RE: Musicianship, live technique, etc...

[Tom Attix <toma@microsoft.com>]

While I definitely agree with you on your points and there certainly is
no shortage of overblown, ego inflated, crap in both art galleries and
record stores, I can't help but think that the best way to succeed as an
artist is to pursue your own voice. If you're successful in finding it,
your audience will find you ( I know that sounds like particularly
sentimental crap but think of artists like Richard Thompson or Robert
Fripp or Frank Zappa or David Torn).

Tom Attix                       
Software Testing Engineer
Microsoft Corporation           
toma@microsoft.com

                        -----Original Message-----
                From:   pycraft@elec.gla.ac.uk
[SMTP:pycraft@elec.gla.ac.uk]
                Sent:   Tuesday, March 04, 1997 8:04
                To:     Tom Attix
                Subject:        RE: Musicianship, live technique, etc...

                >It's interesting to contrast these views as they relate
to music and how 
                >they relate to painting or drawing. I think if you
brought up the subject 
                >of audience's importance to most painters they would
give you a long 
                >questioning look, right after they finished laughing.
Potential audience 
                >receptivity is a problem for commercial artists, not
"fine" artists. I'm 
                >pretty much on the fence, myself.

                The problem is that there are artists with talent and
artists without.  And often artists without talent will hide behind the
statement of "it's art".  What I meant in my original statement is that,
whilst you don't necessarily need to play _at_ an audience, if you
expect to play to an audience (more than once!) it helps if they
actually like it, rather than the performer hiding behind hyperbole of
how it's an expression of an artist's inner soul. 
                >I figure if I don't like what I'm doing, 
                >nobody else will, either (although I've been proven
wrong on that 
                >before..).

                I think Allan Holdsworth regularly disproves that one!
:)
                Michael
                Dr Michael Pycraft Hughes      Bioelectronic Research
Centre, Rankine Bldg,
                Tel: (+44) 141 330 5979        University of Glasgow,
Glasgow G12 8QQ, U.K.
                "Wha's like us?  Damn few, and they're a' deid!" -
Scottish proverb