7 ms·

There's a time and a place for critique, and immediately after a performance is neither. Only a jerk with truly low self-esteem would think that it was appropri

There's a time and a place for critique, and immediately after a performance is neither. Only a jerk with truly low self-esteem would think that it was appropriate to offer unsolicited criticicism of the performance skills of a teenager in a rock band to their face at the performance. If it's their music instructor, maybe. But again, that's not really the place. Next lesson would be the right time and place to get that feedback.

kodt 10y ago
And if this is just a garage band with no formal lessons?
charlesdm 10y ago
Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touting positive things. I agree with your statement in principle, but at the same time, people need to be willing to give some meaningful comments. If I'm trying to break through in a rock band, I want criticism so I can figure out how to improve. Being told "Good performance brah", if you know you sucked, sucks.
- maroonblazer 10y ago
  I'm an American and my 10 yr old son is in an organized band that includes a weekly private lesson and a public performance. I agree with skywhopper that there's a time and place for criticism and right after the show, especially at that age, is not it. Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the show, he was so nervous about playing in front of a crowd. So, a healthy part of the applause is recognition that they simply performed publicly. It's likely that greeting them with criticism of their playing as they walk off the stage won't do much to encourage them to try it again.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    Right: 10yo - agree. But once you're past a certain age, e.g. 14-15, probably not? Then again, I don't think people should be rewarded either for showing up or putting in an effort. But for younger kids (e.g. < 14yo) it's definitely not an issue + good that you want to get them to experience new things. Maybe I have different view on things, but if I look back at how much focus was put on putting in effort (and not actually achieving anything) during my high school years, then I think we have things wrong to some extent. It's even worse today than it was before -- I have a friend who works in a school and he says it's great that grading is being phased out.. not sure whether I agree on that.
    - squeaky-clean 10y ago
      If your friend was learning to code, and wrote a tetris clone, would you congratulate them on their first major project, or would you critique their sloppy code? They had to develop and live with that codebase, maybe for several days or more. They're probably aware of some things that suck about it, but had to stick with it (otherwise you never finish). Having someone criticize your code, variable names, lack of patterns without asking would be really demoralizing. There's a difference between a well written function, and an entire application that's well organized and thought out. And there's a difference between playing in your garage and playing on stage. Did the band suck because they couldn't play? Or did they suck because they were nervous? Well the only way to get over that is to play in front of people more. I also think there should be a difference in expectations depending on where/what you're seeing. You have every right to criticize a group playing Madison Square Garden. But there's a reason the 14 year olds are playing O'Mallys Pub on a Tuesday, or the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour, and not the main stages or an arena. What's particularly awesome and worth congratulating is watching a band of teenagers suck on stage, and then watching them a month later suck a little less. We should be striving for "better" rather than "great", in my opinion.
      - sheepmullet 10y ago
        In reality it depends so much on the context. People are primed for learning right after finishing a task. Is my friend just giving coding a go or are they trying to get a dev job? Is my friend trying to show me what they have built or asking for help improving the quality of their code? Etc etc. Likewise is this a 14 year old athlete trying to compete at the state level? Or a 14 year old trying out football because his friends play?
- mgalka 10y ago
  What country are you from? In my experience Americas fall somewhere in the middle in terms of directness, compared to European countries. I lived in the UK for a few years and found Brits very hard to read / resistant to confrontation. On the other hand, I'm married to a Spaniard, and when I'm over there, it's sometimes a bit uncomfortable how direct and open people are.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    Belgium. It's not necessarily the directness that I mind, it's the fact that often people are (excuse my language) full of shit. They say A, but actually mean B. Which is a trait, for example, the British have as well, but one I seem to understand a lot better than when I'm dealing with Americans.
    - oldmanjay 10y ago
      I've never met a European who wasn't as full of shit as anyone else. I suppose Belgians may be magical in that regard but I suspect not.
      - charlesdm 10y ago
