Performance

[Tim Twiss]

Playing this stuff is not always easy, is it? Especially solo. In groups, you have "safety in numbers", but a soloist is totally exposed. I almost never play stuff perfect, but keep going anyway. I had a professor in college that said a most important part of performance is the "art of recovery". So true. Think you'll never make a mistake again...HA!  How's your nerves in public, especially if you bite off a meaty piece of repertoire?? AGHH

[Trapdoor2]

This stuff is the easiest for me to play in public. My biggest stress riser is when I perceive my audience to be 'experts'. As long as I'm not playing in front of Messers Twiss, Anderton and Adams...I'm set! ;-)

 

Really, I used to) play this stuff down at our local coffeehouse and could romp and stomp it as if I were sitting in my living room. Of course, I didn't play the complex stuff there but the simple and rousing standards went over quite well. Adrenalin still often makes me start a given tune too fast…which can be embarrassing if one of the downstream parts is actually faster than the beginning.

 

If I attempt something complex, I gotta have it down to where I can play it in my sleep. Any hesitation on my part is magnified onstage...or at least appears so. Again, the best part is that nobody in the audience knows this repertoire. As long as I keep the rhythm going, they haven't got a clue that I made a mistake. Holding that thought in my head helps a lot.

 

As the complexity level goes up, my anxiety level rises…even if I know the piece well. Guitar style tunes are really hard for me to do onstage. Adrenalin makes my hands shake, often to the point where my fingers cannot hit the right string or fret. Stroke Style (and clawhammer) allows me to muscle thru. I have thought about trying beta-blockers…but I so rarely play onstage that it seems silly to try. Better to simply play the stuff I know I can do and leave it at that.

 

And yes, if I'm in "banjo history mode", it is entirely different. As Dan'l sez, they're demo tunes and sometimes I play only pieces of 'em or perhaps only run thru the tune once.

[Tim Twiss]

A lot of this stuff is easy to play, but creating a diverse program can be difficult. The easier ones tend to all sound the same to an audience rather quickly, thus a need to enhance the repertoire with other styles (waltz, polka, quick fiddle jigs, etc). A vocal performance or having a group with you changes everything, of course. Still, it is pressure to play difficult solos alone...it is very much like classical guitar playing.

[Dan Gibson]

I'm a newcomer to stroke style, but I have been using it in my storytelling programs -- mostly in a brief show-and-tell mode. Consequently, I don't have to fill up a full 30-45 minutes with early banjo (which is fortunate because I doubt I could at this point anyway).

For my needs I have settled on two-tune medleys for the stroke style "demo" after a brief "history lesson". My favorite combination is a rather slow tempo Rosa Lee flowing into a fast Old Joe, both in "D". Or, a slow Rosa Lee in "D" flowing into a faster Circus Jig in "G". Other pairs work, too, but these three tunes mix and match very well for me. They are not so cookie-cutter that they sound alike -- especially when the "G" tune and one "D" tune are paired.

There is no need for a huge performance repertoire -- although it's more fun -- because the audiences are seldom made up of the same people. (That's helpful, because if you manage to screw up in front of one group, you can get right with the next one -- akin to the art of recovery Tim Twiss's professor talked about.)

I've never done a living history event, but I would think you could live rather well in those settings playing 3-5 tunes over and over as the day progresses, because your audience is basically coming and going. By the end of the day -- or whatever the format is -- you'll know the music very well. You can concentrate hard on learning and performing a small number of tunes in the beginning and expand it at your leisure.

Hope that was helpful and not too long-winded.

[Dan Gibson]

I'm a newcomer to stroke style, but I have been using it in my storytelling programs -- mostly in a brief show-and-tell mode. Consequently, I don't have to fill up a full 30-45 minutes with early banjo (which is fortunate because I doubt I could at this point anyway).

For my needs I have settled on two-tune medleys for the stroke style "demo" after a brief "history lesson". My favorite combination is a rather slow tempo Rosa Lee flowing into a fast Old Joe, both in "D". Or, a slow Rosa Lee in "D" flowing into a faster Circus Jig in "G". Other pairs work, too, but these three tunes mix and match very well for me. They are not so cookie-cutter that they sound alike -- especially when the "G" tune and one "D" tune are paired.

There is no need for a huge or compliocated performance repertoire -- although it's more fun -- because the audiences are seldom made up of the same people. (That's helpful, because if you manage to screw up in front of one group, you can get right with the next one -- akin to the art of recovery Tim Twiss's professor talked about.)

I've never done a living history event, but I would think you could live rather well in those settings playing 3-5 tunes over and over as the day progresses, because your audience is basically coming and going. By the end of the day -- or whatever the format is -- you'll know the music very well. You can concentrate hard on learning and performing a small number of tunes in the beginning and expand it at your leisure.

Hope that was helpful and not too long-winded.

[Jim Dalton]

I don't have a nerves or stage-fright problem unless I'm underprepared. I usually don't allow THAT to happen. If, or I should say "when" I make mistakes, I cover them in the best way and go on.

 

Just a thought about the authenticity thing:

 

Tim is right about the "art of recovery" -- and I'm sure that is nothing new, either. Our predecessors made mistakes just as we do. I'm sure the best of them played on as if nothing happened or possibly included the "clam" into their stage bits so that people might think it was intentional.

 

So, we should all rest easier in the knowledge that mistakes are authentic too.

 

What would be inauthentic (at least in a historical sense) would be to stop mid-performance and say "WTF! that's not how it goes in the file I downloaded from the internet!"

[John Masciale]

Recording in front of a video camera is a good way to get over nerves, and to discover what you will do when you try to play perfectly, and can't.  It has helped me to get that first note more solidly, whereas in the past it could be a tentative thing.  The other danger that I have is that I let my mind wander rather than staying focused on my playing.

 

I agree with Tim, developing a good repertoire is a great thing.  Getting started I had a few songs I could play, but it was painful for anyone around me to hear the same thing all day long.  I do make more than my share of mistakes.  But, time and repetition help.