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Motives for Performing Onstage ?
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Frank
5179 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:06 PM
What are your personal motives for performing onstage?

Are they externally-driven reasons?

Like...

Trying to get attention,

Seeking acceptance - approval or love,

Hoping to impress other people,

Wanting to please others,

Needing others to see your talents, skills, and abilities.

How important is external social approval?

What do you believe are the most important motives for a strong successful stage performance to happen?
JInx
872 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:11 PM
to do the devil's work
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MJ
736 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:17 PM
I enjoy playing music with other musicians and giving pleasure to those who like to listen to good live music. What are your personal motives Frank?
Pistolcat
691 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:27 PM
I really like the process of making music with others. The sharing of emotions through instruments. The communication in a magnificent language. That said I have only been at a couple of jams. I guess you change motives down the road.

Ps. Your op is quite on the negative side, Frank. It makes it seem like everyone who want to play on stage has some issues rat.her than "motives". In my opinion it's a bad way to start an interesting thread as people will be pissed or defensive when they answer your question.

Maybe you should rephrase it pre-emptively? Just a suggestion.
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
JustFuya
425 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:52 PM
I share because I feel I have something worthy to offer. An appreciative crowd and smiling band mates justifies all the hard work I have put into my craft while dwelling in a cave.
1847
2117 posts
Aug 30, 2014
12:54 PM
i think that is a great question
one we have all asked ourselves....

not sure i have an answer

part of it is, because it is a challenge.
you step off the precipice,
you have everyone's attention,
you either soar like an eagle,
or crash into the cliff.

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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
Kingley
3680 posts
Aug 30, 2014
1:04 PM
Good question Frank. In my case I never had any desire to perform onstage. I simply wanted (and still want) to learn to play the harmonica. The playing in bands thing came later and I was kind of nudged in that direction by friends. My motivation for playing onstage is, has and probably always will be simply the interaction with other musicians in a live setting and seeing people enjoy listening to the music. I'm just as happy sitting with other musicians and playing music in a living room, or sitting alone playing. Playing gigs in front of an audience is not an essential for me. Jam sessions are things I attend purely as part of my social life. Whether I get invited up to play at them is immaterial to me, as I enjoy listening to my friends play music.
nacoran
7974 posts
Aug 30, 2014
1:15 PM
It's a mountain, and it's there. I'm of the opinion that once you stop growing you start dying.

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Nate
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Littoral
1143 posts
Aug 30, 2014
1:26 PM
That's where the band usually is.
MJ
737 posts
Aug 30, 2014
1:45 PM
Frank, if what you say is true about your motives for performing on stage, I find it quite shallow and see why you may not do it so much.
Pistolcat
692 posts
Aug 30, 2014
1:59 PM
Frank, "external social approval"? I'm more likely to get ostracised than approved of by playing harmonica, no matter how kicking my playing is :)

I guess most of my motives are internal. Making music with others make me feel good.
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
BronzeWailer
1418 posts
Aug 30, 2014
2:22 PM
I do not think about my motives in great detail.
I do it first and foremost because it's fun.
Music or any art has the virtue that it can be shared with large numbers of people, more so than say, an apple pie.
It is a gift that gives pleasure to the giver and receiver.
Another reason I do it in public is perhaps for the same reason I don't eat all my meals alone in my room. We humans are pack animals.
It's good for the soul, mine and my listeners' (most of the time).
There is always a precious moment. Someone will come up and say, "That expresses just how I was feeling," or a simple "thank you." Or a little kid or man or woman will start dancing.
That said, 95% of my playing will be in my room or in the house, practicing. That's is also fun, but nowhere near as fun as a performance to actual people in RL.
Oh, and a bit of cash helps defray the cost of being addicted to playing music.

BronzeWailer's YouTube

Last Edited by BronzeWailer on Aug 30, 2014 2:27 PM
walterharp
1505 posts
Aug 30, 2014
2:36 PM
it is for that moment when the audience energizes the band, the band clicks and goes somewhere new, and it is like flying.. transcendent, it is more likely to happen live, with other musicians and an audience. that moment when you step outside of yourself and think holy crap did i just play that? That moment when the band gels to the point that it just gives you goose bumps, and makes someone in the audience whoop because they just can't contain their emotions....
Libertad
271 posts
Aug 30, 2014
2:50 PM
I thought I had posted this earlier but it didn't appear. As an artist my motivation is to express myself. As a hobby it is musically, my day job is as a photographer. I am probably better at expressing myself visually, but it doesn't stop me trying musically.

