I want to thank Nigel for stepping in to institute some grown-up behavior with a banning policy. I am saddened that he has to spend his time to police the forum to ensure its success.

I started to read a post on SZ and saw comments like “you should be embarrassed to post that”, “my beginning students play better”, and I understand why “You” believe it sounds better.

I have played professionally for over twenty-five years and have many years of formal music education starting in grade school and continuing through college as a jazz and classical piano major at Temple University in Philadelphia. Twenty years after college I still study with a private teacher today for classical piano and I am considering reconnecting with a jazz pianist I worked with many years ago. I take music very seriously. There will always be better players than me that I can learn from. With all honesty, I have heard the musical posting of some of the more vitriolic commentators on SZ and I can play circles around them. However, I would only make comments to help them improve.

I say all of this not to brag, but as frame of reference of my background and experience as a musician. In all of my dealings with the many musicians that played better than me that I have been fortunate to learn from I always found them to be humble, constructive, and respectful of my efforts to contribute and improve as a musician. The reason I joined SZ was because I decided to buy an arranger keyboard to be able to explore different genres and sounds and wanted to seek out people with more experience than me in using the instrument. I ask questions to learn, and offer answers and suggestions where I can. Have fun, but be respectful.

So, to build on Nigel’s unfortunately necessary banning policy let me add my lesson on:

How to comment on someone’s music

1. Start positive and be specific
If you are going to comment, first comment on some of the positive aspects that you heard and be specific. “That was nice” or “I really liked that” were guaranteed ways to get yelled at by a professor in college. “I liked the groove”, “I thought your choice of instruments were good”, “I like how you changed backgrounds during the piece” are examples of being specific. Specificity of positive comments set the foundation for specific comments of thing to improve. Unspecific negative comments “it creeped me out”, “it was wrong me” shows the commentator lacks the knowledge of what to actually do to improve the performance. If you can't be constructive and specific don't bother.

2. Be respectful of the effort and know when you are correcting vs. opining
It takes ego to be a successful musician. You need confidence to play and you leave yourself available to potential praise and vulnerable to criticism by sharing your music. Be clear about stating fact versus opinion. There are times that things can be wrong; but unless you are critiquing a classical performance, more often then not you may just disagree or not like it. That is an opinion. Musicians don’t like to hear there is something wrong about their performance. However, they should appreciate and respect comments of what you believe you heard and your opinion on how to improve.

3. Be respectful of the person
Finally, I would like to add a comment to those you like to think they “say it like it is and the truth can hurt” on the internet. Only comment online the same way you would to someone in person. If your “say it like it is” style is disrespectful, I look forward to Nigel implementing his ban policy and hope that you can learn from the experience.

It’s just music, enjoy it, and share it.

Excellent sensible post RobertG.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts

Very well said Robert.

Thank you for taking the time to compose this thread.

I agree that we have to learn to interact differently on the internet than in person, because we cannot see the person's body language, facial expression and hear the tone of voice.

As you said it we are all on different levels of playing skills.
However I also think that we are all on the same level of enjoyment when it comes to arrangers.
That's why we are here in the first place and that's why I joined.

Aren't arrangers AWSOME?

Wow look at the last 10 years alone.
I love playing arrangers and I love sharing skills and songs with fellow players.
As you said it: there is always someone better and hopefully we can learn from him/her.
That's what this forum is all about.

To give constructive criticism is much harder then bashing someone.
It takes an act of maturity, interpersonal skills and time to compose a diplomatic mature yet honest response.

It has been done in the past and I'm sure we can do it again.

This thread is a great way to get back on our feet, start to act like grown ups again and to treat each other with respect.

I'm in.

Eric


P.S. I'm in contact with several Synzone members and we are sharing skills tips techniques and songs privately.
Many of us don't post these things because of what's going on here lately.
All I can say is: what a loss to the community.
If people would feel saver to post we could ALL learn SO MUCH MORE. Wouldn't that be great?
Isn't that what most of us want?
Unless you know it all which I highly doubt.
Think of all the things you guys are missing because people don't post them here.
Sad but true.

Robert:

First of all, I agree with your sound guidelines for critiquing fellow sz member posted music.

Considering the fact that you quoted me as saying:

'I understand why “You” believe it sounds better'

I need to point out that you 'left out' a number of important words when quoting me, and may have missed the purpose why Fran posted his song. Fran's song posting was specifically in answer' to other sz member challenges on another thread , to substantiate his repeated claims that his G1000's auto accomp styles & sounds to be far better than Tyros2's. Given this context, I felt my reply appropriate.

Ok, here's what I actually said:



Robert, I suppose I might have found a better choice of words. I will try to follow your guidelines more closely in the future, and trust others here do the same as well. Thank you.

Scott

Golden rule, my friends. Golden rule.

Amen, Uncle. I'm so glad you're back in harness.
DonM

Dave: Which GR are you referring to?

"He who has..."
or
"Do unto others before they.."

Either works for me. I just hope the discourse on SZ can become more productive without the need of forced civility from Nigel.

Agree. Forced civility usually lasts about as long as a mid-east cease-fire agreement.

Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.


Ian

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Remember to leave good news alone.

THE BRIDGES TO CIVILITY: EMPATHY, ETHICS, AND SERVICE, by Sheldon Berman