TubeNet

Enjoy:
http://joeytartell.com/2014/11/12/youre ... r-opinion/" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank"

<3
Bill

Great!!!

I know Joey but I had not seen his blog before. Really great stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ51oWbCMCs

After this I had to find this rendition and listen to it.

I didn’t agree with all of the embellishments, but the main impression still is about beauty and depth.

Klaus

There are people posting so often that their voices are heard more, and they are therefore treated as experts. But a lot of these people have no standing in the real world.

Welcome to TubeNet!

It's not that the NA was performed "wrong" or poorly or incompetently, I just didn't like it. How about that weirdo USA-shaped flag at the end? I didn't like that either, but I'm sure some people thought it was really cool.

I don't know if entitled is the right phrase. Maybe "technically allowed" should be used instead.

Entitlement has become a buzzword....It's now being used as a reproach against anyone when it is perceived that they don't deserve something...

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I don't agree with Tartelli's argument at all. Everyone is allowed to voice their opinion. (As long as it doesn't bordel in libel or defamation, hate-speech, obviously) After all, freedom of speech and freedom of expression are important concepts in many Charters, Constitutions, Declarations, and other various important legal documents around the world.

I don't think some trumpet prof has the right to take that away. Certainly not when the arguments that we're having are essentially quibbles in the global scheme of things. Is a reverse back-bore or heavy weighter bottom caps really that important....

If I come on a forum and say: "I don't like old recordings"; or "I dislike Harvey Phillip's Playing", Or "I don't think Alan Baer is correct about the PVAK" or "I think Oystein Baadsvik was out to lunch in his rant about Sound vs Musicality".... I should be allowed to do so. Without any reserve, without any restrictions...I should be able to voice my opinion...

My opinion may not have the professional backing to go along with these claims that I make, and that is the reader's individual prerogative/decision to find out which person's opinion to follow and which to ignore. If I want to make my opinion heard by more people, by posting on various forums, web pages, blogs, comments section, then so be it...

Further, because a Tubaist/Trumpeter/Trombonist is an expert at playing the instrument (i.e. ***. Principal in L.A. Phil) does not make him or her an expert at all things brass. That there is an Argument from Authority fallacy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority" target="_blank
Somebody may be an expert at "Playing" a brass instrument, but that doesn't make them an expert on "Knowing"; "Understanding"; and even "Teaching." They might not know exactly how repairs work, or how embouchures work, even specific details about music might be unknown to them... All we can accept their expertise on, it playing and the only medium through which we should accept it is recordings. I've noticed that there are people on this forum or a decidedly more articulate and less prone to logical fallacies than the "experts."

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All that said, and this might make my rant moot, I didn't mind Bolti's recording. I wouldn't tear it apart, or criticize it. But, I sure as heck want to keep my right to voice my opinion whether or not I am an "expert".

PMeuph wrote:I don't agree with Tartelli's argument at all.

But would you agree with it if you had understood it?

At least, the way I read it -- he did not say that we should keep quiet if we aren't experts. He's saying, basically, that it matters whether you're an expert or not.

And that it matters how stupid your opinion is - i.e., you aren't entitled to cling to whatever opinion, however stupid it may be. For how we gauge stupidity, see above.

The problem with his rant really is (in my opinion) - and I think he knows very well - that the worst cases of it are jerks. Maybe they're jerks because they're 12 years old, who knows, who cares, the point is that by their nature they aren't easy to turn around. So half the problem is, how will his solution account for jerks who get something out of being jerks?

The other half is, what about the rest of us - what about you? who aren't jerks and who are able to make positive contributions to discussions, how do we draw the line between trying to contribute and posing as greater authorities than we are?

Donn wrote:

PMeuph wrote:I don't agree with Tartelli's argument at all.

But would you agree with it if you had understood it?

At least, the way I read it -- he did not say that we should keep quiet if we aren't experts. He's saying, basically, that it matters whether you're an expert or not.

And that it matters how stupid your opinion is - i.e., you aren't entitled to cling to whatever opinion, however stupid it may be. For how we gauge stupidity, see above.


........

The other half is, what about the rest of us - what about you? who aren't jerks and who are able to make positive contributions to discussions, how do we draw the line between trying to contribute and posing as greater authorities than we are?

While I didn't answer his argument directly, I understood his argument.

The crux of his argument is that as internet communities we need to come together and develop Tacit understandings that allow us to put the Experts on a pedestal of authority and we need to ignore those opinions are, according to him "wrong."

My direct retaliation to that point is that music is very often not black or white... Inasmuch as possible there are a variety of opinions between:

"Botti is not Good" and

"I dislike Botti"

All the other opinions need to be heard.

I personally find Botti "cliché" and boring...I don't mind it, but I just think he sounds like a Mangione impersonator on the Trumpet...
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I'm on other forums and one of them has a pretty strict posting policy. The nature is more work related and the stakes of posting opinions are greater given the potential for media to misrepresent some of the ideas. The forum has plenty of moderators, plenty of posting guidelines (everything from content, to search function to grammar and spelling) and more importantly a 3-strike system in which users are given warnings and after 3 the user is banned.

