Welcome

So this week Polyphonic.org kicks off a daily blog feature, and I begin my maiden voyage into organized cyber writing.  I’ll be joined by two Polyphonic Senior Editors—Ann Drinan and Robert Levine, but from time to time we will also have guest bloggers.  We’ll try to have something new up each day, and since Polyphonic is a site for orchestral musicians, our focus will be on topics of interest and relevance to them (you).  Robert and Ann have years of experience as musician’s rights activists (my term for it), and since my background has encompassed the freelance, orchestral and teaching worlds, I’ll be looking at entrepreneurial subjects with a focus toward the music student who is on a path toward a professional performing career. I thought a good way for me to begin would be to remind us all that anything we read or hear anyplace, especially on the Internet should not automatically be taken as the gospel.  It’s our individual duty to give this stuff the sniff test.  Here’s something I discovered just this past week that did not pass my sniff test.  This won’t take much of your time.  Go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFGpeIZlQ6k

There you will find a young musician giving a lesson on how to play triplets.  Since 99.9% of you reading this are musicians or have musical background, you will immediately discover that this person has no idea what he is talking about.  He’s either a fraud or completely naïve.  But I suppose some unsuspecting person or absolute beginner might think the information he is giving is correct.  For musicians it’s easy for us to recognize musical incompetence, but what about that ten-year old beginner?  (And all of us, no matter our age, are ten-year old beginners on some subjects.)  The lesson for me is: don’t believe everything you read, even here in this blog.  Ask questions, consider the source and make it pass your sniff test. –Ramon Ricker