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Eric Carmen

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At the risk of sounding like an unabashed suck-up, Eric's last post in this thread is one of the best descriptions I've ever read of the demands and rewards of striving toward excellence. One of the great fallacies of life is in the phrase "Practice makes perfect." Rather, it should be "Practice of perfection builds perfection."

Thanks again for reminding me why I check in here regularly.

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Eric Carmen said:

Listen to the record of "I'm A Rocker" and then listen to the "Live performance" when it's released, and you'll see what I mean. Oh, I suppose we could just play what's was on the record, but I think it rocks BETTER than the record now.

I really admired all of what Eric wrote there

but these two sentences are killing me. I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR THIS!!!

You know this may seem counter to what Eric was saying about striving for perfection, but one of my favorite moments of the shows I saw was in Cleveland when Eric was having technical problems with his guitar duirng "I'm A Rocker" and shed the guitar and turned into a lead singer handling the mike stand like one of the greats. It was a moment that could have been a disaster but he spontaneously turned into something great (and probably didn't even realize it).

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George Szell was amazing - he truly developed the Cleveland Orchestra sound (and I believe Ormandy did the same with the Philadelphia Orchestra, to a lesser extent).

I agree with Eric's assessment of the role of a conductor, although I think Horowitz might disagree!!! (Horowitz famously did not go along with Toscanini's vision of Tchaikovsky one night...).

Anne

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Bravo, Eric, Bravo!

As someone who worshipped (and still do today) the "living" sound of The Cleveland Orchestra, especially the sound of strings so vibrant you wanted to jump into the record and play in the section with them, I know exactly what you're talking about. After seeing from such a young age that kind of perfection as a standard to strive for, how could anyone go back to wanting to produce something else?

I met George Szell when he brought the orchestra to New York and asked him for an autograph, after telling him how monumentally great his performance was. He scribbed on my autograph book and screamed, "There it is, now get the hell out of here!" Although I was terrified of him, I realized I had met someone so driven and artistically perfect that he had no time for petty autographs.

During a conflict Szell once had with opera conductor, Rudolf Bing, a mutual friend tried to smooth down Bing's complaints about Szell by saying, "Well, you know George is his own worst enemy." Bing replied, "Not while *I'm* alive!"

Like my first violin teacher, Szell was even harder on himself than he was on others, but what masters both men have been--absolute monuments to music. I agree that such vision is necessary for any performer to rise to that place of creation that is magical. What happens in that place is spontaneous and necessarily different every time and only improves through that evolution. Another master, composer Arnold Schoenberg, shares your view.

:) --Darlene

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There is no doubt that someone has to be in charge. Regardless I think if it's a musical group or any form of creative venture. Movies have directors, writers have editors; bands need to have one person who has the final say. If Raspberries is to self-produce, they still have to be able to choose one person to be the tie breaking decision maker.

I read it somewhere, and it still rings true:

ANYTHING WITH TWO HEADS IS A FREAK...

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WOW...as always, I read posts from EC.com and then drop on over to Raspberries.net to check the buzz over there...to my surprise, they have edited and deleted most of the stuff that went on in the thread that started all the trouble.

I agree that we need to move on and let the chips fall where they may but if you're not going to delete the whole damn thing you have leave what was posted in place!

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I need to clarify a couple of my posts. I meant to say "Schoenberg *shared* your view," not *shares," as he passed away in the early 1950s. I believe I also quoted him from a work put out in 1975, after his death (Style and Idea), and didn't mean to leave the impression that he was still around in 1975.

George Szell, sadly, passed away when I was about 23, or approximately 7 years after I met him back in 1963.

Sorry for the mistakes. I'll try not to type ahead of my mind.

:) --Darlene

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Eric Carmen said:

There may be licensing issues with Bernie's montage because there were bits and pieces from various television broadcasts. They may not grant us the right to use them. We'll have to look into it. ec

This is a point in the history of pop and rock & roll where I wish such things would become "public domain" or at least be of free use to the artist...

you know, unless you were Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or The Beatles (something of insane monumental impact) it should be given a certain amount of grace/leniency out of respect to the band's legacy... especially since this is ONLY a part of a montage (i.e. It's NOT as if you are selling the fans the complete Don Kirschner episodes)

god knows, at this point you're definitely not "in it for the money."

I know that still sounds funny :)

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