Question about the future of our group....

Serious food for thought here, JL. You have obviously been having a long hard think about the SAW group and how it is viewed (or not!) and you open up lots of points in your posting here. You are someone who has put a great deal of effort into producing not only your videos but also over in the Thread for Social Group MP3 section, with a lot of effort expended on providing music scores etc to go with your tunes. I can understand your frustration at the seeming lack of response to the input you provide, and I think those of us who are fairly regular posters have all felt that we are not getting the recognition we'd like to have - there is a sort of ego involved in publishing something we have produced by our own efforts (certainly for me, and I'm sure for the others too, although most of us still tend to leave our faces off the videos, using either suitable clips or filming our playing from the neck down!) and I have just looked at my own last postings and viewing figures - Thanksgiving Waltz 56 views after 4 weeks, Birdfeeder Waltz 51 views after 3 weeks and Airthrey Castle 98 views after 2 weeks. Not exactly going to make me an overnight success! How many of those are as a result of posting on the SAW group I do not know. I have 183 subscribers, my stats tell me, and some will certainly be from this group, though quite a few are from fellow musicians with whom I play.

The SAW group gives me the incentive to try to make the wee videos and this is reward enough in itself. If I were not posting them, even for only a few looks, I'd probably never bother to make them. Interestingly, there are many tunes I have posted (as a result of being the chosen tune of the week) that I never play now, nor have they ever been regular tunes in my repertoire, but just ones that at the time of posting had caught my attention. Others I have added to my lists and play them regularly.

You mention that there are folk in the Cafe who do not know about the SAW group, but I have to admit that there are sections of the Cafe I never look at either, and only about 4 I go to each time I come to this web site.

I suppose we labour on, and hope that our group becomes more alive again.

I feel the same way John. The effort you put in the tunes should be to develop your own skills. There will always be some people who admire your work and if It would only be 2 or 3 would be enough for me to keep on going. We have to realise that there is so much media on the internet to listen and watch, the chance that someone is really interested is small. Other members will spend their time mostly practising tunes I hope. That's why I started writing my own tunes lately. Original tunes may be more interesting to others and it can be a lot of fun composing original tunes I noticed. John, your original tune "Birdfeeder" is on my Mp3-player and I'm still working on a version!
Please keep on going JL, maybe give it some thought where you put all your effort in! Anyway, I read and listen to most of al your recordings when I find the time.

Hendrik, I have posted the score for my waltz on the MP3 section of the forum, and here is the link, I hope! Thanks for your interest and I look forward to your (and anyone else's) versions of the tune.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/a...7&d=1514985202

I find this group a great source for tunes and inspiration to learn new tunes. My contributions are infrequent and limited to very simple recordings that I hope inspire other beginner/novices. I don't expect any following or praise for my work. This group doesn't have to be a large group to be a success. Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

I don't know how the group used to be, but I can see the number of members listed. As a new member I wont complain about the number of active participants. I have enjoyed looking and listening to others submissions. I will say that there is a learning curve to each aspect of submitting something. To learn the song well enough to record is 4-6 weeks. Finding a suitable platform also takes a while. Vimeo, You Tube, SoundCloud? Then there is the actual recording process. I started using my phone to Vimeo, then to You Tube. Recording video gave me the jitters, and I have a new Zoom H2N: that lead me to SoundCloud. Now I am admiring of some of the slide shows presented on You Tube, but that requires a collection of suitable images, and some experimentation. I notice some are doing multitrack recordings too. While there might be fewer submissions, I would guess many of the people that do submit here have progressively spent more time on their submissions as their skills increased. With that said I do think this group still is active enough to be of value. It is a good place to listen and learn.

Thanks guys for the replies, good sensible thinking there! I will reply in more detail when I get back to my computer tomorrow, right now I'm trying to 'type' with a phone's tiny on-screen 'keyboard' (visiting family, no internet, phone-carrier "data" only).

Now, a phone's keyboard is an instrument I have never quite mastered yet, JL. Real precision needed for that!