Martin
kudzurunner
4910 posts
Aug 30, 2014
3:59 PM
In no particular order of importance:

--to make money

--to have fun

--to end up in a better mood when the performance is over than when I began

--to know, because of what people say to me afterwards, that I've helped raise their spirits, too.

--to feel a kind of personal power that can only be felt in that context. This is partly a function of making a lot of loud, great-sounding (hopefully!) noise in a public context, hopefully of a sort that gets people dancing and/or applauding, and partly a function of exercising my musical creativity hard, with something on the line.

--to keep alive a certain kind of feeling that I experienced playing all those years, on many different sorts of stages, with Sterling Magee, even though I'm now on my own (I guess you could call this "keeping alive the Satan & Adam groove/sound/feeling)." Do that and I feel just a whisper of immortality, because I'm keeping alive the spirit of somebody who helped me feel and master my own blues. We're all going to die eventually, but music can create a space, on the right night, where you feel just a little bit immortal, and that's a good thing. Sometimes your mentors, alive or dead, are a part of what you bring to life through the music--you raise praise for the ancestors--and that's a very good thing.

--to make a kind of money, no matter how little or how much, that feels like EARNED money, "good" money, because it requires my sweat and honors my creativity

--to manifest and express my professional judgment in a whole series of ways, large and small, from how I dress to what songs I end up choosing to play to how I deal with my own and/or my partner's missed cues, so that I'm offering a living image of a certain kind of blues professionalism in action. It's a hard-earned professionalism, always potentially at risk--if you drink too much, or don't play with energy and feeling--and so it means something to get the swing of it just right.

--to flirt with danger, which is to say to walk onto a big stage with all eyes on me and run the risk one always risks, which is playing badly, f'ing up, or being harshly judged, rather than kicking ass. In that respect I think of myself as a pro ballplayer walking out from the on-deck circle: it's showtime, ladies and gentlemen. Here I am. Come and get it. I've always enjoyed watching performers who embraced that moment, rather than--for example--succumbing to stage fright (which I no longer get), or putting on a lackluster show.

--for the sense of fellowship that I get with Alan or Charlie or Robert Ross or whomever my guitar man is for the evening. There's nothing quite like the satisfied backstage feeling after a good show. Life's just bigger than it was before the show.

Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 30, 2014 4:10 PM
The Iceman
1984 posts
Aug 30, 2014
4:29 PM
It's always been funny, but I'm more relaxed standing and/or performing on a big stage than when I have to talk with a small group of people in a social sense.

I love the energy.
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The Iceman
Goldbrick
655 posts
Aug 30, 2014
4:54 PM
Pretty much the same reasons why I used to run track and box in the ring-- its great to train but sometimes you gotta put your shit on the line and let the adrenaline out

Its also a great way to meet like minded folks and improve your skills and expand your horizons.

Used to do it also to get paid and get laid but those opportunities are less frequent these days . I guess I have matured- in more ways than I'd like to admit
KingoBad
1525 posts
Aug 30, 2014
5:05 PM
It is about personal connection.

Music has a very special way to touch people. If you can convey your feelings directly to an audience, it is magic.

The live connection with music has no other comparison. Recordings can turn you on, but only live music takes you the rest of the way. It is an intimacy you can get no other way.

You can have sex with yourself, you can have sex with others.

Both are satisfying, but one has a much greater connection and sharing the experience is the magic part that i am talking about.


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Danny
Jim Rumbaugh
1017 posts
Aug 30, 2014
6:05 PM
A quote I recently heard.