        Belgians are definitely also full of shit, but in our own special way. :-) I guess it’s more of a cultural thing, where you expect something and reality is something else.
      - hindsightbias 10y ago
        The Belgians I've known simply want a straight answer. Americans will make up a hundred reasons to not do something when they don't have a technical leg to stand on. I was starting to hate this Belgian guy because he wanted something done and I didn't want to spend the time required to do it. Finally, after coming up with all sorts of excuses, I just told him the truth and thought he'd storm out. He just said "Fine! Now we can go have a beer"
    - DavidAdams 10y ago
      Americans have a reputation for saying things like "let's do lunch sometime" as a sort of vague statement of agreeableness and intention to stay in contact, whereas, let's say, Swedish people would consider that to be a straightforward intention to book a lunch date.
- reflexive 10y ago
  Maybe this is part of why a lot more popular bands come from the US than from Europe? Not to be glib, but when I lived in Europe I was shocked at how many unknown American bands they would fly out to play at tiny venues (bars, "underground" clubs) every weekend. I asked, don't you have your own unknown bands that rehearse in garages and dorm rooms? It turns out: not so much, not nearly to the level that this exists in America. So maybe the difference is that Europeans like to shit all over their friends' bands?
  - Phr0ztByte 10y ago
    Band popularity has a lot to do with marketing. If you are looking at the size of European countries they have just as many influential artists as the US. UK and Sweden in particular.
    - reflexive 10y ago
      Can you recommend any Swedish acts? I thought of Junior Senior and Röyksopp but it turns out they're Danish and Norwegian.
      - Anthony-G 10y ago
        There’s a Wikipedia page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Sweden Artists I particularly like are Robyn (pop), The Knife (electronic/“IDM”), Fever Ray (one half of The Knife), The Cardigans (pop), Lykke Li (indie pop), iamamiwhoami (experimental electronic) Opeth (death metal), Kleerup (electronic dance), Neneh Cherry (pop/hip-hop), José González (indie pop). Note: genres aren’t particularly useful but I thought some indication of what the artist is like is better than none. If you like Röyksopp, I’d recommend checking out Kleerup, The Knife, iamamiwhoami, Lykke Li and Fever Ray. Also, you may not know the name but you’ll be very familiar with the songs written and/or produced by Max Martin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin
- wott 10y ago
  Americans get excited about the most commonplace things like they were 12-year old virgins. You can also see it here when some idiotic startup comes up with an idiotic business model. I can never decide if they are serious or not. Same in sports. They all go full hysterical mode when they qualify for the next round of 8. Er... boy, you do this every week, you haven't failed reaching the final once in the last 3 years, why do you and your team mates and your family need to overplay it so much as if you accomplished anything special? Do other players/athletes from other countries need to do the same? No. I can't see the point to spread and spread and spread on things which have just been done how they should be done. Acknowledge them and move to the stuff which went wrong or can be improved, that's more interesting. About making a fuss about nothing, I remember that time when I visited the USA as a teenager, and when we left most of the American adults began to cry (after we managed to escape from the bloody hugs. I don't know who invented hugs, but I hate him.). We looked at each other, wondering what was going on. It seemed our departure was something big, so we tried to force ourselves to do the same but we didn't manage to shed a tear. So we kids had to witness all these grown-ups crying for nothing. That scene shocked me, I remember it after 25 years. (Okay, one possible explanation was that they may have thought that we were sent back to slavery in a third-world commie state, since God knows all countries don't have the luck to be in northern America.)
  - warlox 10y ago
    > after we managed to escape from the bloody hugs. I don't know who invented hugs, but I hate him. Yet you're from France, where people kiss each other as a greeting.
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Fine. Don't offer criticism, but don't offer fake praise either.
kbart 10y ago
Well, if just after performance you told me: "wow, that was great", then the next time we met: "actually, you sucked guys" (or even worse, tell that behind my back), I would deem you liar and dishonest person. Constructive criticism, especially by close friends and family, is the best outcome imho, while an empty, meaningless praise only causes harm on the long run. I'm from Europe, so it must be a cultural difference.
dclowd9901 10y ago
In my opinion, it takes a real lily to not be able to handle or constructively internalize others' criticisms as they're lobbed at you. These are important skills. I don't always welcome criticism, but when I get it, I listen.

