I have been pondering all day whether or not it would be wise or indeed appropriate to engage in this thread… Well, yur I be. Why I feel I should will become apparent.
First, my warmest thanks for the kind words and supportive attitudes offered here. I do appreciate them.
I have said previously here on C&F and elsewhere that IMO anyone who publishes their endeavours (in any form, not just on the Web) offers themselves up to the possibility, indeed inevitability, of assessment and criticism - the whole gamut from generous appreciation through constructive criticism to fly negativity and carping, even overtly nasty baiting. If one cannot understand and deal with that, one should remain private. Accordingly, I have not chosen (as is possible on YouTube) to restrict the posting of comments or ratings and I have thus far only removed one comment - one made on a video I posted that is not of me and which I felt was inappropriate. I’m not saying I’ll never decide to delete something offensive, just that I usually prefer either to ignore gratuitous unpleasantness and treat it with the contempt it deserves - allowing it to redound upon its source as mutepoint, Hans and others point out - or sometimes to try to make a constructive response and make something better and more useful out of the situation.
Regarding my RC&Co Badinerie clip, and to the meat of the matter: “sk8bitchng” is a young Bosnian called Sebastijan Bereta who, subsequent to our exchange on YouTube friend-requested me on Facebook where I have had some friendly correspondence with him. From what I can make out he is a quite advanced classical Bohm flute student at a specialist music school or college. I am well aware that, especially to a mainstream, probably very hard-practising classical student, my amateur playing is relatively shambolic, even allowing for technical problems on an unfamiliar toot. OK, there are plenty of worse hacks at the Badinerie on YouTube even than mine, but that doesn’t make mine “good”. At face value his comment was abrupt and rude, but not entirely unjustifiable!
However, these things are a question of perspective as well as manners! With a language barrier - (Sebastijan appears to have reasonable but not great written English…) mis-communication is easy - inaccurate original expression and poor comprehension by readers. Moreover, I realised from the first (I perused his profile before responding) that, as a skater-type, “yoof culture” callow youngster, there was a possibility (especially suggested by his use of the word “dude”) that he was actually using through cultural adoption the inverted usages common in modern Anglo-American urban youth-speak - rap and similar contexts - to imply a compliment; “bad” meaning “good”. On balance I don’t think he did mean that, but it was a possibility. Hence, partly, my temperate response.
(BTW, Jeff, the Badinerie really isn’t a difficult piece, let alone “very”. Difficult to play really well, sure, like anything… but to hack through it is probably easier on traverso or 8-key than on Bohm flute because it is in home key, falls quite well under the fingers and has no huge technical challenges - there are plenty of ITM tunes that are harder! Get the dots and have a go! It is a piece that fame and exposure have given an exalted position to in the view of the non-player - it is one of the great flute showpieces because it is a marvellous piece of music, but it isn’t really technically challenging or virtuosic like many other famous pieces - even played silly fast as too often happens! The moderately paced and extended first movement of Bach’s B Minor Suite which the Badinerie concludes is much harder!)
I hope that sheds some useful light on the situation.
Finally, on a related but slightly different tack, someone has given the new German Flute clip a 1-star “poor” rating without bothering to offer any explanation. The person who has left a seemingly cryptic comment (possible language barrier again!) is a subscriber to my channel, so I doubt he gave the 1-star. (Ahhh, assumptions - again! - When I first read that comment/question I took it as being fly and associated with the 1-star, but fortunately I reflected on it and checked up on the poster before reacting!!!). Of course I don’t object to getting low ratings in line with my view of the whole process (“mind” is another matter! 
), but I don’t feel it is fair or proportionate to my intent in making and posting the clip. I do think (as I’ve said on my YouTube channel) that it is lazy and ill-mannered simply to give a bad rating without offering an explanation or thought-out critique of some kind. Acceptance that people are at liberty to do so doesn’t make it acceptable behaviour, even in these high speed, short attention span, internet surfing days.
Thanks again, folks.