Performing musicians are ego maniacs with an inferiority complex


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theharmonicaclub.com (of Huntington, WV)
kudzurunner
4911 posts
Aug 30, 2014
6:07 PM
Goldbrick, I completely relate to what you're saying. I never ran track, but I ran one race on the track--as a 50 year old, I ran a 5000 meters on the Ole Miss track at the Ole Miss Open, with Barnabas Kirui and 17 other young studs. Barnabas ran 14:30, as I recall, and lapped me four times. I ran 19:45. But there was an irreplaceable thrill in simply lining up with the young lads (as they say in the UK) and knowing that although I was sure to go down in flames, I was also sure to do my best, because I was going to be the last one running, with all eyes on me ("Who IS that old guy??"), when everybody else had finished. Obviously it's a different sort of race when you're actually in the money to win the thing. Still, I'll always cherish that one afternoon when I was crazy and young-at-hearted enough to put it all on the line, knowing that I was doomed to come in dead-last.

I've never boxed, but I love "Friday Night Fights" precisely because I love to watch somebody put it all on the line. (As a one-man band, I was exhilarated by the prospect of playing a whole night by myself, but ultimately it was exhausting. It's much more fun playing with a guitar man.) The nowhere-to-hide thing is part of showbusiness. Learning how to hit the stage with your adrenaline very high but also under control is a great thing to learn. And the feeling of feeling fully adrenalized is the opposite of....well, being dead. So it's a good thing, even if it takes training and a lot of experience to manage well.

@Jim: I think that's no more than a half-truth. I don't think that Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, fit that bill. I'm sure that some musicians are that way, but I'm quite sure that others have figured out how to manage their egos, play with great energy from a place of peace and self-acceptance, and serve their fans. Those musicians, of course, aren't the ones who get movies made about them.

Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 30, 2014 6:11 PM
JustFuya
429 posts
Aug 30, 2014
6:28 PM
My motivations change but money was one that I ruled out early on. I tried but I had rent to pay and music was break even with the bar tab. I scanned this thread but only read one sex reference. When I was learning in my pre-pubescent years it was all about the music. As I improved I had a desire to share but I had no inclination to elbow my way onto a stage.

Then I grew horns. In JHS I put 2 and 2 together and realized there was a natural cure for that crazy thing that was going on in my trousers. Then it was all ass & elbows. My musical progress slowed somewhat but I was learning to socialize on stage and elsewhere.

I can still find a stage if I desire and I'm very thankful for that. It's not to show off my new 6OB or to share my imitation of a newfound artist that floors me. It's simply to satisfy my selfish desire to justify all the years I spent learning my craft. And then the rush I get when it's well done. It's not always well done but when it is I tingle above and below the belt line.
mastercaster
75 posts
Aug 30, 2014
9:57 PM
Using the word 'motive' ... suggests ulterior motives .. a negative connotation ..

There have been, many just and valid reasons well defined and posted above , so, I'll just add or reenforce ..

Adrenalin rush when it all comes together ... tantric sex compares in some way , however , performing in public, onstage , usually lasts allot longer : )

I am a pro fisherman amongst other occupations, I take folks hunting blue water tropical pelagic species, marlin, tuna, mahi-mahi, wahoo ... most won't be able to relate , but, a good day of catching is better than sex .. again, it lasts allot longer ... every minute I am at the helm , I am hunting with purpose .. every fish boated brings feelings of, elation , adrenaline , accomplishment .. and moves my patrons to a level of elation they are hard pressed to find elsewhere ...

Live performances have energy, synergy that satisfy in a very similar way .. working together, or trying to, as a unit , hunting for those moments of pure and unadulterated bliss, making a type of magic happen in the moment that moves folks, our patrons .... nothing compares ... when it works ..
the money factor is also valid but less often a motivator ...

You won't find those extended levels of adrenaline , experience's, and, feelings of joy and accomplishment ... playing with yourself in the woodshed.

Last Edited by mastercaster on Aug 30, 2014 10:24 PM
bluzmn
82 posts
Aug 31, 2014
3:38 AM
My motives are similar to walterharp's; I'm always reaching for that moment when I'm "in the zone"; when the music is playing me, rather than me playing the music. Also, playing music is similar to having sex; it's a lot more fun when you're doing it with someone else.
waltertore
2745 posts
Aug 31, 2014
6:41 AM
Once I discovered musical instruments I had to play them and do it all spontaneously. Once I found music it consumed me in that it kept me sane. Nothing would get in my way from that point on. My entire life was based on having to play. I made 1 string guitars out of wire and wood because my parents wouldn't let me own/learn/ply an instrument which eventually led to me having to leave home. I never knew a thing about music theory and everything was and still is self discovery. Due to my parents attitude it led to playing in secret and I lived an isolated life of music doing it out of sight and undercover.

