to the people who complain about performance RP;
Forgive the mild rant, but I was a bit baffled by various complaints about performances, so I figured Iâd shed some light on the ones Iâve heard lately.
âI canât take it seriously when itâs electric guitar and synth in a high-fantasy world.â
But also, consider this. Weâre looking for something that gets people on their feet, gets them interested in listening. Unfortunately, by todayâs musical standards, a riveting baroque ballad on a lute doesnât quite slap like it used to back in the 1600âČs. Donât get me wrong. Theyâre still beautiful pieces, but they donât always convey the intended message to a crowd with modern conventional thinking.
Not only that, but thereâs only so many studio-recorded covers of modern songs played on ancient instruments that exist on YouTube, believe me. Once upon a time, I thought I was going to exclusively play oud and lute pieces. I quickly realized how unrealistic that was.
Besides, most of us actually try pretty hard to make our instruments make sense in the XIV universe with things like magical amplification and sound distortion. Take a breath, put down the lore book and suspend your disbelief for three minutes at a time to simply listen. This is supposed to be fun.
Also, hereâs a polite reminder that Allag exists.
â[Performerâs Name]âs songs are all the same.â
Alternatively, âEvery performance I see feels the same.â
First of all, listen to yourself say that again and tell me thatâs not incredibly callous to say about someoneâs hard work. We put hours into agonizingly re-writing these songs to make them XIV-relevant, macro-ing them, and practicing them until our timing is flawless. Remember that, please.
Second, yes. This, in the real-world music industry, is called a âgenreâ and itâs generally where all songs of a similar style fit into. But sarcasm aside, performers often operate in the genres that they themselves enjoy. We apologize for not having the same taste as you in advance, and hope that instead of complaining, youâll find something you like in the songs that we bring to you. Or you can just kindly mute until the next song comes on.
And because it takes us so long to prepare these songs and weâre not professional songwriters, nor paid to do this: Yes, youâre going to see some of the same songs over again while we work on new material. Thatâs probably because we, the performers, REALLY like them and are proud of our work enough to want to show it to everyone we possibly can. Iâm not going to apologize for that. Not even sarcastically.
If every performance feels the same to you, perhaps youâre not looking very closely into the song and what it means to the performer. All of us performers hand-pick those songs to say something to the listener, or simply to bring you a good show.
If, after all of this, youâre still unhappy, maybe performance events are not for you.
Tick off /yell chat and stick to your RP, or simply RP elsewhere. We wonât mind. Weâre here to tell a story. Weâre here for the people that want to watch, mingle, and/or cheer us on.
But do us all a favor and keep the complaints to yourself.
