More thinking … more wondering about that email … part of me is less upset. Part of me is frustrated. But most of me wants input from my gentle readers! (In other words, if you are gonna be chopping my head off you might skip writing. I’m not up for it!)
So here’s the full letter … am I just totally over reacting? (Typical of me, you know?)
Greetings,
It seems a very big oversight not to include listings of double reeds players in the most prominent US military bands in the nation. After all, we won very competitive auditions and are as professional group as any and make a much better salary than most of the regional orchestras you have listed. Considering we also tour nationally and internationally, more people around the nation and the world see us perform year in and year out then core audiences of these regional orchestras you have listed. In my humble opinion, it would serve you well to list the premier bands of the Washington, DC area and their rosters. That would include my band “The President’s Own” US Marine Band, “Pershing Own” US Army Band, the USAF Band and the US Navy Band. These are the premier military bands in the nation and neglecting that we are professional organizations as the rest on your list is insulting and a major oversight. Incidentally, our band does have a Chamber Orchestra and most other DC bands have a string contingency so it’s not all band, all the time.
It would be appreciated if you made an update to your site. Here is some information you might need, at least in reference to “The President’s Own”:
http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/
http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/who_we_are/members/index.htm#
Thanks for your attention to this this. Best of luck with the website.
Sincerely,
(Name omitted for the time being; I’m still thinking on that one!)
And yes, as you can see the writer didn’t point directly at me, when saying that he probably has a higher salary. But since all of this was addressed at me, and I’m in one of those “regional orchestras” I did, as is typical of me, take it personally.
Again, let me say that omitting band musicians wasn’t some intentional thing … I hadn’t even though of bands. I don’t listen to band music. I don’t perform in bands, and haven’t since my junior year of college. I’m not involved in bands. Bands just aren’t a part of who I am. And let’s face it, this is my blog so most everything here has some connection to me. Sorry, but that’s how sites put together by an individual are often set up. Egotistical? Probably. A waste of time? Maybe (but it seems I do get readers who imply that they enjoy my silly rambling).
I’m probably spending far too much time mulling all of this over. Emails can sure be harmful to one’s health!
But … really … when one receives a message like that, does the sender really think I’ll immediately want to do his bidding?
Kind words go so far. Harsh ones honestly do not.
Over-reacting? Probably.
Funny thing about email and board postings. They create a false sense of intimacy — of knowing someone, when in fact, we are total strangers.
I have a strong guess as to whom your correspondent might be, and I doubt that he meant to take you to task. Maybe just feeling down on himself at that particular moment. Which is another chronic hazard of internet posting — our fleeting, momentary thoughts and moods get immortalized in print, and stay there to haunt us and taunt us long after the moment has passed.
You could look at it another way — that a note of this sort is an indication that you have “arrived” — that what you are doing here has become important enough that the unintentional oversight is perceived as a purposeful slight — that you have become the goddess of a cyberoboe world, with the power to create and destroy on a whim.
We — all of us — can only do what we can do. We can’t be all things to all people, even if we wish that were so. My personal tendency is sometimes to look so hard at what I cannot do, that I end up not doing what I can. Kudos to you for doing it.
Susan
On recording streaming audio:
Since streaming audio acts like a live broadcast it has to be recorded like you would with a VCR… leaving the computer running to record the program.
To record there’s a little program called RipCast that will let you download
streaming audio to your computer for later listening. It isn’t exactly
free, but it allows for you to record 45 minutes of audio at a time
without having to pay for it. You can even set a specific time to start recording. You can check on the computer every half hour to stop and start another recording (during commercials) if there is something you really wanted to catch. You just have to click cancel everytime it asks you to register when you close it.
And then there’s a free audio program like Audacity that will let you easily cut out commercials, trim, and splice together recordings so that they are worthy of saving.
Regards,
Stephen