The streets/parking garages/burnt out buildings from the Newark riots became my world. I simply needed to play to keep from going insane and these places allowed me to make my music without being discovered by my parents. I am not lying. No girls, drug, hype, star, ever entered my thoughts.

Then one day a woman that owned a local bar offered me $100 and any bottle off the top shelf to play. I jumped on it and thus began a 20 year full time playing journey of joys and near insanity with refusing to repeat a song and everything was Spontobeat. I needed to play this way. It wasn't about pioneering a new way to do music. It was about having to do it or die and I found if I made some $ I could work less at day jobs which were always manual labor in nature because I had no real skills other than playing. But that led to a 20 year journey in conflict. Conflict with having to deal with others who wanted to influence my playing- club owners, booking agents, record labels, bandmates, audience requests, etc.... It was a constant battle with love/hate.

Then I found teaching special education and went to college. Now I am paid good money doing another of my passions and my music, which will always be my root, is free to be itself. This has led to me going a full circle which is back to playing pretty much alone simply to keep from going insane. I have found the recording studio we built on our property is the exact same thing as the burnt out/rat/drug addict/infested buildings I learned in back in Newark NJ. These buildings were never rebuilt after the riots and offered killer reverb options. So now I have a safe, warm/cool space with a bathroom, bed, cable, computer, and all the great vibes of my playing days come back everytime I sit down to play.

I don't have to compromise. I start/stop when I want, no travel, great sound, no hassles with bandmates now being a live time 1 man band, and I feel at peace each time I finish playing. All the great memories I have of playing live gigs for near 50 years all come back to me in concentrated doses. It is the nirvana of experience with no headaches. So why would I ever go back to playing the clubs unless they let me be me 100%? Life is wonderful in that our first experience with something is usually the truth and then as we delve deeper into it we get all messed up. I am lucky to have come back to that first moment when I picked up an instrument and the magic touched me.

So if people like, dislike, are indifferent, to my music it is all the same to me because I play for me, not money, women, fame, ego. Inadverntantly I fell into pioneering a new way to do music which I now understand in order to have it happen had to follow this course. It has been a great journey but one of many dark days where I almost left the earth. I realize I will most likely live in isolation with my music the rest of my life. That is ok. I prefer that than to compromise it in any way because to compromise takes me completely away from it. Spontobeat has to be free and to cage it in any context immediately kills it. It is great to have rediscovered the freedom that music told me all about when I first started playing. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year in the Tunnel of Dreams Studio.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller

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Last Edited by waltertore on Aug 31, 2014 6:49 AM
Thievin' Heathen
387 posts
Aug 31, 2014
3:23 PM
Howard Levy was saying, in that other thread, that harmonica is "the only instrument you play blind. It's like riding a bicycle".
Well, for me, playing on stage is like riding that bicycle with no hands down a dark street.
But, let's don't overthink this.
wolfkristiansen
321 posts
Aug 31, 2014
3:37 PM
I posted this in MBH four years ago. Here it is again, because it truly explains the only (I mean only) reason I play on stage:

I'm a harp player. I love playing on stage with a real blues band. I live for those rare moments where we collectively hit "the zone". We can do no wrong when we're in that zone. Musically, we're in a perfect rhythmic groove; every note or chord is the right one, perfectly placed. We are on a natural high. The music seems to be coming from somewhere "out there". What is that, if not a spiritual experience? It's better than sex; don't tell our wives.

Walterharp, in this thread, said the same thing with different words.

Cheers,

wolfman

Last Edited by wolfkristiansen on Aug 31, 2014 3:50 PM
Goldbrick
658 posts
Aug 31, 2014
3:41 PM
If its better than sex you are doing something wrong

The only thing harp has in common is the in out thing and maybe some loud noises
didjcripey
806 posts
Aug 31, 2014
4:54 PM
For me its all about the music.
The only thing I enjoy more about music than listening to it is playing it, and that is even better when its a shared experience. Shared with my bandmates, that are like a second family and shared with an appreciative audience.
Although I realise that you need a certain amount of ego to get up on a stage, I don't think its an issue for me. I just love playing the blues.
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Lucky Lester
JustFuya
446 posts
Aug 31, 2014
8:34 PM
Ah! The listening and the desire to move people as you have been moved. Simple.

