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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
OT: Critique, playing better, and being a contribu
OT: Critique, playing better, and being a contribu
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walterharp
1334 posts
Mar 05, 2014
6:04 PM
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Several threads here recently have got me thinking about the role of criticism on improving as a player and contributing to public discussion in a positive way.
I see critique of technique as essential in improving as a player. Are bends accurate, what does one embouchure versus another sound like? These might be things an untrained ear might not get and it could be useful to point out to others, certainly worth noting to oneself. Comments such as these on this forum have helped me immensely.
After technique there are two things, how does one style or another of playing or music make me feel, and in a performance setting, how does it make others feel? This is where I note what I like and do not like, and how audiences respond. It seems to me fairly unlikely that pointing either thing out in public is much use to anybody else. Public statements such as “I don’t like opera” don’t really help anybody else out as they are purely subjective. So if I don’t like anything but Chicago blues or can’t stand high runs on the harp, it helps me to note that, but does not help much of anybody else if I state it in public.
On the how does it make others feel, mostly this is a very limited group with fairly narrow and somewhat predictable tastes, and I honestly don’t think we are very reflective of most audiences. A really tough crowd. I suspect even the long time pros don’t learn much from a really tough crowd other than don’t make too much of the bad nights. Sometimes everyone is a critic. The recent thread on what do you think of this player had one video of a player going nuts in a less structured way, but further down there was a video of Magic Dick doing some very fast train things. What I really took from that thread is 1) the audience likes theatrics (ok, knew that already), and 2) when Magic Dick dropped to half time and did some simple big tone phrases, the audience really got off on the change of pace.
The only place I much listen to opinion on the quality of a player is when the seasoned pro’s make it a point to point out things that I might not have noticed. So if Adam puts up an obscure player, or Ricci notes playing a particular thing might be difficult or BBQ Bob says listen to how good that drummer is… I do pay attention. If someone that is not one of the heavy hitters states, Dennis Gruenling has massive tone and swings the low harps, I might not listen to their opinion at all unless they back it up with evidence (e.g. a link to a youtube or something).
Just some ideas to get you all thinking, and based on what I have put here, you should probably just say what the heck does he know? Ignore it and go on your merry way..
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Frank
3942 posts
Mar 05, 2014
6:26 PM
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As Joe Friday liked to say ...It really boils down to -"just show me the facts ma'am." So it doesn't matter to me who is given the advice, Pro or amateur - but to carry any real weight, some sort of exhibition from them-(you tube etc.) to qualify their 2 cents goes a Loooooooooooooong way with if I take them seriously or not :)
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Jehosaphat
700 posts
Mar 05, 2014
6:27 PM
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You make some good points there Walter.
I dissed a forum members playing when i first joined the forum and (rightly so on reflection)got some pretty serious response to that.
Along the lines of if you can do better ,well front up with your own video.
Ever since then i have been very wary of commenting in any sort of negative way about anyone's playing.(Not that there is much to criticize about most of them)
I am not a 'heavy hitter' and for all any of you know i might be a 4 hole squawker in a rock band.
So personally i now keep any negative thoughts to myself.
And one day yet i may manage to get my shit together and stick up a u tube on the forum...around the time i grow feathers and a bill so i can really duck.
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capnj
202 posts
Mar 05, 2014
8:24 PM
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Boiling er down:
1.Public forum alot of free advice,most of it comes from people that try to give something back,no malice intended,having fun commenting,no biggy.This place is Harvard Harmonica,narrow and wide alike.
2.People ask for critiques of their playing because they are jonesing for knowledge,and constructive comments,thin skin gets you nowhere,take the good leave the bad.Woodshed classes in Frank's basement.oops
3.I am a amateur,like most here,lets call it semi-professional,if you gig out once in awhile.I will not critique any of the guys negatively for their iniative,only hit the positives.The real pros that share insights generously should be applauded,and will be compensated inwardly,monetarilly and/or both.
4.Personally I will never feel like Man I should'nt
have said that,if I just call them the way I see and feel them.I am referring to comments about pro artists,and not buying,because they don't move you,so what it's my money.
Last Edited by capnj on Mar 05, 2014 10:59 PM
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MindTheGap
322 posts
Mar 06, 2014
4:37 AM
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walterharp - that's a thought-provoking post.
I would insert a category between your 'hows the technique' and 'how does it make me/others feel' which is...
'Does it sound musical?'
IMO Even technically simple pieces can sound musical and also technically complex playing can sound unmusical. This is more objective than the test of 'emotional response', or the type or style of playing that the listener likes. But it is about the subtle, aggregate features of playing.
If I record myself, I can hear if e.g. my intonation is off. But judging whether the playing is musical - well it's a bit harder to do that I think. That's where that kind of criticism is valuable.
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MTG
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The Iceman
1503 posts
Mar 06, 2014
5:11 AM
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In my experience, negative comments have helped me become a better player while positive ones just seem to stroke the ego.