I have found that to get applause for a video, it does have to be better than the last video and so forth. It happens to us all, and there is no sense in trying to measure success that way - it leads away from the central purpose of posting, which is learning. When you have learned a new tune well enough to make a video you can watch and enjoy (as opposed to red-faced squirming), 100% of the benefit are already yours.
When you were in school and could correctly answer the teacher's question, did your classmates applaude? Probably not, because what you did was either normal, or it earned you the reputation of being a show-off. But you were glad you could do it, and that's what counts.

In the beginning, this was like boarding a cruise liner for a 2-week trip in the Caribbean: everybody was new to each other, every port was a new one, every Captain's Dinner a new experience.
By now, we're like the crew of Captain John Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage, sleeping with the same crewmates for years, living off canned food, stuck in the ice south of Beachy Island. But our food cans are not sealed with lead (i.e. we're in our right mind yet), and we have survived far more winters than they have.

New year's resolution: record something again. It doesn't help that life keeps conspiring to keep me away from the mandolin. It's neither the group's fault nor a lack of interest on my part. I just go for weeks without playing sometimes, and nobody wants to hear the rubbish I play with so little practice. Creating more space to play and record is the mission.

Having a hard time using this forum right now, every time I switch pages it logs me out. I have to re-login again on each page and each tab. Never had that happen before. Anyway, what I wanted to say was...

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful comments & kind words.

With regards to applause: I don't require it. I usually have a general idea of whether something I play is any good or not, at first anyway - subject to revised opinion later, of course.

Quite frankly I've never liked having a bunch of attention focused on me - that's why I've always liked to play backup, rather than being the 'star'. It's a bit different with these mandolin videos - no one around here plays mandolin, so if I want a mandolin lead/melody part, I have to play it myself.

BUT... There's a difference between playing something that people either enjoy (or not), vs playing something that no one even *knows* if they like because they haven't even listened to it.

Kind of like being booked to play a concert only to find that the hurricane shut down the concert & there's no one in the audience - should the show go on? What purpose would it serve if no one hears it? The musicians can play at home, they don't need the concert hall. The audience members are the ones for whom the public concert exists. Without the audience, such a concert would be pointless, or at best a practice run for future performances in that same hall.

However, I guess everyone has different things that makes them tick (motivates them). In my case, for videos:

1. Mostly I like the technical challenge of trying to put the project together. Especially if I can find an excuse to add some simple silly 2D animations (dancing mice, or northern lights + UFO + Loch Ness Monster, etc). But usually there isn't enough screen real-estate for animations if the project has 2 or 3 video tracks that all need to be visible.

2. I also like it better when my various projects have at least some amount of relevance/usefulness for other people. Even if the 'only' functionality is to make people smile or tap their feet with the rhythm. (Having grown up playing oldtime dance music, if the majority of people *aren't* tapping their feet, then you're playing it wrong. But of course that's a genre-specific thing.) I don't regard this as being in the applause/recognition category, more like just creating something that's fit for purpose.

I suppose videos can serve another purpose that I hadn't originally considered when I started this video thing a couple years ago - keeping track of one's progress. I often look back at my older videos and think "Gawd that's awful!" But I guess that's a good sign because it means I've made enough progress to (eventually, sometimes) recognize my own bad playing when I hear it. More rarely, some of my older tunes still sound ok to my ear, means it either is actually good or, possibly, that I just haven't advanced far enough yet to realize all its flaws.

The ability to (later on) pick apart one's own playing, recognize the flaws and use that info to improve future playing, is probably essential to musical progress in any genre. I'm my own worst critic, "tough job but somebody's gotta do it." Lol.

IMPORTANT: I want to make clear that I do *not* think critically of anyone else's playing, I never look for flaws in other people's playing. That's just not the way my mind (such as it is) works. Rather, I just enjoy what people present and I try to get into the flow of the music when I'm listening to someone else play. The only exception is if someone specifically requests critical advice.

John Kelly wrote: "Now, a phone's keyboard is an instrument I have never quite mastered yet, JL. Real precision needed for that!"

Yes, phones are tricky little beasts!

Gelsenbury wrote: "New year's resolution: record something again."

Cool! Looking forward to hearing your recordings.

I'm glad to see some hearty discussion going on here! That shows there are warm bodies still logging on!