Last Edited by JustFuya on Sep 05, 2014 4:08 PM
nacoran
7977 posts
Aug 31, 2014
9:15 PM
Iceman, I can completely relate to that!

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Nate
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wolfkristiansen
322 posts
Aug 31, 2014
9:37 PM
From bluzmn-- "My motives are similar to walterharp's; I'm always reaching for that moment when I'm "in the zone"; when the music is playing me, rather than me playing the music. Also, playing music is similar to having sex; it's a lot more fun when you're doing it with someone else."

I missed your post, bluzmn, the first read-through. You, walterharp and I are saying the same thing in different ways.

For those who don't like the sex metaphor, substitute the deepest spiritual experience you've ever had. For those who have had neither a deep sexual OR spiritual experience, I'm not sure what to say to convey the ecstasy that comes with playing "in the zone" with your band mates on stage. It happens, and it's real.

Cheers.

wolf kristiansen
BronzeWailer
1420 posts
Aug 31, 2014
9:48 PM
I am also one of those zone guys, like walterharp, bluzmn and wolf k. It's a kind of Zen thing, as I think of it. It's a forgetting of self by being totally in the moment.
I also get the forgetting of self sometimes doing other things like snorkelling, rising my mountain bike or playing soccer.

I hear you Iceman and nacoran. I used to be pathologically shy. When I was a kid if I saw someone I knew coming I would cross the street so I didn't have to say anything. When I was in the regular workforce, I had no problem talking to 150 people from a podium but hated a cocktail party.

Busking (from age 50) really opened me up. Now I talk to strangers on the train, old ladies walking down the street, anyone, and they sometimes approach me. Never used to happen before. I think they can sense I am more open.



BronzeWailer's YouTube
Frank
5193 posts
Sep 01, 2014
6:11 AM
A blues band could cover this tune and really jell together as a unit, gettin in that magic zone as a team!

I could see Little Walter taken on this song and puttin some killer harp in there...It reminds of something Willie Dixon might of written :)

I'm just a bachelor
I'm looking for a partner
Someone who knows how to ride
Without even falling off

Gotta be compatible
Takes me to my limits
Girl when I break you off
I promise that you won't want to get off

[Chorus]
If your horny, Let's do it
Ride it, My Pony
My saddle's waiting
Come and jump on it

If your horny, Let's do it
Ride it, My Pony
My saddle's waiting
Come and jump on it

Sitting here flossing
Peeping your steelo
Just once if I have the chance
The things I will do to you
You and your body
Every single portion
Send chills up and down your spine
Juices flowing down your thigh

[Chorus]

If we're gonna get nasty, Baby
First we'll show & tell
Till I reach your ponytail
Lurk all over and through you baby
Until I reach your stream
You'll be on my jockey team

[Chorus]
[repeats and ends]

(Ride it)
(My Saddle's)

JJ Harper
2 posts
Sep 01, 2014
3:04 PM
Money. I don't need any motives.
JustFuya
452 posts
Sep 01, 2014
5:59 PM
@JJ - If I'm not mistaken, money counts as a motive. I wish you success. Yours is easy to measure.
JJ Harper
4 posts
Sep 05, 2014
9:34 AM
Money is money. It is payment, currency, food on your table and gas in your car. That is a heck of a lot different than the motives Frank has in his post.
Frank
5218 posts
Sep 05, 2014
12:12 PM
“I really don’t think of myself as a performer anymore. It was never something that came naturally to me. It was something that I adapted to, but it was never really an expression of who I was…I’m not a performer. I don’t appreciate the effect that audiences have on me, because for me music is something that comes from inside of me. And music is something that I immerse myself in, and when I’m in front of an audience, I can’t ignore my surroundings and I can’t ignore the way they make me feel. They make me feel good, the audiences. But then I find that I’m not so much reaching inside myself to create something, but I’m more trying to meet with their expectations. And I’m trying to do something that’s entertaining to them. And that’s just not me. I’m not interested in meeting people’s expectations and I’m not interested in pleasing people... John Frusciante

-------------------------------------------------------

Here are the main 2 questions that were presented...