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The Iceman
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Honkin On Bobo
1186 posts
Mar 06, 2014
5:54 AM
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Great post Walter.
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nacoran
7573 posts
Mar 06, 2014
8:53 AM
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This reminds me of a story, probably apocryphal, of a truck that got wedged in a tunnel. Engineers, tow truck guys, all sorts of experts were called in. It was causing quite a traffic jam. In that traffic jam, a kid was poking his head out the window. He asked one of the workers what was going on and the worker explained that an 18 wheeler had hit a dip in the road, that that had made it's clearance less than what it should have been because of the length of the truck and now it was wedged in there and no one could figure out how to get it out.
The kid then asked, 'why don't you just let some air out of the tires.'
Expert opinions are great. I was an English Major in college (I've since been demoted to Lieutenant!). One of the first classes I had to take was a poetry class and one of the most common exercises was looking at poems and analyzing them. What was good about them? What didn't we like? How did it make us feel. We were freshman and sophomores. Would the poets listen to us? Probably not. Did we occasionally have good insights? Sure. Part of our learning though was the discussion. An expert could tell us what iambic pentameter was, and an expert could have told us that it can sometimes sound old fashioned, but hearing it ourselves, and commenting on it ourselves, making those discoveries with our peers rather than being spoon fed by experts helped us develop our own styles.
Experts can be wonderful, but the point of practicing criticism ourselves is that we learn how to critically look at things, whether it's other people's stuff, or our own with an attention for detail and an opinion of our own, and even getting feedback on our criticism. If I say, hey guys, I've discovered that I can play the harmonica through my nose, and listen to this great tone, instead of saying, 'Oh, there goes Nacoran on one of his crazy rants again' you could listen to the clip and decide for yourself, but I've at least started the conversation.
From the experts, I've heard that the only way you can get good tone is to shove the harp way deep in your mouth. That's never felt natural for certain types of playing for me. Sometimes I want a lighter thinner sound. Listening to the experts got me thinking about embouchure, and eventually, with their advice and my own less expert thinking I came up with a theory- shoving the harp deeper in your mouth makes it easier to control tone- it gives you a fuller sound, but you can get that lighter sound playing softly or playing with just your lips touching, but when you do that you have to be much much more careful with the amount of breath and the steadiness of the breath. It's a non-expert opinion. Maybe it's letting the air out of someone's tires. Because I'm not an harmonica expert (I can amaze the uninitiated at times, but I'm not going to wow any seasoned harp pros) should people ignore this little nugget of information?
What if I said I ran it past a great harp player and they say I was right? Or how about, when we see those pieces of information, we ask ourselves, is this something I can evaluate for myself?
Now, since this is a public forum, it's right that we have to consider things like the author's, er back from English Lit, harper's feelings. I might be mortified if one of my first open mic performances got posted. At the same time, if someone said, 'Listen to this spot- he's hitting two holes at once and it doesn't sound good because it's supposed to be light and airy, over here in this part he does it again, but the song is supposed to sound angry here, so it kind of works, but here in the end, no breath support... and people can hear those things for themselves, then it's a teaching moment.
Back in college (I'm amazed I remember anything from college, it seems so long ago) I took a free lance journalism class. I wrote an article with the assignment 'something that could get published'. I never submitted it, but it was about how to critique someone's work. You do a lot of critiquing in an English Major. The takeaway was, don't say it's shit, say why it's shit.
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nacoran
7574 posts
Mar 06, 2014
9:04 AM
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Lol, and that's all the characters I have... to expand, briefly, don't say, 'that's shit'. Phrase it like, 'I don't like that' or 'it might be stronger' or 'I like this part, but not this part'. The other thing that is important is to learn to take criticism. If you make it as a pro enough people will hear you that there are going to be people who hate what you do. If the first time you hear someone complain you curl up in a little ball you are going to have a short career. I have, on occasion, posted tunes here asking for critique. I'm not asking for people to call it shit, but sometimes people are too polite, or too vague for the feedback to be very useful. I love it when someone compliments me, and yeah, that may help get me out to the open mic that week, but it may also trap me making the same mistakes over and over.
The other important thing to remember about criticism is that you can go up to someone and say, 'hey, you should try this it would improve you' and they may say, nope, not really my cup of tea, or they may scratch their head and go off and think about it for a while. All are perfectly valid responses. :)
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Nate
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The Iceman
1509 posts
Mar 06, 2014
9:27 AM
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nacoran sez "The other important thing to remember about criticism is that you can go up to someone and say, 'hey, you should try this it would improve you' and they may say, nope, not really my cup of tea."
I've found that unless you are asked for criticism, it isn't very productive to just volunteer it on site verbally.
Posting a performance on a site such as this should naturally understand that critique will be part of the mix.
