Thanks Chas,
Yours was one of the few posts here that made people "think". By saying "think" I mean putting constructive thoughts on the table, not just answering a question. Such posts are rare I believe, and that makes them valuable.

I basically agree in most respects with all of the posters in this thread: I see everyone has touched a little aspect of the subject. However what I haven't seen (at least until now), and I would really really really really like to see, is some kind of suggestion on how to establish a universally acceptable method of "judging/critisizing/evaluating" a song, and of course I don't know if any members, experienced or not, (not in number of posts, but in mucisianship) will bother themselves doing that. I feel some of them would like to offer their "knowledge" to others here.

Linda suggested the anonymous "SIMON" account, and this Idea I like very much. Anonymity has some drawbacks, but we may have answer posts like simon1 for the first post, simon2 for the 2nd and so on so we can quarrel among ourselves: "Simon5, I think that the strings are not as bad as you describe, maybe a little reverb would help them", or "I absolutely agree with Simon 10".

This needs courage from the side of the performer, to present a song to a mob of mask-wearing critics, but in the end, and if we cease being "politically correct" for a little while, the performer will get his/her answer/verdict/praise/tomatos and will decide if he/she needs to pay attention to something.

But we have to keep in mind, there is also a thing that we cannot judge here, no matter what.... we can only HEAR the performer here, but not actually SEE him/her playing, the body/face language used, tha aura they project to the audience. All those things can complement a "plain good" performance, and present it in a way that gets the audience hooked, and of course, comes back as customer loyalty/profit/more jobs (gigs if you like). Or the opposite may happen, but nobody here will see it. Nobody will get up from the PC and dance (I think I saw it in a recent post, though) and will not see smiles or frustration on customer's faces. So we cannot judge the "entertainer" side of the performer, only the singing and arrangement. And in that way, our critique will always lack a little.

Anyone here want to be Simon? Yay or Nay?
I would surely participate happily, and of course can accept comments for this post.
Theodore

[This message has been edited by trident (edited 11-23-2005).]