Bad medley?

[Andrew Adams]

Changing the subject the Ted started earlier.

Rather than discussing ACTUAL medleys that (people think) are bad.....Lets talk about what peoples opinions are on what bands should stay away from, when doing a medley. Whether it be a Grade 1 band or Grade 5.

Andrew Adams

[Linkovich]

Originally posted by Andrew Adams:
Rather than discussing ACTUAL medleys that (people think) are bad.....Lets talk about what peoples opinions are on what bands should stay away from, when doing a medley. Whether it be a Grade 1 band or Grade 5.

Andrew AdamsToo much harmonies :bleh:

[Vermont Piper]

"stripped" tunes - ones without hardly any embellishments. :eek:

[kiltedpiper]

I agree that harmonies can be overdone, but the right harmony, played well, can impress the heck out of the judges and be VERY pleasing to the ear.
:thumb:

[Chris Hossack]

Speaking as a judge, probably the single biggest sin many, many bands commit is playing music beyond their capabilities. :( If a band sets out to play a tune, as a judge, I expect to hear that done right. It's one thing to challenge your players, but you don't get any points for "Nice Try". :shrug: I don't care if the set is simple, as long as it's played clean and musically, with good sounding instruments. As I PM, I try to look at every tune from the standpoint of risk vs. gain.

Chris Hossack
Mesa Caledonian PB

Check out our website at www.mcpb.org (http://www.mcpb.org) :hatoff:

[Linkovich]

Originally posted by kiltedpiper:
I agree that harmonies can be overdone, but the right harmony, played well, can impress the heck out of the judges and be VERY pleasing to the ear.
:thumb: Even too much pleasing harmony will be marked on a scoresheet. It sort of says to the judge, "we can't really play too cleanly, so we are going to distract you by adding harmony."

Seen it time and again.

[Ted McKnight]

Regarding drumming, anything too repetitive can be disasterous!

[Andrew Douglas]

The only thing to my mind that hurts a medley is when you deviate from playing "music." Think about it -- too much harmony detracts from the musical appreciation of the piece, repetitive drumming makes it musically boring, playing tunes over your head makes it a musical mess. When you're putting together a medley for your band, arrange a "musical" medley. That's what wins contests. It's strange that one should produce "music" on a "musical instrument...."
My two pennies worth.
AD

[ceolnua]

these responses have been a bit lackluster for me and add no real critical response. Well, opinion first, i think what makes a medley "bad", if that could really mean anything, is that a musical event falls on its face in doing what has been done before. at any level, bands can put together ideas that are unique, yet we go for the formula, dry and predictable. How can "too much harmony" be a factor? I recall a story about mozart being criticized for his "too many notes", and now, legendary music continues to exist, long after it came from under his pen. why can't we continue to push the idiom? on one level, the material has to be playable by the groups, so most groups won't go that far out, but one could work with the harmonies in a functional way, as to channel and color the direction of the melody, and to construct meaningful breaks and juxtapositions of tunes with effective key changes. I thought the selection in the melody was to be left to the groups that play them, let's not be quick to criticize in a quantitative way what is essentially qualitative. let the judges hunt for playing problems, but have more faith in creativity. the mistake is to not be creative, with a little bit of thorough thought on the overall structure of a medley, we can grow and have more enjoyable, or at least more "personal" and "unique" music experiences. if you want technique and only one line of music (main tune minus harmony), we cannot spring the medley event into some thing totally different. we have solos and MSRs for that...

[Mike]

haha cant beat that response, well said matt! :smokin: