Re: Coffeehouse Guitar vs street-busker

["Krispen Hartung" <khartung@cableone.net>]

> having done many forms of entertainment including I personally have high 
> regard for the busker. [snip]>

Agreed. Here in Boise, busking is taken very seriously by the City Arts 
Commission. They hire buskers every summer to play on the street corners 
of 
a block down town, where a huge out door market occurs. They pay each 
busker 
$150 USD to play for 3 hours. That's not bad.

> It's always been a great mystery to me how some performers can be so 
> technically brilliant but soulless, some people have the ability to make 
> every note reach inside and grab you. Sort of like I ask why some 
> ambient/soundscape artists make evolving/shifting noise that doesn't go 
> anywhere or do anything... and others whisk me away to some other 
> dimension where time and space have no meaning. Is it in the equipment 
> they use or is it a gift to be able to share their inner vision with 
> someone else?

There was a time when I would have vehemently and completely agreed with 
you 
above, but my thinking has changed and softened up.  I believe the idea of 
having soul in your playing, being moved by music and having notes grab 
you, 
is an entirely subjective and relative notion.   A piece of music can be 
emotionally provocative or stirring for one person, but sterile and 
unmoving 
to another based on their individual and unique emotional makeups. 
Therefore, I believe making blanket statements about certain types of 
music 
and playing approaches in regard to their artist merit and emotional 
impact 
are essentially vacuous and illegitimate.  If you can find me one style of 
music or approach to playing that is as you say above to ALL listeners, 
then 
I would consider your point valid and proven....good luck with that, 
however. ;)  It is very difficult to find or legitimize universal or 
generalized value statements in art. Many try, but end up betraying 
themselves in the long run for doing so.  I don't mean to come across as 
harsh or pedantic here, but statements about the artistic or emotional 
impact of music do need to be translated and qualified as personal and 
subjective sentiment, and not factual statements that denote actual 
characteristics of art.  In my opinion, there is no such thing as a 
factual 
value statement about a piece of art, only factual statements that 
describe 
measureable or empirically observalbe characteristics of the art. 
Everything 
else I feel falls into the personal feeling category, which is more 
telling 
of the observer and not the piece of art.

> Paul Haslem
> dulcimer guy in Canada

Kris