I've been reading a book I got for Christmas, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (Hardcover) by Glenn Kurtz. In his youth, Kurtz studied classical guitar and aspired to a concert career but abandoned this quest in his twenties. The book recounts his 'return' to the guitar and 'practicing' - events from his youth are intertwined with his current life. I'm about half way through it and enjoying it a lot: I studied classical guitar at the U of M for a few years with an academic career in mind, so there are some parallels.
Kurtz studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and he describes the somewhat informal play&feedback sessions that he and fellow guitarists had: mostly how they 'critiqued' each other and also searched for faults (good technique, but no emotion). He also discusses their dissing of concert guitarists such as Julian Bream and John Williams (Sloppy, too cold).
This type of criticism is certainly common with all musicians (even old-time) and I'm sure other artists as well. Although I rarely go 'public' with such criticism's, I am always listening to recordings and live performances with a critical ear. If someone is playing in a similar style as mine, I can be especially severe (in my mind;-)).
However, there are those times when the critical pose fades away and I can just relish the performance.
Might be more on this book later.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Dulono's gig on the 4th
It's Sunday and Lynn and I have sort of recovered from playing 4 hours at Dulono's last Friday. We were amazed but ultimately not surprised at the number of people who turned out. Lynn had sent out a 'mark-your-calendars' email in December, and a lot of people told us they had and were planning to come. We put posters up at church and in our neighborhood coffee shops and stores and 1/4 page 'flyers' at Cuppa Java. Tommy was home and distributed posters at places in uptown and in the end brought in over a dozen of his friends. At the end of the night, the manager of Dulono's said that if he had known, he would have upped the staff a bit. He said Al Jesperson usually warns him if a bigger than usual turn out is expected, but he also said that we put on a good show and he'll be glad to have us back (yippee!)
I had come down with a cold earlier in the week and although my voice was recovering by Thursday, I was a little worried that it would affect our performance. However, it stayed strong throughout the night just getting a little rough at the end of the last set. We had prepared 3 sets of 14 songs each and that pretty much filled out the evening. We started the last set at about 5 to 11 and augmented that set with 3 'repeats' from the first set, so did a total of 45 songs and tunes. Both of our sons were 'impressed' that we knew that much stuff and also with the new songs we added since they last heard us. Although there were a few word flubs, I was really pleased with our playing and singing.
Our sound system was adequate, but I did have the master volume cranked over 3/4 of the way toward max. Of course Dulono's is a restaurant and bar - there was lots of crowd noise and 'movement'. I saw a number of people trying to listen and we did turn up the sound after the first set. At the beginning we had Dave Leussler listening and had a pretty good balance, although there were feedback issues with my guitar (which I think got fixed by the 3rd set).
When we were done, we had some help packing up then had a pizza and a coke before loading up the car. We also got paid -- in cash. (This was one of our best paying gigs - the money is similar to a good night at Tapestry, but we get to keep it all; however, I'll still be keeping the day job.) We got home well after 1:00, then unpacked the Van and didn't really get to sleep until 2:00. Although we might have slept in a little more, we had to take Tommy to the airport at 9:00 so didn't get enough sleep and spent Saturday kind of trashed and 'napping'.
Lynn said she was going to make a list of everyone she remembered coming. I know a few people came and left before getting tables. It looks like we'll be doing this again, not sure we'll ever get as large a crowd again, but at least for the next one or two bob-i-lynn gigs Dulono's will be staffing up.
This marks another stage of our development as a 'band'. We now know we have the stamina and the repertoire to play a full night at a 'club'; and from feedback from both friends and 'strangers' know that we put on a pretty good show. I guess another lesson is that the music we play is somewhat 'obscure', but a lot of people like it, even if they aren't old-time or bluegrass music fans. We're also pretty sure that one night in the weekend is about all we can handle, we can do a Friday or Saturday Dulono's type gig, but not a whole weekend.
I had come down with a cold earlier in the week and although my voice was recovering by Thursday, I was a little worried that it would affect our performance. However, it stayed strong throughout the night just getting a little rough at the end of the last set. We had prepared 3 sets of 14 songs each and that pretty much filled out the evening. We started the last set at about 5 to 11 and augmented that set with 3 'repeats' from the first set, so did a total of 45 songs and tunes. Both of our sons were 'impressed' that we knew that much stuff and also with the new songs we added since they last heard us. Although there were a few word flubs, I was really pleased with our playing and singing.
Our sound system was adequate, but I did have the master volume cranked over 3/4 of the way toward max. Of course Dulono's is a restaurant and bar - there was lots of crowd noise and 'movement'. I saw a number of people trying to listen and we did turn up the sound after the first set. At the beginning we had Dave Leussler listening and had a pretty good balance, although there were feedback issues with my guitar (which I think got fixed by the 3rd set).
When we were done, we had some help packing up then had a pizza and a coke before loading up the car. We also got paid -- in cash. (This was one of our best paying gigs - the money is similar to a good night at Tapestry, but we get to keep it all; however, I'll still be keeping the day job.) We got home well after 1:00, then unpacked the Van and didn't really get to sleep until 2:00. Although we might have slept in a little more, we had to take Tommy to the airport at 9:00 so didn't get enough sleep and spent Saturday kind of trashed and 'napping'.
Lynn said she was going to make a list of everyone she remembered coming. I know a few people came and left before getting tables. It looks like we'll be doing this again, not sure we'll ever get as large a crowd again, but at least for the next one or two bob-i-lynn gigs Dulono's will be staffing up.
This marks another stage of our development as a 'band'. We now know we have the stamina and the repertoire to play a full night at a 'club'; and from feedback from both friends and 'strangers' know that we put on a pretty good show. I guess another lesson is that the music we play is somewhat 'obscure', but a lot of people like it, even if they aren't old-time or bluegrass music fans. We're also pretty sure that one night in the weekend is about all we can handle, we can do a Friday or Saturday Dulono's type gig, but not a whole weekend.
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