kodt 10y ago

And if this is just a garage band with no formal lessons?

charlesdm 10y ago

Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touting positive things. I agree with your statement in principle, but at the same time, people need to be willing to give some meaningful comments. If I'm trying to break through in a rock band, I want criticism so I can figure out how to improve. Being told "Good performance brah", if you know you sucked, sucks.

maroonblazer 10y ago
I'm an American and my 10 yr old son is in an organized band that includes a weekly private lesson and a public performance. I agree with skywhopper that there's a time and place for criticism and right after the show, especially at that age, is not it. Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the show, he was so nervous about playing in front of a crowd. So, a healthy part of the applause is recognition that they simply performed publicly. It's likely that greeting them with criticism of their playing as they walk off the stage won't do much to encourage them to try it again.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  Right: 10yo - agree. But once you're past a certain age, e.g. 14-15, probably not? Then again, I don't think people should be rewarded either for showing up or putting in an effort. But for younger kids (e.g. < 14yo) it's definitely not an issue + good that you want to get them to experience new things. Maybe I have different view on things, but if I look back at how much focus was put on putting in effort (and not actually achieving anything) during my high school years, then I think we have things wrong to some extent. It's even worse today than it was before -- I have a friend who works in a school and he says it's great that grading is being phased out.. not sure whether I agree on that.
  - squeaky-clean 10y ago
    If your friend was learning to code, and wrote a tetris clone, would you congratulate them on their first major project, or would you critique their sloppy code? They had to develop and live with that codebase, maybe for several days or more. They're probably aware of some things that suck about it, but had to stick with it (otherwise you never finish). Having someone criticize your code, variable names, lack of patterns without asking would be really demoralizing. There's a difference between a well written function, and an entire application that's well organized and thought out. And there's a difference between playing in your garage and playing on stage. Did the band suck because they couldn't play? Or did they suck because they were nervous? Well the only way to get over that is to play in front of people more. I also think there should be a difference in expectations depending on where/what you're seeing. You have every right to criticize a group playing Madison Square Garden. But there's a reason the 14 year olds are playing O'Mallys Pub on a Tuesday, or the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour, and not the main stages or an arena. What's particularly awesome and worth congratulating is watching a band of teenagers suck on stage, and then watching them a month later suck a little less. We should be striving for "better" rather than "great", in my opinion.
    - sheepmullet 10y ago
      In reality it depends so much on the context. People are primed for learning right after finishing a task. Is my friend just giving coding a go or are they trying to get a dev job? Is my friend trying to show me what they have built or asking for help improving the quality of their code? Etc etc. Likewise is this a 14 year old athlete trying to compete at the state level? Or a 14 year old trying out football because his friends play?
mgalka 10y ago
What country are you from? In my experience Americas fall somewhere in the middle in terms of directness, compared to European countries. I lived in the UK for a few years and found Brits very hard to read / resistant to confrontation. On the other hand, I'm married to a Spaniard, and when I'm over there, it's sometimes a bit uncomfortable how direct and open people are.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  Belgium. It's not necessarily the directness that I mind, it's the fact that often people are (excuse my language) full of shit. They say A, but actually mean B. Which is a trait, for example, the British have as well, but one I seem to understand a lot better than when I'm dealing with Americans.
  - oldmanjay 10y ago
    I've never met a European who wasn't as full of shit as anyone else. I suppose Belgians may be magical in that regard but I suspect not.
    - charlesdm 10y ago
      Belgians are definitely also full of shit, but in our own special way. :-) I guess it’s more of a cultural thing, where you expect something and reality is something else.
    - hindsightbias 10y ago
