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Okay, this is not a video of me playing solo. Rather it is a video of me playing with my Orchestra last Sunday, Oct 20th 2013 at a church in White Plains NY. This was one selection of our Fall Concert. I present it for your musical enjoyment.
If you are looking for me well... when the camera is showing the front view of the orchestra on stage (from behind our fabulous conductor) I am the guy on violin on the far left hand side in back. I am almost perfectly adjacent to one of the clarinet players who is also a good fiend of mine.
Now it's time for rehearsing holiday music and Handel's Messiah in prep for our annual holiday concert/sing-a-long.
P.S. I am using a Fiddlerman carbon fibre bow. Just want to add , it's a great bow, light, comfortable, and I use it regularly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....ny7vU#t=16
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Thanks for sharing. That looks like a nice little cozy orchestra to play in. I wish I could find one like that.
Duane
"Violin is one of the joys of my life."
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That was nice and thanks for sharing.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it ..(William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night)
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I could listen but I couldn't watch. Not looking to get ADD if I can avoid it. Sorry to have to say so, but it seems that whoever did the editing is wanting some negative attention. In the first minute, it changed views just about every three seconds, and that was all I could stand. Really, please tell whoever did the editing to please grow up. They ruined what could have been a good video. Somebody should take the original footage and redo it.
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That was awesome, great job. Must be alot of fun to be in an orchestra playing that piece and be in the middle of all that sound. Beethoven gives chills just listening, cant imagine how cool it must be to actually play!
"Thus fate knocks at the door!"
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That was awesome, @Crazymotive. It's great to be in an orchestra.
Great job. Thank you for sharing.
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I could listen but I couldn't watch. Not looking to get ADD if I can avoid it. Sorry to have to say so, but it seems that whoever did the editing is wanting some negative attention. In the first minute, it changed views just about every three seconds, and that was all I could stand. Really, please tell whoever did the editing to please grow up. They ruined what could have been a good video. Somebody should take the original footage and redo it.
Well, if I were to follow your advice I'd have to tell the conductor to "grow up and somehow I don't think it would put me in good standing. Frankly, I don't see any real problem with it, the person doing the video work was merely trying to utilize the different cameras to convey the images of both the orchestra itself and the venue in which we were playing. I personally think a nice enhancement would be if they were able to zoom in on the various sections and individual players, so for example you could have occasional video closeups of individual musicians capturing them playing their instruments close up and capture facial expressions ,etc... You will often see that zooming technique used in professional orchestra videos. However, as it stands we are not a professional group and we are limited in video equipment and on the fly video production. In any event even if you don;t like the video you can do just as you did and listen rather than watch. Nothing wrong with doing it that way.
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Frost said
That was awesome, great job. Must be alot of fun to be in an orchestra playing that piece and be in the middle of all that sound. Beethoven gives chills just listening, cant imagine how cool it must be to actually play!"Thus fate knocks at the door!"
Thanks. I appreciate the nice complements from everyone. Glad y'all enjoyed it. We do try 
For an amateur group we are doing surprisingly well and we are continually improving and learning new musical composition.
And yes, it is a lot of fun to be in the midst of it all. I am really enjoying it.
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Sounded really nice but I agree about the switching back and forth. It never gave me enough time to focus on any one person or instrument.
Opportunity is often missed because it wears suspenders and looks like hard work.
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Sounded really nice but I agree about the switching back and forth. It never gave me enough time to focus on any one person or instrument.
Yeah, now that I watch it a few times I think I agree. The camera angles do change a bit too fast and frequently . it might be better if they didn't switch from view to view so fast and frequently. I would have been a bit nicer if they stayed on a given camera angle and dwell a bit longer before switching to another view. Well, the group is open to suggestions and feedback from members so perhaps I'll make a mention of it as a suggestion. Allow each position/scene to run longer before switching camera angles. This way viewers will have a bit more time to view a particular section or player before the camera angle changes. I know when I watch a video of an orchestra or band I l;ike to be able to focus on various players fior a bit to see how they handle various parts of their music. This video does make that difficult due to the rapid transitions from scene to scene.
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Yes, please feel free to ignore the details of my request to straighten out the video producer/director, ha ha. 
Someone could probably do it more tactfully, and, as you say, they might have to, ha ha.
But as far as just listening and not watching, not to hurt anyone's feelings, but if I just wanted to listen, there are many many performances that sound better.
