Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

[Mandoplumb]

Pfft! Smiling for the camera is something that only started in the last few decades. Maybe since the 1950s? If you go back and look at old portraits of people from centuries past, nobody smiled. They would put on a stoic or regal look for the painter. Even the early days of photography kept this tradition. I have family portraits going back to my great-great grandparents in my house; nobody smiled until my mother's generation (and even then, it was only when she was older). I don't know how or why it started happening, but I suspect it was the commercial photography industry that started it. And now it's just plain out of control. The old "say cheese" trick is to put on a fake smile for no good reason, and it does nothing but ensure that
your face is captured for posterity with a completely unnatural expression. 99% of posed photograph smiles are not genuine happy smiles, and don't accurately represent the people in the photos. It's madness. Madness, I say! (fake smile for posterity)

If you look at early photographs you will notice that the whole body or at least as much as shows appears as stiff as the face with no smile. That look is not pre-professional or before someone thought up smiling as a sales gimmick though I think smiles look better than those rough looking people in early photos. The reason no smile is a smile is harder to hold than a stone face and those early cameras and film took about 5 minutes shutter speed.

[Beanzy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.9d05145df9ef

"A classic — but insufficient — explanation blames early cameras, which had long exposure times requiring subjects to sit still for several minutes. In those drawn-out sessions, a neutral expression was easier to hold than a smile.

But even by the late 1800s, when the technology improved to the point that photographers could easily freeze a smile onto film, people still preferred serious, pensive, or even sad poses for their photos.

Historian Christina Kotchemidova argues that people were motivated mainly by cultural forces, not practical considerations. “Etiquette codes of the past demanded that the mouth be carefully controlled; beauty standards likewise called for a small mouth,” she says in her 2005 paper on the history of smiling in photographs.

Though photography was still relatively new in the 1850s, portraiture was not, and tradition said that proper people should not grin or bare their teeth in their pictures. Big smiles were considered silly, childish, or downright wicked."

But Tobin would have been in good company a century ago;
"In her 1913 book on Mark Twain, University of Chicago professor Elizabeth Wallace recalls walking with him when a fan approached him for a snapshot on the street. “I had noticed that Mr. Clemens always assumed a dignified pose at such times, with a serious, almost severe expression of face,” she wrote.

Twain responded with a quip that has now become famous. “I think a photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever,” he said."

And earlier http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/0...n-portraiture/
"By the 17th century in Europe it was a well-established fact that the only people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment" so we would have been in there with the rabble. I'll raise a glass to that.

[Bertram Henze]

...Big smiles were considered silly, childish, or downright wicked."

“I think a photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever,” he said."

Mr S. L. Clemens' stories always had this pinch of bitter saltiness mixed with the up-front humor. Read "The Five Boons of Life" to find out what he really thought. I'll say he was one of those whose facial expressions do not backfire at their state of mind and for whom feeling better by just smiling does not work. He was one of us deadpantroverts.

P.S. it just occurred to me that those for whom smiling works are able to adjust their inner attitude for the better, with the smile just being a placebo to fool the intellect into allowing it to happen. The rest of us are either happy with our attitude or wouldn't believe in placebos anyway if we weren't.

[Bertram Henze]

it takes only 3 muscles to smile, but at least 9 to frown.

Seriously, if what I suspect the smilers really do is correct, it's a whole-body experience where countless tiny body parts are involved, and counting muscles hides the truth.

[NEH57]

A middle distance stare, grinning and smiling is an antidote to "Melodeon Face" which is a well recognised condition ( they think string instrument players don't suffer from it.....)

[Bertram Henze]

I had to google melodeon face, but this antidote nicely demonstrates what I (and I think Tobin) have been talking about:



I mean, would you leave your kids alone with this man?

[sw**ts]

I like this thread! Many entertaining answers.

I used to smile at lead players who showed a myriad of facial expressions when they played a lead break. I knew it was their concentration that was making their face/mouth move with the notes, but in some people it was very funny to watch.

Now that I am doing a tiny bid of lead myself on mandolin, I have found myself grimacing here and there too. Now, I'm going to play with a mirror and find out just what I AM doing and how strange it looks. Learning to just smile rather than grimace is going to help me relax, I'm sure. So, thanks for this thread. This is fun!

Jan

[Mark Miller]

One of the things I love about both Sam Bush and Chris Thile, beside their playing, is their obvious enjoyment of the music, expressed through smiles and their general body language. When I went to my first big public jam a few weeks ago I found myself bodily expressing my enjoyment. It helped keep me in the groove and gave me confidence, even if I'm pretty sure I looked a bit goofy at times. Since this is the only way in which I can seek to be like Sam and Chris, I plan to continue.

[Randi Gormley]

I know I've read stuff about smiling and I'm pulling this from memory, which is faulty, but I remember hearing/reading/learning that smiling is a social act and makes people appear approachable and willing to engage -- for those who WANT to be approachable and engage, of course. And the opposite is true as well.

Smiling protocols are different between the sexes, different ages and social class. The average person would find it awkward, I'm thinking, to tell someone in power to smile but the powerless are often told to "smile" without restraint. So you can say that smiling is a political thing as well. I have seldom seen a politician on the stump do anything other than smile (except during a disaster, of course) and most of them manage to make the smile look genuine. Practice, I figure.

But I will say that when I approach a stranger for any reason, but especially if I'm asking if I can sit in on a session in a strange place, that a smile makes a huge difference -- from their side and from mine. So there's that to be said for it.

[Mark Wilson]

I clanked the start of a break last night and thought of this thread. Smiled a little and that bum feeling passed immediately. It does work

[mandocrucian]

"The Jethro Bodine"

"Look at me, I'm so wonderful..."

"Great Googly Moogly"


"More Cowbell...uh, more Tambourine!"

happy, happy Teletubbies!

[JeffD]

Historian Christina Kotchemidova argues that people were motivated mainly by cultural forces, not practical considerations. .

Some research, quoted especially in Susan Cain's book on introverts, that urbanization greatly changed the culture. Having to be effective quickly amongst strangers and people you have just met made first impressions, and extrovertism, very important skills. No longer in a world where everyone knew you since birth and knew your parents before you - it would make sense that smiling as you greet people would become much more important. And along with better camera technology, and better dental hygiene I can well imagine smiles abounding.

Regardless of the 17th century, here in the century in which we have to get along with each other, the "dignified pose ... with a serious, almost severe expression of face" may not give off the same first impression as it used to.