1) What are your personal motives for performing onstage?

2) What do you believe are the most important motives for a strong successful stage performance to happen?

------------------------------------------------------

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.
John Frusciante

Last Edited by Frank on Sep 05, 2014 12:56 PM
Barley Nectar
509 posts
Sep 05, 2014
4:47 PM
1: I feel that I am an entertainer by nature. I love to make people happy. God gave me a feel for music. This has been propagated thru the harmonica. I am fortunate to have found this instrument. The interaction with musicians, the groove, the folks out there dancing, this is all part of it.

2: You must connect with the audience...BN

Last Edited by Barley Nectar on Sep 05, 2014 4:48 PM
Thievin' Heathen
388 posts
Sep 06, 2014
10:28 AM
I find a nice side effect, maybe even the one that keeps me coming back for more, is, for that time I am in a song, my mind is empty of everything else.
No work
No wife
No cops shooting teenagers
No be-headings
Nothing but trying to put the best harp I can come up with in that instant, into that space.
Rubes
889 posts
Sep 08, 2014
3:40 AM
Another Zone guy here, but SO much outpouring guys! And great thread Frank! I can relate to many of my international harp brothers on the actual impetus that drives our very creative soul.
Yes being in the moment has huge attractions for me and throughout my life I've been very partial to chasing that feeling....Surfing to me (and the sex thing) gives a similar contentment lasting for days afterward......just like a good gig!
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HarpNinja
3916 posts
Sep 08, 2014
2:30 PM
It makes me happy.

The most important motives for a strong successful stage performance are the want to have a strong successful stage performance and having had the time to practice executing such.
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Mike
harpdude61
2117 posts
Sep 08, 2014
3:07 PM
It's fun! Having fun and seeing the audience have fun is what I like. I dig the rush, the high, the pump!!

I'm with Iceman on this one. No problem in front of 300 people but when 4 or 5 guys at work ask me to play it's just not the same.
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atty1chgo
1115 posts
Sep 09, 2014
12:43 PM
I am not a professional (meaning getting paid for my efforts) harmonica player. I do not have a tremendous desire to play in a band, though if I had the time, the opportunity, and the requisite chops when asked, I probably would try it. The instances where I have played on a stage with a band have been in blues jams, and the occasional opportunity with an existing band.

I have no desire - really folks - for applause for the purposes of ego. I really do not. In fact, I kind of don't know how to act when people have applauded. For me, the joy and thrill and fulfillment comes from playing with precision, playing in what has been described in a "zone", with a minimum of errors, and sound good while doing so.

My greatest sense of achievement is the knowledge that I am able to step up to a stage with professional blues men and play blues harmonica at a level that these musicians do not consider amateurish. That gives me a rush, a sense of tremendous accomplishment. The knowledge that over time, I have improved well enough to be allowed on stage with blues musicians who have a high level of proficiency. On the times that it has happened, it has been exquisite.

Last Edited by atty1chgo on Sep 09, 2014 12:44 PM
Mojokane
759 posts
Sep 09, 2014
11:44 PM
I always enjoy being "witness" to the magic.
I am reliving my second adolescence.
And that's my 2 adolecents!


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Why is it that we all just can't get along?<

Last Edited by Mojokane on Sep 10, 2014 12:42 AM
Aussiesucker
1400 posts
Sep 10, 2014
10:51 PM
My 2 cents worth is in that I not only find it challenging but it's a learning experience. Playing on your own is fine but so is reading a book or doing crosswords. Playing with and amongst other fine musicians is IMO the fastest way to improve. I cannot imagine that in spending years on learning how to play an instrument & then not wanting to play in public. I have come across some really fine musicians who deep down are concerned that they are not yet good enough to share with the public. I think that as early as is possible start busking or playing with others & not worry about not being good enough. Throw yourself into the deep end as early as you can and mix with the best musicians you can find as they will extend your knowledge faster than you ever will playing alone.
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