"The Concept of DanRant"
If you know me, you know that I can't resist editorializing on, well ... things. You know, things like, well ... everything. I've often editorialized that to do a good guitar workshop you have to be able not only to play, but also to hold a lot of opinions about things. So that means I qualify as a workshop presenter in at least one of the two characteristics; whether it's two is for somebody else to say.
Starting a web site is quite a big deal, because it's not something you do once and it's done. Instead it's something you begin, a tiger you ride, so to speak, sorta' forever. One of the challenges is to figure out things that will make people want to return to your site on a regular basis. Another time in my life I was writing a monthly column for Frets Magazine and I (we) had the same challenge: How to keep 'em coming back for more. One surprise about the Frets experience was that my column (which I was happy to discover was, on a regular basis, the #1 or sometimes the #2 most-read column in the magazine) was read not only by flatpickers, but also banjo, dulcimer, Mandolin, and fiddle players, as well as others, and they came back not just for guitar tabs, but mainly to find out what outrageous, opinionated, infuriating stuff I was going to say this month.
So, having pissed off so many folks, I thought I'd continue the tradition here! Actually, it was never my intention to make anybody mad, and I won't intend that here, either. Instead, the purpose of the occasional DanRant at this site will be to question, provoke, challenge, annoy, and if possible entertain and amuse. In other words, my friends, any important enterprise, including our music world, has a lot of important stuff going on and also a lot of trivial, unimportant, misleading, bone-headed, nitwitted, bad-for-the-music, ignorant, illogical, clunk-brained stuff as well. The trick is to try to sort out the former from the latter; somebody needs to praise and promote the important stuff, and laugh the rest out of the room.
Actually, there are two tricks: The first, as I've said, is to sort the wise from the wacky, and the second is to do it in a way that is nice. By that I mean, it ought to be possible to sniff out and laugh at the BS, and at the same time do it in a way that we all wind up on the same side, without insulting or personalizing it. Joel Mabus said one time the difference between folkies and bluegrassers is like the difference between cats and dogs: When folkies (PG version) get together, like cats they like to scrap and fight, and when bluegrassers get together, like dogs they like to sniff each other up and then pal around together.
As a folkie and bluegrasser myself (and somebody who knows that dogs are the most advanced species on earth), I promise my DanRants won't become the Jerry Springer show of acoustic music. Instead, after being a little wicked and ironic at the stuff that deserves it, then, my friends, we'll continue, like dogs, to pal around together.
Dan Crary
31 Mar 2001 |
