Re: new tunes

[Travis Hartnett <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

Yeah, the acoustic/folk style police are irritating.  If you've been
playing traditional music venues, then you may run into some problems.
 Having listened to the two tracks you've posted, I'd say if you were
in my neck of the woods you could play any number of cafe/acoustic
music venues.  Your music is still very accessible to the general
public, it just breaks the Rules Of Folk music.

Speaking as a looping acoustic guitarist, I frequently find myself
caught in the grey zone between "classical" guitar and "folk" music as
far as audiences or booking agents are concerned.  I don't do either,
but venues and casual audiences (i.e. those that don't identify
themselves as "classical music listeners" or "folk music listeners")
have only a few terms to describe instrumental guitar music.  Usually
it's not a problem..if they hear what I do.  But if they ask "Do you
play classical guitar?" and my answer is "No", then some places aren't
interested.  Fortunately, those places are in the minority.

So, if you're worried about finding gigs, I'd suggest you check out
the general pool of singer/songwriter/acoustic music venues.  If there
was a girl singing with a guitar earlier in the evening, I think you'd
fit in.

Best of luck,

TravisH

On 10/27/05, paul <phaslem@wightman.ca> wrote:
> Thanks very much.
>
> When I'm working on a project, I find that I'm too close to make 
>objective
> observations, and quite frankly the majority of people around here just
> don't get it..... The most extreme case was someone in the village that
> bought a cd and gave it back after a couple of days thinking there was
> something wrong with it.... seems that it had no words.... and who can
> understand it if it has no words.
> Perhaps if you take a fairly obscure instrument like the hammered 
>dulcimer,
> tie it to another fairly obscure performance technique like looping, you
> certainly have something that's unique but maybe not accessible enough to
> most listeners? But then, that is also a common thread here, I recall a 
>few
> weeks back Kris having difficulty with venues that will let him explore 
>the
> sounds that he's interested in. There's a question there that has
> interested me for quite a few years. As an artist, do I provide 
>comfortable
> entertainment, or do I challenge people to listen to new things.
>
> So, I was looking for some feedback from a community that I respect. I
> realize that many or most of you are doing music that is much more
> experimental in nature that what I'm doing, but coming from a community 
>of
> traditional celtic and folk music circles, they consider what I'm doing 
>to
> be pretty radical, maybe even blasphemous.
>