My musical performance

First of all, i’m happy that I have my own recognizable style and sound. I worked on that for decades. Academic studies strip everyone of their individuality and put them into escolas. I have a big problem with all the guitar scene. First of all, it’s either uncomfortable transcriptions or classical/romantic/latin pieces. I don’t like that repertiore. I don’t understand why do they focus all they life exclusively on technique and do not deal with musicality. Basicly, the guitar is a quiet instrument, compared to violin or any decent instrument. So they try to fight this and get maximum volume. They use strongly built loud guitars, and put on them extra hard tension strings. The result is an unpleasant metallic sound, and the style of playing says: I defeated, overcame and conquered this instrument. Always with too much controll and pride. No smaller mistakes or noises are allowed. This is so far from the lute’s warm sound, which is naturally resonates with all the strings together, thus creating a nice aura. Another issue is rhythm. I think, if you are playing a solo on any instrument, the flow is up to you. For me, Rubato is a very basic thing, just as dynamics.

Let’s look another field: the recorder scene. The “authentic” guys play only 415 Hz, and vibrato has been swapped to a strange finger “vibrato”, but it sounds rather false and eerie. Most of the players are women, who play this music in a very boring and sleepy way. Michala Petri is a good example that success has nothing to do with talent or musicality, because she has zero of the latter. Playing the notes like a goddamn machine does not impress me.

And finally a few words about Hindustani scene. Not all Pandits are what they should have been. Pandit means: enlightened person, man of knowledge, intelligent, deep and master of his art. Pity, but there are many who do not touch hearts with their music, but taking advantage of their position and enjoying being treated like a king (bowing, kissing of hands/legs, etc). As in every field, in Hindustani classical you also have the guys who rule the musical “maffia” and determine who appears on media and whom they let in the limelight.