4 Comments

    1. Indeed. (In the discussion that follow, I use the word “you”. I don’t necessarily mean you, Sean, personally… Just assume I’m addressing one of the typical competition-winners or guitarists giving recitals at guitarfestivals, etc.!)

      As a musician you are there for the audience, and not the other way round.

      I don’t care how much effort you put into perfecting something; as a member of the audience I always have a right to say that I did not enjoy the performance.

      The reasons for this are many:
      *maby you bored me, since I can tell repetitive practice and bloody hate the resulting clean, but brain-dead performances
      *maby you ignore the audience and their reaction, and just force your program on them?
      *maby you’re just a zombie-player, like all the others: shunning mannerism etc…. because you heard that you shouldn’t overuse rubato. Well as a member of the audience: I don’t care. I hate fricking zombies. Please be original and do something.
      *maby you put in all that practice for “Kurze Schatten II”. Of course, with all that effort on your side, I must just love the piece, right? Ummmm: wrong.
      *and don’t forget that one man’s Ferneyhough is another man’s Britten

      Ultimately, all this boils down to one thing:
      If you fail to reach the audience, and go on to blame them and not yourself (examples are plentiful… “they need to learn more about modern repertoire”, “they need more exposure to the classical guitar”, “bunch of amateur concert-going folk, that don’t understand the effort that I [the master] put in”)… then …
      …well… figure it out yourself…

      Again… please note that I wrote “you” but are not necessarily referring to you personally.

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