Personally, I could care less if there are 10 members, or 100,000 members! The advantage of this being a small group (acknowledging that there are far more silent members, than participant members), is that we feel like we know each other. We recognize when someone is playing a new instrument. We see each person's progress, if they post regularly. We enjoy the variety of talent levels, the levels of expertise or novice-ness, the varied and wide ranging talent some of you have, in addition to playing the mandolin. When someone takes the moment (or longer) to make a comment, you realize that someone is out there, communicating with YOU! I like that part.

When I first started this group (and it amazes me still, how long ago that was!).... I worked harder on my videos. I got a video editing program, I got a music program, I got a special mic, I learned how to multitrack (which meant I had to learn the tune on multiple instruments, both lead and rhythm, which I don't do), learned how to video edit, and made a production. Well, I think somewhere along the way, some part of that has quit working (I think my video program) and life gets in the way, and I don't even PLAY my mandolin as often as I did, or as I should. If you are one of the people who watch my videos, you know that if I do make a video and contribute, there's NOTHING special about it. None of that early stuff. Just me playing the tune, usually no frills and slower, on my mandolin. I look at my videos more along the line of trying to be useful for someone who is trying to learn this tune, by ear. Or by watching a video. They surely aren't meant to be entertaining. I am glad that we have the members that DO take the time and effort and excel at their creativity, and post videos that not only are a lovely sound version of the tune... but visually entertaining..... my hat is off to you!

Again, that's the beauty of this group. Variety. Please... keep it up!

As far as who or how many people have viewed my videos.... since I don't put out a lot of effort on mine..... I honestly never check my videos, nor do I have a clue how often they are watched. When I do go to You Tube to check my channel, I'm blown away at how many videos I've made! A week or so ago, I got a message from a FB friend, who is from another walk of life, a friend of my son's growing up, who in the last few years decided to learn the fiddle. We've never played together; we were FB friends, and he'd noticed that I played the mandolin, so when he started learning it, he had reached out to me to chat a little about it. I told him that I loved what we call 'fiddle tunes', and he said that he was more into the current day modern harder irish stuff (I'm not even sure what that's called)... and then some time has gone by (probably a couple of years) He sent me this message a couple of weeks ago, saying that he was working on Kesh Jig, and was searching you tube, and found ME playing it, and told me it had thousands of views! I just now checked it (hmmm... I've put 2 videos of Kesh jig up.... one 8 years ago, and one 6 years ago)... the older one has 23,000 views! I can't even wrap my head around that! Granted, a fair amount of the people who take the time to comment on my You Tube videos themselves, are telling me how cute I am, or about my cleavage that's showing, but, you'll always have that!

So, again, thanks for taking the time to have a discussion! I appreciate EVERY one of our members... those that post regularly and those who have never uttered a peep!

A very thoughtful and considered response, Barbara. There are so many reasons for keeping this group alive, and we can all ensure this not only by posting, but by responding to those of us who do post. Certainly keeps me with lots of things to look forward to.

Re Barbara's mention of YouTube comments - that is exactly how an unfiltered audience really is: you don't get many clicks just for playing or instrument specifics. You get clicks for "being cute". I am not bitter that my clicks hardly ever go over 3-digit numbers and nobody's commented about my cleavage yet. Everything is cool.

I have always secretly rated your cleavage alongside mine as a major audience attraction, Bertram. Now why do our ratings not soar on YouTube?

I've always assumed that when Scots refer to cleavage, it's something created with a claidheamh mor.

Ah yes, the true Claymore and not the basket-hilted broadsword! We'll be sending out the Fiery Cross before long.

Barbara,

I found the group several years ago and posted a couple of times but life got in the way and I strayed and haven't been active on the group or with my mandolin (Jade) for several years. I think that it is a mark of the importance of the quality of the group that I have recently resolved to get back to the mandolin and this is the first place I came to. I really appreciate the work that you have put in , thank you. I know that I cannot learn fast enough to learn and post a song per week. But I am trying to get back to learning at my own pace and plan to use the group as a resource.

Dean! Thanks for posting! And, welcome back! We ALL know the constraints of 'life', and how it gets in the way! I am making an effort to pick up an instrument and play it, aiming for every day, but sometimes I realize that it's been weeks, and my callouses are just a faint memory! This group IS an invaluable resource, and I'm glad to hear from you.... the voice of our 'invisible' membership!