It's a community orchestra, and what makes it interesting to me is the people in it. I would want to sort of get to know the people in it by their appearances, to guess about them and to imagine what it would be like to play in that orchestra or a similar one. Isn't that one of the main reasons people go to live performances?
But really, it reminds me of the output of a video surveillance system, you know, where there are a half-dozen cameras all feeding into a single monitor. Yeah, can't get a look at anyone in it, can't get to know anyone in the orchestra at all without a lot of effort and repeated visual disorientation.
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Yes, please feel free to ignore the details of my request to straighten out the video producer/director, ha ha.
Well, we are certainly not the London Philharmonic or the Vienna Symphony. Then again, we don't expect to be or even try to be. We are just who we are and nothing more. Most of us are not professional musicians nor do we work or make a living in music. Rather we are doctors, lawyers, bankers, IT people, clerks, students, nurses, salesmen, architechts, real estate agents , teachers,sailors, and a host of other professions and jobs by day. The thing we do have in common is a love for music, a love for being musicians, and a desire to make the best music we can and that others can enjoy and, at the same time, have fun doing it.
As far as the videography goes, well, agree it can stand improvement. I would love to see more close ups, longer dwell times between view changes, etc. I am sure that can be achieved in future videos and constructive criticism is always welcome.so that we, as members, can offer feedback and suggestions to make things better. In the meantime and although the videography may not be perfect it is still better than no video at all.
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Good grief, the video isn't all that bad. A minor distraction at some moments from an otherwise excellent recording of some very good playing.
So to put things in perspective.. Sound quality was good. Everyone played quite well. The video, well..
If the timing on the cuts was more with the timing in the music, and if it was being used to highlight what section the musical action was taking place, it could have been better. Use the cuts to give the listener a view of a section just as they are doing something dramatic or go to the long views showing the whole orchestra when it all swells together, and it could have added even more.
But seriously, I've seen and heard far, far worse. As a nice little sampler, done on (I assume) a bit of a budget, one can't expect it to match up with performances one sees that were professionally produced and that had a trained live camera crew and etc.
For something that was apparently done with setting up I think about 4 cameras in tripods and then edited down by the conductor??? Wow. This was really quite good!
Not fair to judge something like this against something done with a big budget and a pro video crew edited by people who do video production for a living.
I felt it gave a pretty good idea of the feel and personality of the performance, and all involved should take a bow. You sounded great and it's looking good. Seeing this footage should encourage people to want to come out and see the live performance.
Bravo.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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wow thats really awesome! How fun it must be to play in a close nit orchestra like that! and you guys sound and look amazing! good job 
i especially like the younger boy playing in there to. what a good experience 
hope to see more videos again!
Lead me, Follow me, or get out of my way!
~General George S. Patton
Thank you for posting your video. That was really good!
thank you for sharing!!
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Thanks in any case "Crazymotive" for sharing your activities with us. I like putting faces on members and see what they are doing and working on. Makes the site more interesting. Criticism can be taken as a way to do better next time, or as a put down.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Okay, I want to say Thank You for all the kind words and complements. We are an audition free community orchestra and non profit organization composed of people who love to make music. We do this as a labour of love and appreciation. Our musicians are non-paid, mostly non-professional, and all skill levels from beginner to pro. This was our first public performance of Beethoven's 5th and in the near future we hope to play the entire symphony.
My main reason for posting this was to give folks an idea of what I do with respect to the violin outside of practicing and performing on my own at home. The orchestra has been a rewarding experience and taught me that playing along with others is a great asset to learning and improving skills. I strongly encourage others to play along with others, whether it be a classical orchestra, a band, a country or folk group, a rock group or, just jamming with friends. Playing along with others ads to the dimension of learning.
As far as the video is concerned it's primary purpose was not so much to promote the orchestra or our video technique. It's primary purpose was to provide the members with an idea of how our first time performance of Beethoven's 5th came across. I appreciate the constructive criticisms and may even offer some of them as suggestions for future videos. There is always room for improvement and I am sure that as we progress opver time we will improve in many different ways.
I thank everyone for their kind words, encouragement, suggestions and constructive critiques. As much as we have to share with others we have to learn from our listeners and viewers. I also appreciate the many things that other members here have posted and shared. We all have a common interest and we share to help one another to enjoy playing the violin, viola, etc.
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