--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Interestingly, that is what I found most > lacking. I've heard this song done, and > by guitarists, and this same way, so many > times that there was nothing inventive > about it for me.
OTOH, you think of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli as playing the same type of music...so one has to wonder just what it is you're hearing. <snip> > Whatever floats your boat. I have to feel as > if the player has "something to say" behind > all the notes. If he doesn't, they are only > notes. I didn't feel as if this guy had *any* > kind of relationship with the song *except* > as a series of notes. He didn't have anything > to say, only notes to play. Or, you weren't hearing what he had to say. Abstract music is an acquired taste. You have to put something of yourself into it before you can get anything out of it. Other types of music are more accessible; it's all laid out for you up front. I prefer music whose performers aren't only telling me what they have to say but also giving me something that moves me to do my own saying, who allow me to participate in and complete the music on my own terms. I don't know how much, if anything, this guy has to say with his music. But this piece, at any rate, triggered stuff in *my* head that was quite enjoyable. Didn't blow me away, but didn't leave me sitting there with my thumb up my nose either. <snip> > The "tell" for me is in his face, not his > fingers. He's not having any FUN. He's com- > pletely "in his head," watching the tech of > the playing. Barry. Don't assume that because you don't have any fun in your head, it isn't there to be had (or that you'd be able to see it in the face or body of the person having it). I didn't get the feeling that > a note of this was actually improvised when > I first heard it, and I feel the same way > now. My bet is that if you saw him at the > next Starbucks on his tour, you'd hear > exactly the same performance, note for note. I believe that's what I said, that he's got it engraved in stone. Perhaps you missed that part of my post.
