Re: Tuba Bashing - A reminder...


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Rick Denney on January 17, 2002 at 12:27:07:

In Reply to: Tuba Bashing - A reminder... posted by Patrick Sheridan on January 16, 2002 at 19:33:57:

Isn't it really easy to shrug off a bad review when you are successful and confident? I'll never forget your comment at the Army conference last year, when you said that a mistake was easy to take in stride when you perform a work 100 times in a year. You just do better next time. (But I didn't hear any mistakes.)

When I was managing the traffic signals in San Antonio, I was a regular though infrequent subject of the local columnists and cartoonists. One of the cartoons was particularly insulting to the work that we did in the section I managed. I had the option of writing a letter to the editor complaining about the false impression made by the cartoon. But it would not have done any good--people form their own conclusions, and everyone has opinions about traffic signals.

Instead, I requested permission to reproduce the cartoon in the professional society newsletter that I edited at the time. The newspaper, though surprised, granted the permission and we all had a big laugh over it. I can't see that it did anything at all to damage my professional reputation, and I doubt that it affected anyone's view of San Antonio's traffic signals.

Once, a columnist printed my salary in the newspaper. I think he was trying to show how much money was being wasted by the city in hiring me, but I think it created more sympathy for me that anything else, and I got a raise the next year, heh, heh.

As you prove during every performance, your work stands on its own, immune to the attack of critics who seem to justify their own importance by downgrading the performances of those whose work departs from their own aesthetic rules. This is a common trait of art critics, and lots of great artists have endured such stupidity. But the best experts on artistic criticism suggest that art should be judged by whether it evokes a proper reception of art on the part of the audience. An example of this criticism (and a description of this approach) can be found in C.S. Lewis's "An Experiment in Criticism" (this is not one of Lewis's religious writings, but rather it is an academic work squarely within his professional expertise). He discusses literature and not music, but everything he says applies equally to music and other arts.

By the standard of the effect that you have on audiences, I think your confidence is justified, heh, heh.

Rick "looking forward to hearing more of that art at USABTEC next week" Denney


Follow Ups: