Fishing

[tacotortoise]

I don't like directly asking for help, but my indirect requests have met with little response so far. I really need feedback on my efforts at being a professional musician, both online and in the flesh:

If you have been to my website, what do you think of it? Is it easy to navigate? Is there some functionality or content that you feel the site

Comments

Okay...

[ratatosk]

There were actually things I meant to tell you but forgot. This is probably only part of it:

1. I got confused and frustrated at several points where I couldn't tell where you were. I think you should consider doing things to make movements within pieces more distinct. For any other composer I probably wouldn't emphasize this so much, but for you I think it's necessary. There were several times you presented some genuinely novel and interesting thing you are doing (I will now do ten variations according to [some scheme]), and I had no idea which was which.

There are things musicians do in this sort of situation, like pause in certain ways or gesture in certain ways. I think you, personally, should really play those up.

Introduce every piece except maybe the first, unless you are equally careful about providing enough information that even non-musicians will be able to tell when you start in on the second piece.

2. Relatedly, there is a relationship between education and advertising. You do a lot of concept pieces where non-omniscient audiences will appreciate them much more the more they understand both _what_ is going on
and _why_ it's exciting. I think you should learn to look more animated about why what you are about to play is cool -- if people think you find it exciting, they are more likely to pay close attention and find it exciting as well. You should already have this skill from teaching at CTY. If you can get 15-yr-olds excited about a thoerem, you can get your audiences excited about your music.

3. Stage presence. The main thing here is actually to bow or do some other sort of acknowledgment, _even if people aren't giving you a standing ovation_. Smile cheerfully and ham it up, or do some functionally similar thing. If you look uncomfortable or nervous, it will distract the audience as they try to figure out why. This also serves as punctuation between pieces.