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---- Original Message ----- > I believe that a performer earns their applause by successfully doing something difficult in front of an audience. >> rubbing my xtra large tummy and patting my head at the same time is >> "difficult" playing music is a joy.....travis, why do you say >> "difficult", interesting use of the word.....perhaps i have never >really >> suffered for my art and over the years have easily perfected my >> mistakes.....i've said it in the past, i'm pretty shallow when it comes >> to lofty thoughts....."what does your music mean, where does it come >> from?".....DUH!.....turn it up!.....:).....michael I'm with yah, man. Are we circus animals or artists? The idea of "earning" an applause doesn't ring well with me anyway. Only speaking personally and not for anyone else...I don't feel I owe anything to an audience. I know, it sounds egocentric. I play for myself and what I want. If people like it, great (and inevitably someone does, otherwise I wouldn't be asked back repeatedly). And if people like it and express themselves, I extend my sincere thanks and appreciate to them openly...but I don't cater to any audience need or feel to need to earn anything. And I certainly don't guage the artistic merit of my work based on a herd-like metric like applause. I am an artist expressing myself the way I want...the audience can take it or leave it. This is probably relevant to the avant-garde arts, so I would not say this is valid necessarily for pop music, where musicians become commodities in free enterprise and mere pawns for the record labels and producers to generate revenue. Those capitalistic slaves can earn their applause....but not my cup of tea. :) Though there is an underlying logic to Travis' comments that is worth exploring, namely doing something difficult may be a sufficient condition to warrant audience applause, but not a necessary condition, meaning that there are other factors besides doing something difficult that may lead to audience applause (like saying stupid things, making an ass out of oneself in front of 10,000 people, strutting around the stage like rockstar demigod, urinating on stage, etc). In short, the statement "If I do something difficult, this deserves an applause" could be a true statement in one context, but the statement, "If I get an applause, I must have done something difficult" is certainly a statement that cannot be univerally true. That seems intuitive to me. It takes one counter-example fact to nullify that statement.....easily done. Kris