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From: t~n.chey.com (Ted Welter)
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 14:14:18 CST
Subject: Re: Audience Participation (fwd)

In a previous message, Jim Vinoski wrote:
>
> fjm writes:
>
> >If someone in the audience is offended then it is
> >their job to talk to the offender not mine. My job
> >is to entertain people and try to facilitate everyones,
> >including the sillies that want to play along having
> >a good time so they'll come back and pay my wages
> >again.

[rest of sensible post snipped]

>
> I think we've gotten a bit away from my original point about
> such uninvited harmonica playing during a live performance.
> It was one of several examples I gave which to me explained
> some of the reservations our fellow musicians have toward
> unknown harp players. Whether anyone was seriously
> annoyed or not, such behavior, which I've seen on a number
> of occasions by people with harmonicas, but never with other
> instruments, is immaterial. It just shows where some musicians
> might get the general opinion of harp players as less professional,
> despite the obvious illogic of such a generalized conclusion.
>

[rest of Dr. Poobah's rants deleted.]

Point 1: People don't generally pull out their saxophones or
pianos to jam along with a bar band because last I
checked, there were no pocket-sized versions of such
instruments.

Point 2: As to the percieved "professionalism" of harp players,
who gives a rip? Some very "professional" musicians
fail to move me as much as spirited and competent amateurs.
Snooty harp players worried about "professional image" more
than moving people (physically and emotionally) especially
fail to impress me with anything but the tightness of certain
of their orifices. That's not to say I don't
enjoy musicians who play for money (that, and only that, is
what defines you as a "professional"), but every phenomenal
musician (or programmer, or writer, or whatever) that I've
met was secure enough in their musical studhood to not
be threatened by some geek playing unamplified harp up against
a 200 watt Bandmaster or PA system.

As to how other musicians view harp players, if the harp
player's good (and I'm not talking about technical pyrotechnics,
I'm talking about swinging the beat and moving the crowd),
that harp player will get the respect of musicians who
care about getting the crowd to drink and dance.

Point 3: We're not talking about Bartok played in front of a bunch
rich people who are more interested in being seen dressed
correctly at the correct cultural event. We're talking a
wang dang doodle at a biker bar where people come to dance
and mate and get drunk and make fools of themselves. As
fjm as so eloquently noted, your job on such as stage is
to facilitate the party. That is unless you have pretensions
to turning blues into some museum piece so that every one
can reverently focus attention on you (and yes, I have played
on stage for money). If you've got a problem with that
perhaps you're in the wrong genre, or maybe you should stick
to studio work. Or not; in any case as long as the blues
are being played and the average bargoer can afford harmonicas,
you're gonna have this phenomenon.

{off the soapbox for now}.

- --
Ted Welter phone: 612.882.3429
Senior Technical Writer fax: 612.882.3452
Cheyenne Software, Inc. email: t~n.chey.com