Comments needed on my playing

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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by stiofan »

Criminy. :boggle:
LongHairedDavid: Besides the FB pages mentioned by Tyler, there's a separate instructor/instructional subforum you might have overlooked that runs the gamut of in-person lessons, direct (teacher to student) online instruction, and other learning resources (including tutor books): https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewt ... 1&t=108161 It's worth your time to look through the list, though some of it may be (probably) outdated.
Since you're interested in getting feedback/suggestions on your playing, of course, the one-on-one lesson format would be ideal, whether in person or some form of online teaching. FWIW, I follow all those FB whistle pages myself, though I'd really only pay attention to well-known, established, & competent teachers who might offer tips, which probably isn't too many, since most are professional players and teachers who partly earn their living by giving (paid) lessons. Good luck and happy playing!
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

stiofan wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:12 pm Criminy. :boggle:
What he said.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by MadmanWithaWhistle »

This thread pretty well exemplifies why I don't use C&F anymore. I forgot it existed until the potential security incident, but have been quickly reminded.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Narzog »

MadmanWithaWhistle wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 3:16 pm This thread pretty well exemplifies why I don't use C&F anymore. I forgot it existed until the potential security incident, but have been quickly reminded.
I feel like its not nearly as bad as people think though. Like every community has issues. A dumb argument can break out at the dinner table every holiday but it ends and everyone moves on. And nobody skips next thanksgiving because they had some random argument last time.

This community has lots of varying people but that's not really bad. If it was just a strictly moderated echo chamber of people saying the same things it would be pointless. Which is the alternative, besides not having a community at all. Unless other groups are somehow different than every other online group I've been in, there's not much of a middle ground. So I'm pretty happy with ones like this.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

The folks here usually know when to tamp it down. That doesn't mean I'm not smoldering, though. Well, it's been a full moon, if anyone cottons to such things.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Loren »

Thing is, back in “the old days”, it was waaaay more firery around here, but my recollection is that, with a few notable exceptions, people got less intensely insulted and infuriated so quickly.

Also, this was much more of a community back then and (most) people acted a bit more like folks would in a decent session. Not so now. I’m tempted to elaborate, but I can almost feel the heat coming off Nano’s coals just thinking about it. :P
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by stiofan »

Loren wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:52 pm Thing is, back in “the old days”, it was waaaay more firery around here, but my recollection is that, with a few notable exceptions, people got less intensely insulted and infuriated so quickly.

Also, this was much more of a community back then and (most) people acted a bit more like folks would in a decent session. Not so now. I’m tempted to elaborate, but I can almost feel the heat coming off Nano’s coals just thinking about it. :P
And if memory serves, much of the repartee in “the old days” had significantly more/nuanced wittiness (I'm now thinking about folks from that era, like Bloomfield) than some of the cyber-skirmishes we've been witness to lately here on good ol' C&F. And I can't help but wonder if how people act/treat one another on social media (esp. F-book) has infiltrated the old ways, before the dark times...
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

stiofan wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:28 pmAnd I can't help but wonder if how people act/treat one another on social media (esp. F-book) has infiltrated the old ways, before the dark times...
If by "dark times" you mean C&F now, I have a rather different take on it. It helps to remember that as we now know it, the greater social media phenomenon coincided with, and was no doubt the cause of, the dimming of C&F's former - and special - brand of vibrancy. But as I look back, I'm very tempted to say, "What of it?" And why? Because it also helps to remember that the lion's share of that vibrancy found expression in the Pub, an ephemeral side-show that spilled over into the edges of the dedicated business of our musical ethos - an ethos which still hasn't changed, BTW. So let's not be distracted by the comparison of mere surface appearances. Before the advent of Facebook etc, C&F and other specialty sites like it were all there was for social media - hence the craziness of earlier times - but then as now, our sweep is necessarily limited by the special interests we cultivate: as it says in the CCCP, "This ain't 4chan." And to that I say, "Amen." If C&F lived or died on goofy high spirits and folderol alone, we'd've been sunk long ago. Instead, we've gone from adolescence to maturity. Don't mistake maturity for decrepitude. While they try, and for as dizzyingly varied as they are, I don't think Reddit or Quora can ever match us as a go-to for our musical interests. People are still joining C&F, and almost every day. Do you know that there are two (oops, now three) new legitimate applicants awaiting activation as I type this? There were four yesterday, and numbers like this are commonplace. Is this an accident? I don't think so. Whether they participate is another matter, and I'm not going to second-guess that; we have instruments and tunes requiring our discussion in the meantime.