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The Iceman
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shadoe42
286 posts
Mar 06, 2014
9:31 AM
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there are folks out there who don't care how they phrase it. In many music cultures, blues is one, they feel it is better to literally say.. "you play like shit" than to actually give something that is constructive. Of course a lot of what we do is subjective. Tone is a matter of taste. there are monster players who have what is considered great tone but I don't personally care for it.
Doesn't make it any less technically good.
Critiques area almost always taken better when phrased at least with a modicum of tact. But that is contrary to the "headcutting" culture that many music generes live it.
Except even within that the folks that people listen to the most are the ones who do not tend to phrase comments in a negative manner.
That is not like say that you must tell someone you like it when you don't. Just have a bit of intelligence and something constructive to say when you tell them "you suck" :)
as a species we learn thru failure. and sometimes it does take someone to say to you "that sucks" for you to look at it critically yourself.
its a fine line to walk for sure. not to mention that one man's polite critique is another man's shit canning.
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Dr. Rev. Mr. Cheeks Miller
My Electronic Music World
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MindTheGap
323 posts
Mar 06, 2014
9:51 AM
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Nacoran - Just highlighting one point from your essay there...I'm not criticising btw, it was really very entertaining, but just maybe a little long, and I like the tyres joke. Now there's a classic 'criticism sandwich'... edit: which is a pet hate, which is why I mentioned it.
...it's a two way street. In order to get anything out of it, the player has to agree to listen to the criticism without throwing their toys out of the pram. I've read some posts here along the lines of 'tell me honestly what you think...' and when people told them honestly, and with precision, the player got upset.
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MTG
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Mar 06, 2014 10:01 AM
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mr_so&so
792 posts
Mar 06, 2014
11:20 AM
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Thanks, walterharp, for your great post. Very well said. Also, I would say the topic is definitely not OT.
I would summarize your comments and subsequent posts as devising some "wisdom" around commenting on someone else's performance:
1. Be kind and constructive. If the person has explicitly asked for any and all feedback, you can be "tougher", deeper, more nit-picking, but still be constructive. If something could be better, share why, and ideally, how to correct it. If it's not clear how much negative criticism the person wants to hear, be a little less tough. Use "I" statements, rather than "you" statements. "I was hearing the major third a lot where the blue third on the 3d would sound better", is kinder than "You (suck because you) can't bend the three draw". Also, some kind/encouraging words about what you liked are never a bad thing. You should probably have at least one encouraging thing to say if you are going to offer up some criticisms too.
2. When, as in the thread mentioned above, the performer didn't ask for our comments at all, that should put the discussion into a more personal (about you) framework. I'd say comments should be limited to your personal reaction to the musicality and emotional impact of the example up for discussion. If you just don't like that kind of music, irrespective of who the performer is, maybe you need not comment.
As a final thought, I especially like it when the "experts" comment. They become known to the forum by their track record here and they are not all pros. I learn a lot from the experts, but I also learn a lot from my fellow learners who ask the questions that I haven't even thought of yet, and that's why I'm still here.
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Last Edited by mr_so&so on Mar 06, 2014 11:22 AM
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nacoran
7581 posts
Mar 06, 2014
5:07 PM
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Iceman, I agree. I wouldn't walk up to you and start giving you unsolicited advice (well, probably not, but if I haven't had a cookie in a while I can get pretty grumpy.) However, if I was sitting in the audience watching you perform and talking to another harmonica player while we were listening (that I'd be less likely to do, I'm a pretty respectful audience member) I might say to him, see when he does that, he squeaks a bit, he should have pulled away from the mic (totally fictitious example) and the other guy might say, 'or, he could have adjusted the eq highs.' That would be useful.
That's more of what I saw going on in the original thread since the performer wasn't involved in the conversation.
Mind the Gap- yeap, that can be a problem. I know when I was starting out I posted a couple tunes, with the qualifier that I hadn't been playing long but that I wanted feedback. I got some, and I think my response may have put some people off on critiquing me because I said I didn't hear what the poster was talking about, (I got the feeling they were getting frustrated with me). The thing is, I honestly didn't hear what they heard. They said they like the beginning (sound quality issues aside) but the second part sounded too much like I was playing scales. I didn't hear it, and I asked for clarification, and you know, with the back and forth, how things get misinterpreted. I really was looking for clarification, but it sounded defensive. I have a habit also, of pointing out the most obvious flaws in my own stuff so no one else points them out, which can come off as defensive (I think I'm doing it because most people only list a couple things when they give a critique, and I'm afraid if they see the most glaring mistakes they may not give me some more useful insight into the things I didn't hear.) I could have probably written a whole essay on how to take criticism well too. :)
mr. so&so, an especially good point on whether someone has asked for criticism or not, although when you are using it as a teaching moment for someone other than the performer (as I suspect Adam was aiming to do) it is hard to track down every performer you might want to make a point about and ask them if they'd like some free advice just so you can enlighten some third parties (although textbooks pay authors to print their poems, even when they are going to use them as an example of a lousy poem... but of course, they are charging for the book. :)
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Nate
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