PMeuph wrote:The crux of his argument is that as internet communities we need to come together and develop Tacit understandings that allow us to put the Experts on a pedestal of authority and we need to ignore those opinions are, according to him "wrong."

My dictionary makes "authority" a synonym with "expert" in definition 3b. There isn't any need for understandings to be developed on that point, it's already implicit.

My direct retaliation to that point is that music is very often not black or white... Inasmuch as possible there are a variety of opinions between:

"Botti is not Good" and

"I dislike Botti"

All the other opinions need to be heard.

Maybe ... honestly I fail to see the point in any such opinions, be it expert or not, so the particular subject of music criticism is a difficult starting place for me. I haven't noticed much controversy of that nature here, but maybe it's because I wouldn't tune in to such a discussion in the first place. I appreciate an occasional outburst of enthusiasm for this or that performance, but that doesn't raise a subject that has to be decided on. If we don't share the enthusiasm, my impression is we usually just move on.

Wait wait wait... there are jerks and misinformation on the Internet

I've got no comment on the real topic of this thread, but I absolutely loved Chris Botti's national anthem rendition.

Uncle Buck wrote:I've got no comment on the real topic of this thread, but I absolutely loved Chris Botti's national anthem rendition.

+100

His "embellishments" were few & very tastefully added AND they were a whole hell of a lot less than some of today's vocal artists who's "over-embellishments" just absolutely ruin the National Anthem IMHO. Besides, Chris Botti added a nice, almost Chuck Mangione-esque touch..........what's not to like?

OK, I'll bite. What I don't like is that NO ONE IS SINGING! Sure, Botti is quite talented, and he played a soulful, somewhat melancholy riff on the National Anthem, making the music a little more interesting. But that's not the point, it's the words! The music is (I think most would admit), boring -- a simple drinking song. What stirs us is the experience of standing and singing together the words that mean so much to us. What we hear here is complete silence from the crowd -- and that's just wrong (IMHO). What you want is an orchestra or military band playing a straight-forward version that everyone can sing to.
End of rant!

Ian Bousfield is in town this week and he gave a recital at a local university.

It was free and I had the time to go, so I went. It was a very lovely recital, lots of great playing on his part. In fact, if it were just for his playing I probably would have very little that his pertinent to this thread. After all, who's going to give credence to my account that his articulation and sound in his mid-range were bland. And honestly, who's going to care???

All that said, I found his overall playing superb! His high range really sings, his musicality is very subtle and poised, his tone was fairly good and technique is impressive.
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What I want to address are two points that are pertinent to this thread that he said during the recital.

First, as he was taking a break after his first piece and talking with the audience, somebody was setting up a camera. He promptly, politely and in a friendly manner made it clear that he didn't want his performance recorded. Fair enough, having a live recording on the internet, opens you up to tons of criticism, some of it justified, some of it not. That has to be soul crushing for an artist and I see no reason to open a stink about it. I see this type approach very much in line with the type of comment that is pointed out in the article in the OP. Except Bousfield strived to avoid the unnecessary criticism, not hope that the internet will rise up and silence those whose opinions are less desirable/warranted/justified/rational...etc.

The second point he spoke about was the distinction between Interpretation and Musical Expression. Bousfield is for the most part, as a player, a very rational player. He plays everything that's on the page. There were few large digressions from the page in terms of tempos, dynamics, articulations...Simply put, he played the Ink, and he played it well. For him, that is what Musical Expression is, it is following the music to as close the wishes of the composer as possible. Interpretation, for him, was making up the above said parameters in order to make music. He referred to that as 'false musicality' (excessive rubatos, swells, dynamics, crescendos) and threw several famous orchestras and conductors under the bus.

So here are my points to tie this in with the article in the OP.

1. Are Bousfield's ideas not up for criticism, isn't it fair to address and counteract some of the assertions he made.
2. Can he be considered an expert in the matter of musicality? (Mind you, some of his critiques of conductors included Abbado and Chailly)(Who trumps who?)
3. More importantly, and more pertinent to this topic. What says my comments couldn't be justified? I'm not dense enough to pretend that he doesn't now what his flaws, heck he probably knows more than anyone.

In sum, it seems that the double edged sword of the internet is that it opens up instruments to new markets. 20 years ago, A player would only hear what he had access to... now that is still true today, but what we have access to have increased 100 fold. Further, we also have the ability to offer comments and criticisms that will be seen by 1000s (on Youtube).

I don't know what you're talking about. Could you cite some actual text from the Joey Tartell blog post that illustrates what you're reacting to? Is it in a comment I didn't read or something? What I see in the post is stuff like

By the time I was in my office Tuesday morning, trumpet players had spent a considerable amount of time online discussing Mr. Botti’s performance. This can be the best part of the internet- players of all levels able to communicate, from all over the world, with each other.

