No. This is still typical of your condescending nature. Your post is again riddled with put-downs... I don't even think you are capable of discussing a topic without resorting to this. Let's see how the shoe fits the other way around:

I am as much a solo entertainer as anyone on this forum, and I choose to use music... choose being a very important word. It's not a crutch or a limitation or a lack of priorities. My "priority", as you put it, isn't to memorize "Proud Mary" much less to play in places where it would be needed. My priority is to play great and often complex music the BEST and most accurate way. If I did play the same stuff that many common bar acts do then I certainly wouldn't need to read music either. When I sit-in with common bar bands it's totally without music and usually without rehearsal, because we're going to play the SOS that bar bands have played for decades and we know it. But when I play solo I am not playing easy bar music and I'm making a conscience decision to use the best tool available - written music.

Any professional speaker would know how to use their notes or prepared text and still make eye contact with the audience. It's a sign of their professionalism. Reading music is no different but it may require skills that less capable musicians might not have.

I wish I could go without seeing the lyrics. I can do, I'm guessing, a thousand songs without looking at charts or lyrics, but there are many more with which I use the laptop to see lyrics/chord changes. It has to do with the situation. I play in a lot of places where there are many off-the-wall requests. Tips are good in these places, and I often make more in tips than what the job pays. For example just last night I had a request to do a song I haven't done in many year. Had to use the lt to remember the words.
In other places, such as my up-coming casino job, I will do mostly pre-planned sets, no requests, no charts. I'm looking forward to it.
You guys can bash personalities as much as you want. I'm not going to do it any more. I'll just ignore the flames and assume everybody means well.
Famous last words.
Alfred E. Newman is still my hero.
DonM



[This message has been edited by DonM (edited 01-07-2005).]

Hmmmmm, "common bar bands?"
and that's NOT a put down?

There is nothing common about sharing a love of music with others ..... for profit or not, but it is so nice of you to mingle with us commonfolk once in a while.

C'mon ..... this is getting too weird. This thread was not about this.

"Common bar bands" was a put-down, which is what I meant by turning the shoes around. Much of my last post contained less than subtle put-downs, just like all of yours in this thread. Now that you recognize them, perhaps you'd like to avoid using them yourself. Maybe that's not what this thread was about, but it's time that it was said.

Maybe I see more than just the "merits" of this unit. I see some real drawbacks that I thought deserved attention. Apparantly, you and I disagree. Wow.

U.D. If you can't pick on your friends then you shouldn't pick on anyone. I've thought the same thing about our trumpet player, maybe he's not interested enough to learn the lyrics.

It's too bad that some of us here on the forum have to demean ourselves by playing Proud Mary for those awful people in those awful places where they PAY US to hear it.

Tom

Yeah ..... These people are so needy! Play this, play that .... why don't they want to hear MY stuff ?!? ?!?

What a crazy way to make a living, huh?

If you can discuss the Music Pad Pro without making derogatory remarks about musicians who prefer to use music on stage, your views will be welcome I'm sure, even by me... fair?

In fact, Scott and I had a discussion earlier today about PDF resolutions... the Music Pad Pro (MPP for short) doesn't seem to be doing too well importing those downloadable fakebooks. Scott is working with Freehand support for a solution but I suspect that highly compressed PDF files might present a display problem for the MPP. We'll wait and see what Freehand says but I'm betting the news won't be good.

Also we discussed how you go about selecting files... say if I'm looking at "Ain't MisBehavin'" and get a request for "Somewhere My Love", how do we get there quickly? Apparently you do this Windows-fashion, by selecting the PDF from from the appropriate folder (using a supplied stylus I think). Not the fastest or handiest method but that's probably the only way to do it. Maybe it's faster in actual use. The MPP really wants you to setup "playlists" or songlists in advance for instantly moving from one selection to another. So requests or randomly choosing songs may take longer than we'd like, or it may just take getting used to.

The MPP seems a less than perfect solution at the moment, but I'm still hopeful.

I honestly did not aim any slander towards anyone. I stated my preferences, but your point is well stated, and taken in kind.
I don't want to argue.

Uncle Dave, I really think you're just a HYPOCRITE blasting me & others because we may occasionally use chord charts or lyric sheets when performing, and now exploring the possiblity of the MusicPad Pro for not only this purpose, but for studio reheasal work too. I find having charts handy, not only convenient, but a neccesity to fulfill audience requests for songs which I may be familiar with, but just don't know the changes or all the lyrics to.

Yes Uncle Dave: we've discussed this MANY times before, and you 'ALREADY KNOW' that I concur (with you) that a successful stage show requires 'no music' on stage by the lead performer, but for those daily grind bread & butter bar-restaurant, nursing home gigs (where BOTH you and I work) of where the atsmosphere is a lot more relaxed & casual, relying on a fakebook or chord chart & lyrics now and then, or even MORE than less: is "NO BIG deal", and even lends to the folkiness of the affair.

Frankly Uncle Dave, I have to agree with Jim Eshleman (Pro), because I realize the ONLY REASON you decided to BRAG (yet again) about how you don't rely on music chart props (of which you now confess that you do ), is because you just wanted to RAIN on my parade about the MusicPad Pro.

I'd don't normally bother to respond to your often frequent tactics to comment on topic threads which really don't bear your interest other than an excuse for you to to distract the member's interest BACK on "YOU" again, but like the Pro, I think this time, this particular one warranted me voicing my feelings.

Scott