Showing Off or Performing or Something Else?

[AlanN]

I'm sure Dempsey Young knew his fans better than I do, so what he said about them could well be true of most of them. I bet it wasn't true of all of them, however.

Surely not (me included, sometimes). Particulary with a stylist, I want to hear a deviation from the norm.

Somebody once said - maybe Tiny, Johnny Gimble, Duffey, Jesse - I never play the same thing once...

[JEStanek]

I always thought the point of a tribute band was to sound very familiar and not get far afield from the original sound. If you like or don't like that thing (tribute bands) isn't the point. A tribute band and a jam band are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum for musical performance.

I think there is something different between the number of notes played and the pretention behind how the performance is done. That's the difference between showing off and playing. I think there's an aspect the audience can pick up on to that too and I also think the point where it becomes off putting varies by listener, and their expectations of the show.

Jamie

[Cheryl Watson]

IMO, when playing solo, if a performer does not brag about himself/herself and is humble and not sarcastic towards the audience, then (s)he can play even the most advanced tunes/songs and not come across to most people as hot-dogging.

When playing with others, if all members of the band play as a team/unit and are not being competitive with each other or having spats on stage, then it never comes across as showing-off no matter how good the players are. It is just what they do and they do it well and appreciate the audience. Which is, in my humble opinion, quite the opposite from some of these pop/rap singers these days who tout themselves in a song (i.e. "I am the best you will ever have" and they say it over and over and over) and touch themselves where they should not while on stage--that is a big turn-off for me.

[CES]

Mick,

It's only cocky or showboating if you can't pull it off...or it harms the music when you're playing with others...

Cheryl, I agree with your comments above...don't tell me you're the best in the world, show me why you're the best in the world...and, if you can show me while remaining engaging but not arrogant, then even better.

[Karl Keating]

We have a guy in our group who shows off. If there's a chance to stand in the spotlight, he's there before anybody else and won't get out of it. If we're sitting around in a session, he's the guy who can't keep his hands off his guitar, playing riffs and making up melodies loudly enough to disrupt conversation; he brings his own amp and plugs in during gigs when we usually have a sound board and each get mikes, and he ramps it up during tunes so that he's louder than anyone else; we have a couple of guys who usually introduce our tunes or give explanations if we're at a school, and he's been known to jump in and talk over these guys, to try to engage the audience over their heads, as it were. Once he began talking to an audience about the music and didn't stop for 20 solid minutes (of a 50-minute gig), just telling people everything he'd ever learned from listening to the rest of us talk ... yet he's a fine musician and adds to our group, if only he'd stop trying to hog the spotlight!
.

It appears that you and the other members of your group haven't taken this fellow aside for a heart-to-heart talk. You should, as a courtesy to him and a courtesy to your audiences. That you and your friends allowed him to talk for 20 minutes isn't a good sign. (Why should he or anyone have talked even for two minutes to an audience that didn't come to hear a lecture?)

Some people are blithely unaware of how offputting they can be. Perhaps your friend fits that category. Whether or not he does, you should sit down with him and explain the problems in detail. If you don't feel up to it, get a third party whom he respects to do so. If you let this situation fester, in the long run your group will be undermined, as your patience already apparently has been.

[AlanN]

It appears that you and the other members of your group haven't taken this fellow aside for a heart-to-heart talk.

I'd pull this guy aside for something other than a 'talk'...

[Denny Gies]

I agree with Allen, if a person is honest with him/herself, they know if they are performing or just hot dogging. Personally I'm not good enough to hot dog.

[JeffD]

improvising does not necessarily equal showing off.

Tastefull improvising is all about expressing whats in the tune in perhaps a different way, or with more excitement or more pathos, or interesting melodic and harmonic digressions. Bad taste in improvising is when the player uses it as an opportunity to show off.

Playing a tune note for note can sometimes be showing off, as when someone does a blisteringly brilliant tune a million mph not caring if anyone can play along or not.

Not all showing off is bad, there is a time and place for it. But showing departs from musicality IMO. When the point is "look at me" and not "look at this great music" I think the line has been crossed.

[Jim Garber]

when you play mandolin (or any instrument for that matter) when does it cease becoming a performance and cross the line into "hot dogging" or showing off?

One person's virtuosity is another's showing off, IMHO. It is in the eye and ear of the beholder. If I admire a player it is virtuosity, if I don't, it is showing off.

On the third hand... there is also such a thing as musicality. In that case, a musician does not have to play multiple notes blindingly fast but can play minimally with feeling, dynamics, etc. There are many fine lines here, of course. And musicality also extends to playing lyrically, phrasing and as some folks note, playing the rests as well as the notes.

[mrmando]

Thanks for that informative post mrmando - I think I had heard somewhere about bach improvising, but never realised that that was just really in solo organ pieces - makes more sense really.

