Bad Tempered Clavier
Silver Member
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with the main point of Mike's argument - i.e. Don't Be a Dickhead - I also think that on the whole the world would be a slightly nicer place if we all just turned The Comments Section off.
To use the example he gave: if I were that hypothetical 8-year old child's parent I would be happy for him to send a video to his teacher, or even friends and family and I'm sure that the right kind of encouragement that they would (hopefully) give would help to spur him on; and these days one can use things like Facebook in order to make such videos exclusively available to a selected handful of known friends.
What I don't think is a good idea is allowing a child (or anyone who is not emotionally equipped to deal with such things) to post a video on the internet and then invite random yahoos to have their say about it. Even if the comments are benign I don't see what particular use they would be. Either someone makes a shitty comment and the kid's confidence is crushed or someone makes a nice comment and suddenly the kid is concerned about the approval of not just a handful of close-knit family and friends but THE WHOLE WORLD.
Put it this way: Little Jimmy puts up a video of him playing along to Mustang Sally and he gets 2,000 views and 100 positive comments and he feels pretty good about himself. Two weeks later he puts up a video of him playing along to Sweet Home Alabama and for no apparent reason he only gets 500 views and 20 positive comments. Of course Jimmy is not wise enough to appreciate that there was nothing wrong with his second video, it's just that people have no attention span these days and so rarely stick with anything beyond its debut. Or maybe it was just chance that more people saw his first video. Maybe Jimmy's friend Bobby also put up a video of Sweet Home Alabama and that got 3,000 views and 200 positive comments. Either way Jimmy now feels pretty bad about himself and doesn't really know why.
The problems with having a running commentary for every single thing that seems to happen in the world these days reach further than being a nobber on YouTube; but as far as encouraging young and beginner drummers go I'd argue that raising someone to expect feedback - whether positive or negative - from total strangers as though it were everyone's birthright to receive attention for commonplace activities is utterly dysfunctional.
To use the example he gave: if I were that hypothetical 8-year old child's parent I would be happy for him to send a video to his teacher, or even friends and family and I'm sure that the right kind of encouragement that they would (hopefully) give would help to spur him on; and these days one can use things like Facebook in order to make such videos exclusively available to a selected handful of known friends.
What I don't think is a good idea is allowing a child (or anyone who is not emotionally equipped to deal with such things) to post a video on the internet and then invite random yahoos to have their say about it. Even if the comments are benign I don't see what particular use they would be. Either someone makes a shitty comment and the kid's confidence is crushed or someone makes a nice comment and suddenly the kid is concerned about the approval of not just a handful of close-knit family and friends but THE WHOLE WORLD.
Put it this way: Little Jimmy puts up a video of him playing along to Mustang Sally and he gets 2,000 views and 100 positive comments and he feels pretty good about himself. Two weeks later he puts up a video of him playing along to Sweet Home Alabama and for no apparent reason he only gets 500 views and 20 positive comments. Of course Jimmy is not wise enough to appreciate that there was nothing wrong with his second video, it's just that people have no attention span these days and so rarely stick with anything beyond its debut. Or maybe it was just chance that more people saw his first video. Maybe Jimmy's friend Bobby also put up a video of Sweet Home Alabama and that got 3,000 views and 200 positive comments. Either way Jimmy now feels pretty bad about himself and doesn't really know why.
The problems with having a running commentary for every single thing that seems to happen in the world these days reach further than being a nobber on YouTube; but as far as encouraging young and beginner drummers go I'd argue that raising someone to expect feedback - whether positive or negative - from total strangers as though it were everyone's birthright to receive attention for commonplace activities is utterly dysfunctional.