      The Belgians I've known simply want a straight answer. Americans will make up a hundred reasons to not do something when they don't have a technical leg to stand on. I was starting to hate this Belgian guy because he wanted something done and I didn't want to spend the time required to do it. Finally, after coming up with all sorts of excuses, I just told him the truth and thought he'd storm out. He just said "Fine! Now we can go have a beer"
  - DavidAdams 10y ago
    Americans have a reputation for saying things like "let's do lunch sometime" as a sort of vague statement of agreeableness and intention to stay in contact, whereas, let's say, Swedish people would consider that to be a straightforward intention to book a lunch date.
reflexive 10y ago
Maybe this is part of why a lot more popular bands come from the US than from Europe? Not to be glib, but when I lived in Europe I was shocked at how many unknown American bands they would fly out to play at tiny venues (bars, "underground" clubs) every weekend. I asked, don't you have your own unknown bands that rehearse in garages and dorm rooms? It turns out: not so much, not nearly to the level that this exists in America. So maybe the difference is that Europeans like to shit all over their friends' bands?
- Phr0ztByte 10y ago
  Band popularity has a lot to do with marketing. If you are looking at the size of European countries they have just as many influential artists as the US. UK and Sweden in particular.
  - reflexive 10y ago
    Can you recommend any Swedish acts? I thought of Junior Senior and Röyksopp but it turns out they're Danish and Norwegian.
    - Anthony-G 10y ago
      There’s a Wikipedia page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Sweden Artists I particularly like are Robyn (pop), The Knife (electronic/“IDM”), Fever Ray (one half of The Knife), The Cardigans (pop), Lykke Li (indie pop), iamamiwhoami (experimental electronic) Opeth (death metal), Kleerup (electronic dance), Neneh Cherry (pop/hip-hop), José González (indie pop). Note: genres aren’t particularly useful but I thought some indication of what the artist is like is better than none. If you like Röyksopp, I’d recommend checking out Kleerup, The Knife, iamamiwhoami, Lykke Li and Fever Ray. Also, you may not know the name but you’ll be very familiar with the songs written and/or produced by Max Martin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin
wott 10y ago
Americans get excited about the most commonplace things like they were 12-year old virgins. You can also see it here when some idiotic startup comes up with an idiotic business model. I can never decide if they are serious or not. Same in sports. They all go full hysterical mode when they qualify for the next round of 8. Er... boy, you do this every week, you haven't failed reaching the final once in the last 3 years, why do you and your team mates and your family need to overplay it so much as if you accomplished anything special? Do other players/athletes from other countries need to do the same? No. I can't see the point to spread and spread and spread on things which have just been done how they should be done. Acknowledge them and move to the stuff which went wrong or can be improved, that's more interesting. About making a fuss about nothing, I remember that time when I visited the USA as a teenager, and when we left most of the American adults began to cry (after we managed to escape from the bloody hugs. I don't know who invented hugs, but I hate him.). We looked at each other, wondering what was going on. It seemed our departure was something big, so we tried to force ourselves to do the same but we didn't manage to shed a tear. So we kids had to witness all these grown-ups crying for nothing. That scene shocked me, I remember it after 25 years. (Okay, one possible explanation was that they may have thought that we were sent back to slavery in a third-world commie state, since God knows all countries don't have the luck to be in northern America.)
- warlox 10y ago
  > after we managed to escape from the bloody hugs. I don't know who invented hugs, but I hate him. Yet you're from France, where people kiss each other as a greeting.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

Fine. Don't offer criticism, but don't offer fake praise either.

kbart 10y ago

Well, if just after performance you told me: "wow, that was great", then the next time we met: "actually, you sucked guys" (or even worse, tell that behind my back), I would deem you liar and dishonest person. Constructive criticism, especially by close friends and family, is the best outcome imho, while an empty, meaningless praise only causes harm on the long run. I'm from Europe, so it must be a cultural difference.

dclowd9901 10y ago

In my opinion, it takes a real lily to not be able to handle or constructively internalize others' criticisms as they're lobbed at you. These are important skills. I don't always welcome criticism, but when I get it, I listen.