Thanks -- I should add that I think your general impression is correct: there is not as much emphasis on improvisation in classical music as there used to be. I can't think of any modern-day equivalent of Paganini or Bach, in terms of being an improviser, who performs in the classical genre. There are lots of great improvising musicians, of course, but they play other styles of music. AFAIK most classical musicians aren't taught how to extemporize. It might benefit classical music if somebody found a way to bring a little improv back into it.

[SincereCorgi]

Apart from these exceptions, improvisation has never had much of a place in classical music. In an ensemble piece with no soloist, the structure of the music doesn't allow for any one player to suddenly start extemporizing, even if he is the composer. And anyway, most composers did not write music primarily for themselves to play, but for other musicians.

I get where you're going with this, but I think it's a misrepresentation, to a degree. By the late 18th century, I agree that improvisation was confined to cadenzas, but prior to that there were traditions of both extensive ornamentation and 'preluding', where a musician would improvise rhapsodically in a key for a while before playing a formal composition. (Presumably for soloists and chamber music, of, of course, I don't know how it would work in big ensemble pieces...) None of that stuff, by definition, survives except in a few contemporary treatises on musicianship, so people remember what got written down on paper and that has come to be the definition of 'classical' music.

Edit: it also just occurred to me that Liszt was famous for his improvisations, and would solicit themes from the audience for that purpose. Showing off, if you ask me...

[JeffD]

I get where you're going with this, but I think it's a misrepresentation, to a degree. By the late 18th century, I agree that improvisation was confined to cadenzas, but prior to that there were traditions of both extensive ornamentation and 'preluding', where a musician would improvise rhapsodically in a key for a while before playing a formal composition.

Was that also "killed off" by composers who wrote out their cadenzas because they didn't like leaving so much of the work with their name on it up to someone else?

[Jim Garber]

Was it the composer who wrote out their cadenzas or later editors? I am asking because I haven't a clue. I do find this sub-topic very interesting: when classical music became less improvisational.

[mrmando]

I get where you're going with this, but I think it's a misrepresentation, to a degree. By the late 18th century, I agree that improvisation was confined to cadenzas, but prior to that there were traditions of both extensive ornamentation and 'preluding', where a musician would improvise rhapsodically in a key for a while before playing a formal composition.

Thanks for the clarification. Of course, until the 20th century, there were only 2 ways to learn a piece of music: notation and by ear/rote, and notation offered a number of advantages, particularly for complex pieces. If we were able to travel back in time with modern recording technology, we might make some interesting discoveries about classical music...

[mrmando]

Was it the composer who wrote out their cadenzas or later editors?

Some composers wrote out their own cadenzas; some composers and soloists published their own cadenzas for other composers' works.

[FLATROCK HILL]

There was one little trick that was sometimes employed by the musicians I worked with, that our audiences really seemed to enjoy. At the time, I thought of it more as 'creative expression' rather than just showing off.

While the band played, one of us would lay our instrument aside, walk around the chicken wire and out to the parking lot. The trick was to ride your motorcycle through the front door, onto the dance floor, do a nice burn-out and get back on stage before the cops came.

None of us had Cadnezas though...strictly American Iron...Shovels and Panheads etc.

[Russ Donahue]

Don't have anything to add that hasn't been said. Will say this, though, this has been one of the most interesting threads I've dropped in on in a long time. Thanks all for sharing.

[Polecat]

Thanks -- I should add that I think your general impression is correct: there is not as much emphasis on improvisation in classical music as there used to be. I can't think of any modern-day equivalent of Paganini or Bach, in terms of being an improviser, who performs in the classical genre. There are lots of great improvising musicians, of course, but they play other styles of music. AFAIK most classical musicians aren't taught how to extemporize. It might benefit classical music if somebody found a way to bring a little improv back into it.

Nigel Kennedy springs to mind - I heard a concert of his (on the radio) this year where he played "Spring" from Vivaldis 4 Seasons on an electric Violin, and what he played strayed a long way from how I remembered the solo part.

In my (much) younger days as a a church chorister I remember it was standard practice for the organist to extemporize over the theme of the last hymn of the service whilst everybody was leaving the church, as I recall an organist explained to me that it was taught and there was even an exam in extemporisation.

This anecdote (from Wikipedia) may be of interest:

Beethoven made his appearance in Vienna as a youthful musician of promise in the spring of 1787, but was only able to remain there a short time; he was introduced to Mozart, and played to him at his request. Mozart, considering the piece he performed to be a studied show-piece, was somewhat cold in his expressions of admiration. Beethoven, noticing this, begged for a theme for improvisation, and, inspired by the presence of the master he revered so highly, played in such a manner as gradually to engross Mozart's whole attention; turning quietly to the bystanders, he said emphatically, "Mark that young man; he will make himself a name in the world!"

[mrmando]

In my (much) younger days as a a church chorister I remember it was standard practice for the organist to extemporize over the theme of the last hymn of the service whilst everybody was leaving the church, as I recall an organist explained to me that it was taught and there was even an exam in extemporisation.