We've never lost the room for color and goofiness; maybe a lot of us have outgrown it, for lack of a better word. Or maybe folks are drained by world circumstances. But whether we pursue a more entertaining vibrancy or not, that is on each of us, not someone else. In any case, as Bill S. Preston, Esq. said so well: "Be excellent to each other." We alone make C&F inviting - or not. Public rancor only scares off the newcomers, and that is opportunity lost.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by stiofan »

Nanohedron wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:30 am
stiofan wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:28 pmAnd I can't help but wonder if how people act/treat one another on social media (esp. F-book) has infiltrated the old ways, before the dark times...
If by "dark times" you mean C&F now, I have a rather different take on it. It helps to remember that as we now know it, the greater social media phenomenon coincided with, and was no doubt the cause of, the dimming of C&F's former - and special - brand of vibrancy. But as I look back, I'm very tempted to say, "What of it?" And why? Because it also helps to remember that the lion's share of that vibrancy found expression in the Pub, an ephemeral side-show that spilled over into the edges of the dedicated business of our musical ethos - an ethos which still hasn't changed, BTW. So let's not be distracted by the comparison of mere surface appearances. Before the advent of Facebook etc, C&F and other specialty sites like it were all there was for social media - hence the craziness of earlier times - but then as now, our sweep is necessarily limited by the special interests we cultivate: as it says in the CCCP, "This ain't 4chan." And to that I say, "Amen." If C&F lived or died on goofy high spirits and folderol alone, we'd've been sunk long ago. Instead, we've gone from adolescence to maturity. Don't mistake maturity for decrepitude. While they try, and for as dizzyingly varied as they are, I don't think Reddit or Quora can ever match us as a go-to for our musical interests. People are still joining C&F, and almost every day. Do you know that there are two (oops, now three) new legitimate applicants awaiting activation as I type this? There were four yesterday, and numbers like this are commonplace. Is this an accident? I don't think so. Whether they participate is another matter, and I'm not going to second-guess that; we have instruments and tunes requiring our discussion in the meantime.

We've never lost the room for color and goofiness; maybe a lot of us have outgrown it, for lack of a better word. Or maybe folks are drained by world circumstances. But whether we pursue a more entertaining vibrancy or not, that is on each of us, not someone else. In any case, as Bill S. Preston, Esq. said so well: "Be excellent to each other." We alone make C&F inviting - or not. Public rancor only scares off the newcomers, and that is opportunity lost.
@Nano -- Well, there we go...lost in translation again (now, where is C3PO when we need him?) By "the dark times" I really meant how online dialogue has been affected for the worse by all the vitriolic shenanigans we see on FB, Twitter, and other social media where users spout off emotionally-charged opinions without much forethought. Although C&F has indeed been through some changes since I joined back in 2003, I wholeheartedly appreciate the forums here as a one of a kind place to be among kindred spirits. And props to all of you mods for keeping things running as smoothly as possible. :)
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

Well, my blackened page still stands anyway. I mean every word of it. :)

As I mentioned, websites like C&F were the only thing for social media before the big platforms inevitably emerged, and C&F remains enough for me; I find it more existentially manageable, and no part of my life really depends on - or would even be improved by - being so available to the whole world as on other, more global social media. No doubt others have a different take on it; a scientist or business owner would benefit from the connections. But what I am not is lonely enough to be interested in broadcasting my breakfast toast, nor does the world benefit from the opportunity to see it. Likewise I'm not voyeur enough to be interested in your breakfast toast. Sorry if that sounds cold, but there you have it. I need better, more authentic intimacy than distant, aseptic "Likes" or "Dislikes" - the very concept baffles and offends, for it mocks and degrades communication as I understand it. Yes, thanks to social media lives have even been saved, but we all know that the vast, vast majority of it comes nowhere close to that happy but all-too-rare outcome. When Twitter and Facebook popped up it didn't take a lot of heavy lifting for me to intuitively foresee the negative side, and that was enough for me to steer clear from the start. Maybe I'm a bit of a Hobbit.

As for the negativity, I doubt I have the insight to help anyone. But what I do see is a tendency to normalize strife, and the incentive to de-normalize it is drowned in inertia. It is self-generating, self-perpetuating, and self-devouring. Is this changeable? Of course it is. How likely is that? It starts with the individual, but the sticky part is that it must catch on. TBBH, I'm not optimistic so long as lashing out at the innocent is thought humanly permissible. Greater social media may have been inevitable, but inevitability isn't always for the best when we don't face up to our own responsibilities. We don't have the right to demand a better world when our behavior suggests we have no real interest in one.

Understand that I'm not against greater social media per se, but I get the impression that most people can't handle it. I do believe that it hasn't helped how we communicate, but has instead helped contribute to a decline, and yes, I think it would explain the real-world choices many of us presently make.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by bigsciota »

One thing I will say, going back to my first post on this thread, is that while I understand the need for general civility and being nice, all too often on these sorts of forums people confuse the concepts of positivity and civility. On other forums as on this one, I have all too often seen advice that is at best ill-informed or misguided go unchallenged because people think that being nice is not saying anything negative. And I've also seen a lot of people giving advice who, while filled with the best of intentions, just don't have the knowledge or experience required to actually give that advice.

