adrenaline that helps me do a better job.
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Post by t-bob on Oct 1, 2014 17:03:39 GMT -5
Music... ah! Tingling my spine, up standIng my fine hair connecting electrons, my heart hammering, tearing one eye or both, nodding & bobbing my head or neck, dancing sway my torso, listening rapture musicians, and maybe me too. Classical, jazz, Indian, blues, flamenco, rhythmic African... less country, rap, hip-hop. My young years... played 00-18 mediocre, less a grand piano, few hundreds warhorses by Dylan, Chopin, Van Ronk, Bach, Mississippi John Hurt, Satie, and more, simplicity finger style & bridging 12 white keys. Fifty years a blank! In about eighteen months, I erased my extremely easy ditties. Now... five or ten difficult songs. My music now!... this time is training practice, healing a disorder, relieve anxiety therapy, my continual activities of life! hehehe.... Also chicks like all musicians!
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Post by Doug on Oct 1, 2014 17:21:43 GMT -5
Tell that to the banjo player.
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Post by coachdoc on Oct 1, 2014 17:26:02 GMT -5
I love the sound of fingerstyle guitar pieces played live. And if I am the one playing, it gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I like the discipline of practice and the feel and look of my guitar and the strings under my fingers. To play is familiar and comforting. Never thought of it as 'accomplishment'. But when I play something really well, that is the feeling I get. I strive for being one with the song, but I mostly observe myself and the performance. True with just listening as well. My wife claims sympathy for musicians. They can't just sit back and enjoy. Their critical faculties are engaged. Preventing fullest enjoyment. Hunh. I love it when I get past that self criticism and fall into the song. That's what I was talking about with Hard Times. I get enveloped in the sound. So peaceful.
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Post by Cornflake on Oct 1, 2014 17:36:49 GMT -5
"My wife claims sympathy for musicians. They can't just sit back and enjoy. Their critical faculties are engaged. Preventing fullest enjoyment."
True, in my experience. I found that once I learned how music was made, some of the magic disappeared for me. Instead of just soaking a song in, I'd be mentally reverse engineering the chord progression, critiquing the lyrics, identifying the mix of instruments and the like. I couldn't turn it off. I often wished I could.
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Post by drlj on Oct 1, 2014 17:59:51 GMT -5
I love sharing music with other players. I have great memories of a weekend in Wisconsin playing music non-stop with Paul, Millring, Howard, Mike Gilles and Matt Fox several years back. To me, things like that are what make it fun.
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Post by billhammond on Oct 1, 2014 18:14:19 GMT -5
I love sharing music with other players. I have great memories of a weekend in Wisconsin playing music non-stop with Paul, Millring, Howard, Mike Gilles and Matt Fox several years back. To me, things like that are what make it fun. Yeah, Wisconsin is really great.
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Post by drlj on Oct 1, 2014 18:17:34 GMT -5
I love sharing music with other players. I have great memories of a weekend in Wisconsin playing music non-stop with Paul, Millring, Howard, Mike Gilles and Matt Fox several years back. To me, things like that are what make it fun. Yeah, Wisconsin is really great. Did you know they have cheese available 24/7 just about everywhere? I filled up my car with gas and got a free bar of cheddar. We were in Madison. Took me a while to remember where we were.
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Post by coachdoc on Oct 1, 2014 18:20:28 GMT -5
Yeah, Wisconsin is really great. Did you know they have cheese available 24/7 just about everywhere? I filled up my car with gas and got a free bar of cheddar. Wisconsin cheese is BORING!!! Gotta get some Cabot extra sharp and wake up those taste buds.
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Post by drlj on Oct 1, 2014 18:21:48 GMT -5
I never said it was good. I just said it was everywhere.
I hear there is a good amount of sausage in the state, too.
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Post by Doug on Oct 1, 2014 19:05:57 GMT -5
Did you know they have cheese available 24/7 just about everywhere? I filled up my car with gas and got a free bar of cheddar. Wisconsin cheese is BORING!!! Gotta get some Cabot extra sharp and wake up those taste buds. Yeah it's about the best you can buy with out going specialty. But the extra sharp is just kind of sharp, I like my cheddar to have some bite to it. But I'm too cheap to buy the $12-15 for 8oz stuff. Kraft had one in the olden days called Coon Cheese but I think that got to be not PC so they changed the name to Aged Reserve and it lost it's bite. For about twice what I pay for the Cabot I can get cheddar in a can from WashStateUniv and let it age another year in the can and then it has some bite.
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Post by billhammond on Oct 1, 2014 19:18:55 GMT -5
Did you know they have cheese available 24/7 just about everywhere? I filled up my car with gas and got a free bar of cheddar. Wisconsin cheese is BORING!!! Gotta get some Cabot extra sharp and wake up those taste buds. YOU SHUT UP!You've never had the chance to buy cheese at a Wisconsin creamery, have you??
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Post by billhammond on Oct 1, 2014 19:27:00 GMT -5
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