Yep, you can still hear this in any church fortunate enough to have a properly trained organist. He or she will know how to reharmonize a tune on the fly -- keeping the melody the same but changing the chords. I don't know if hymn tunes count as classical music, unless they were written by Bach or Haydn, but anyway it's cool.

[bobby bill]

I'm open minded, but does anybody really go to hear songs done completely different than the recordings?

You need to talk to a Frank Zappa fan.

Frankly (npi), I think it comes down to whether you like or dislike what you are hearing. And it comes down to whether the musician is serving the music rather than vice versa. If you like what you are hearing, you will believe that the musician is serving the music.

[mandocrucian]

I'm open minded, but does anybody really go to hear songs done completely different than the recordings?

If it's a replication, why bother to go see them when you can just put on the CD anytime you want?

"Showing Off" - it might well be grandstanding, playing a bunch of gimmicky trash licks for the easily impressed non-musician audience, overusing the ornamentations to excess, playing worn-out cliched "crowdpleasers" (OBS come to mind), speed freakism, etc.

Or, is it "a term of dismissal by envious players who have their cages rattled" ?

Hard to believe all this started in regards to the Statman video. I didn't see any grandstanding in what he played - seemed to be cohesive solos that maintained an internal logic. No overuse of doubletimed licks and all that. It's a mando/bass/drums trio for x's sake, so all that "It ain't real bluegrass!" garbola is obviously and totally irrelevant. I would have though you all were talking about overkill from Joe Bonamassa, Johnny Lang or Tommy Emmanuel. Or..... wait for it (thinking about Frank Zappa talking about "guitar face") ......GE Smith!!!

mrmando makes valid points about "intent". I tend to be way more critical when I see some artist/band rather than just hearing the audio. There's just so much more "context" you can pick up. Like the guitarist really can't play that well (you can see it in th hand mechanics within the firsr 20 seconds), or the person is in "luv with themself" and believes their own "publicity."

You can also tell (see) when the player is a real pro, and also get a pretty good idea of his/her attitude. I for one would not want a high grade player to dumb-down their performance. Do stuff I've never even thought about and astound me. And that includes "taste". (Though, yeah you'll probably have to include a few over-the-toppers to satisfy the yahoos who need the subtlety of a 2x4 whack in the head; but that's just "show-biz").

NH

[MandoSquirrel]

Yep, you can still hear this in any church fortunate enough to have a properly trained organist. He or she will know how to reharmonize a tune on the fly -- keeping the melody the same but changing the chords. I don't know if hymn tunes count as classical music, unless they were written by Bach or Haydn, but anyway it's cool.

During my brief time in college music classes, Lowell Mason & other hymn composers were taught alongside the big "classical" names.

[Travis Wilson]

One person's virtuosity is another's showing off, IMHO. It is in the eye and ear of the beholder. If I admire a player it is virtuosity, if I don't, it is showing off.

On the third hand... there is also such a thing as musicality. In that case, a musician does not have to play multiple notes blindingly fast but can play minimally with feeling, dynamics, etc. There are many fine lines here, of course. And musicality also extends to playing lyrically, phrasing and as some folks note, playing the rests as well as the notes.

The best example I can give to emphasize what Jim is talking about involves the Dave Brubeck Quartet. We saw them a few years ago. Dave Brubeck obviously knows music, and he appreciates good musicians. Needless to say, both my wife and I thought Bobby Militello was a show-off technician compared to the lyrical, musical Paul Desmond who knew how to let the music breathe by sometimes NOT playing notes.

[catmandu2]

Paganini, Mozart, Liszt, Beethoven...jelly roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, art tatum, bird, dizzy, Coltrane...howlin wolf, Elmore James, Hendrix, Zappa, fats domino, fats Waller and fats Navarro..."showboats" all

There are more and less florid approaches to playing and technique--it's all "music"; your "ego" is as much involved in your demur as when seeking the spotlight

Is miles (or Desmond) any more musical than Coltrane or bird?

[mrmando]

It might be worth adding that in classical music, "showing off" needn't equate to improvising. Every good solo performer learns some short show pieces to perform as encores. Many of Paganini's works, including the famous 24 Caprices, were written specifically to demonstrate the advanced techniques he had mastered. If you learn one, you are in some measure showing off your ability to play it as he wrote it.

If it's a replication, why bother to go see them when you can just put on the CD anytime you want?

My sentiments exactly, although I wouldn't rule out seeing someone I really wanted to see just because I thought they wouldn't deviate from their recording.

Hard to believe all this started in regards to the Statman video. I didn't see any grandstanding in what he played - seemed to be cohesive solos that maintained an internal logic.

Andy doesn't even look at the audience all that much when doing a trio show. He looks mostly at Jim. I don't see any of the body language or facial expression one would usually associate with "showing off."

When I play too many notes while improvising, it's usually because I've lost what I call the "groove" -- the unifying concept behind whatever I'm trying to do at the moment -- and am trying to get it back. It's an act of desperation, not of overconfidence.