... and then as I see it he goes on to talk about knotheads, and indeed he isn't very supportive there. But nowhere do I see any proposed ban on criticism etc., for that matter I'd say criticism could be implicitly endorsed in the opening passage I quoted.

This is the passage that bugs me :

I’m entitled to my opinion

No. You’re not. Not always.

......

Chris Botti is a professional trumpet player and musician who performs at a professional level

Now you might be asking:

Joey, what gives you the right to write this?

I’m glad you asked. Because I’m an expert in this area.

Sure, he's responding to the "knotheads" and "jerks" as you say, the people who will contend that Bolti is no good at all. But, the whole point that I've (obviously not well) been trying to make is that there are other legitimate opinions about Bolti's playing that could be valid. Critiques like his playing is boring, unoriginal, out of place, etc....And, most importantly, let's not forget the fact that an opinion doesn't need to be based on fact. Chris Bolti is a professional player (i.e. he gets paid to play, that's a fact) but does he sound like a "professional"? That's the opinion that is up for debate. Where does one set that threshold? What makes a professional? (Questions that are ultimately open ended and that no-one can really give a factual answer in words.)

I'd actually like to bring the discussion back to Tubenet, to a post I read several months ago that you triggered Donn. You surely remember the Chris Olka Cimbasso review, where you set up some questions which implied the opinion that you weren't impressed with his review:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61123#p510012" target="_blank

Several posts late mctuba says almost exactly what Tartell says: (Paraphrase: I'm a pro, you're not, you don't have a right to that opinion)

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61123&start=12#p510657" target="_blank
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Tartell's post is trivial in the fact that it isn't an all exhaustive guide to internet criticism. Maybe I've been replying to "straw-men...." However, I just don't like his plea that:

"We need to make the online community more representative of the real world."

What's impressive is that the internet is not like the professional world. What's impressive is that I can share my opinion with several thousands of people(which I couldn't in the professional world) that will listen(maybe), criticise (probably) and tear apart(for sure). There are a handful of pro tuba players in my city (Let's say 6), but only 2 or 3 brass repair guys. However, on tubenet, there are considerably more repair repair guys than pros (or at least in terms of post counts.) The differences between forums, youtube and blogs and the "real world" are great.The opinions that we get here, are not like you would get in the real world. And that is something that needs to be celebrated...

Ha ha, that was a funny thread. Feathers are easily ruffled - to the extent a word of negative criticism was said, it was all pretty much along the lines of personal preferences in sound. In the end, I thought it generated more heat than light and wasn't a very good discussion, and I suppose that's largely because of a couple of professionals and sponsors who came along on page 2 - but after the thread had been quiet for 5 days - and took umbrage at somewhat imaginary criticism. So it's a good example, but ... first, I think mctuba1 was clearly out of line and took a bit of a beating for it too, so ... it would be interesting to know how it would have gone if those two had not cooked up this story that Olka had been getting dumped on.

Second, it's interesting to see where it went with everyone reacting to that story. The professional players form a sort of club in this context, they are not going to speak ill of each other. Likely enough they don't have any ill to speak anyway - I mean, everyone sincerely thinks well of everyone else's stuff, and the positive things they have to say are quite genuine. But they do seem to sort of circle the wagons at even a hint of some criticism, and in this case it doomed any objective discussion of the reviewed instrument. Which for all I know may have been the intended result.

So from where I'm sitting ... I would have been happy to hear from the experts, but it's damned complicated to get anything out of them.

That's where this particular example came out for me. I'm assuming that somewhere in Tartell's world, he has examples that would really illustrate what he's talking about.

I might as well add that I've gotten a pretty tart "I'm a professional" response from someone else, who in fact I do respect as a source of well spoken posts on this and other forums, but ... maybe I have too thick of a skin, it doesn't stop me. I think we're OK, no bad feelings between that gentleman and myself.

One thing that happens is someone who has been teaching for decades will come here and be surprised by some disagreement with their approach. This isn't likely to come from the club, it's going to be someone like me - who has not taught and should not be teaching anyone. It would be inexcusable for me to just tell him how to teach, as though I were not only an equal but in somewhat his superior (and that's the picture I get of Tartell's knotheads.) But if I can respectfully introduce some stuff from (for example) Dave Wilken on embouchure types that's really relevant, it would be sort of inexcusable for me to remain silent.

"someone like me - who has not taught and should not be teaching anyone."
The fact that you recognize your place means you're not who Joey Tartell is talking about.

He's talking about the 8th grade beginning band student who feels the need to offer his wisdom on every subject; or the high school trumpet player who thinks that playing high notes is all there is to being a lead player; or a college bass trombone player who thinks playing blastissimo pedals is the most important aspect to being a bass trombonist. The ones who think that players who have been successful professional players for decades can't really play that well, don't really know that much, and were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Of course everybody has a "right" to express their opinion. But the anonymity of the internet makes some people overestimate the validity of their opinion.

I'm a moderator at the Trombone Forum. It's kind of funny when someone will ask for a name change because they finally grow up and realize they don't want to be associated with their previous posts.