I'd actually argue the other way, that part of being civil is both confronting bad information/advice when you see it, and probably most importantly not giving information/advice that you don't know is correct or not. It may not be shouting your head off or slinging epithets, but giving information/advice that you aren't qualified to give is, to my mind, quite uncivil. Imagine being lost somewhere and asking for directions. If the person you're asking doesn't know the way, would you rather they just say "sorry mate, I'm not sure," or would you rather they try to guess? Or, as often happens here and elsewhere, say things like "well, I don't know how to get back to the M5, but there's a country lane that I've heard good things about somewhere in that direction." Again, I'd find that sort of thing quite uncivil.

That exchange between Loren and Sedi is actually a decent example of this. Advice was given to try a particular teacher for the whistle. Either that teacher actually teaches whistle, in which case that's good advice, or she doesn't, and it's not. Sedi mistakenly thought it was not, without checking to see whether that hunch was correct. Either Loren or Sedi was right in that scenario. There's no way to be simply positive when that kind of thing occurs, or when you see bad advice/information being given to a beginner who doesn't know any better. You could argue that the exchange got too heated, too uncivil, etc., but to be honest, I'd rather bad information/advice be challenged than not. And I'd rather those who are not sure about something take a second to verify the information they're about to give. After all, in this case, Heaton very clearly references her tin whistle playing in a blurb on the front page of her website.

Which again, goes back to what some of the original posts on this said. Be careful accepting advice from just anyone on the web, even if it's given with the best of intentions. You may not get the directions you think you're getting!
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

bigsciota wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:15 pm ... I'd rather bad information/advice be challenged than not.
And I would never suggest otherwise. What I do suggest is that it's all in how you do it. If the recipient takes offense to kind, if firm, guidance for no better reason than a bruised ego, that's on them.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by GreenWood »

I agree with Sedi though, that most social media sites are not worth visiting, partly for how those businesses are run , and partly for the level of conversation.

Looking at this "argumentative" thread is good enough example of the difference . Sedi is on a roll, Loren makes a personal recommendation which Sedi is fast on, forcing Loren into the defence, but Sedi follows it up all the same, throwing a tomato at himself along the way which puts Loren into a philosophical contemplation... Stiofan steps in and sends longhaireddavid away in a most sincere manner (if he hadn't left already) ... then Madman posts that he doesn't post anymore....which sets Narzog off with an "I feel like its not nearly as bad as people think" ....uhoh... placing Nanohedron at center...Loren warming himself at the coals then considers adding oil which sends Stiofan sentimental so drawing Nanohedron into a far deeper consideration... Stiofan recentering the ball to cosmic pitch...and it's bigsciota now taking the wing...


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LfduUFF_i1A

Bisciota

"On other forums as on this one, I have all too often seen advice that is at best ill-informed or misguided go unchallenged because people think that being nice is not saying anything negative. "


... that is what Sedi was doing though, he placed Loren's advice into doubt which Loren corrected.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rxUm-2x-2dM


David, where are you yer long haired hippie, I was looking forward to hearing a clip :-)
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by Nanohedron »

GreenWood wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:16 pm David, where are you yer long haired hippie, I was looking forward to hearing a clip :)
Yeah.
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Re: Comments needed on my playing

Post by GreenWood »

Nanohedron wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:27 pm
GreenWood wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:16 pm David, where are you yer long haired hippie, I was looking forward to hearing a clip :)
Yeah.
It is true though, I started reading the thread because I had hoped to hear how someone else was getting along with their playing. For most people they have to put themselves out quite a way to share their playing. I really dislike recording for example and so any recordings I do are aimed at the how a particular flute sounds, if my actual playing is good at that point then good, if not then tough :-D

I find it hard to imagine commentators being purposefully unkind to another's playing here, maybe I am being naive. What Loren says about people being over complimentary is sort of creepy , but I think anyone who posts their music has to be prepared for a mixed reaction also. Most of all, I think David was being friendly and looking to join in, and so that makes me feel sad if he doesn't post or feels shunned, or that his presentation has been outweighed somehow.

It is a hard balance to strike at a site, because the weight of more knowledgeable members both keeps it steady as well as being something of a barrier to lighter or simpler themes...after all, all David wanted to do was to post a clip for comment and we are half way through writing a book before he even manages to.

[Ed.In ... and not that I took your "Yeah" as sarcasm.or similar, I was just emphasising my view...just in case you read it like that ... I forget that in some places possibilities of interpretation are different ]
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