[mplpost] Rant: Respect for musicians.

[Tony Burns]

I attended a Celtic Conference yesterday and one of my pet peeves (if
you see red does it still count as a peeve?) raised its ugly head.

Let me describe the setting. It was a large hall with rows of chairs
and a stage at one end. The schedule went from 9:30 to 5:00 with a
lunch break. The theme was the words and music of Cape Breton. There
were speakers who presented on story telling, fiddle music, and songs.
Alistair MacLeod read from his book. The last item on the schedule was
Sandy MacIntyre and his band. They played for about 45 minutes to close
the day.

I hadn't been to an event where there was such an academic approach
taken to music and story but that's a whole other topic.

The peeve. Everyone was attentive and polite through the entire day but
once Sandy and the band started playing there were people who felt the
need to talk amongst themselves!!! To me this shows complete disrespect
for the musicians and for the rest of the audience. I wonder what they
would have done if I had decided to have a loud conversation with my
wife while Alistair MacLeod was reading? The setting was exactly the
same as it had been all day. Sandy and the band were participants just
like all the others who took the stage.

I came, I ranted, I'll go and do some deep breathing now.

Tony Burns 
    Home page: http://www.globalserve.net/~ynot/ 


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