Klarinet Archive - Posting 000222.txt from 1995/06

From: James Sclater <sclater@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Creativity in Performing
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 15:44:55 -0400

On Mon, 12 Jun 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> Jim Sclater sees performing a very much creative act as contrasted with
> my perspective as seeing it as a reproductive act.
>SNIP
>
> You say that you just don't see how performing is not a creative act
> (though you said it in different words, of course). By the same token,
> I have equal difficulty seeing it as a creative act when anyone can
> do the performance, some better than others of course, but no one but
> you can do that specific act of creativity (and you might do it better
> or worse than someone else). Quality of composition is irrelevant but it
> is a unique act.
>
> The same act occurs when I do Beethoven's Eroica, for example. If I'm
> not there, 7,000 other clarinet players are ready to jump in. But if
> Beethoven had not done his piece of the action, no one else would have
> written THAT PARTICULAR piece.
>
> I am trying to be objective and rational here, not difficult and irrational.
> Perhaps we could argue about whether the interpretive act is unique and
> there might be some common ground between us. But the act of performing
> is so common that anyone can do it. There is nothing special about
> performing, though there might be something special about how one
> performs.
> Dan, I think the same might be said to some extent for composing: There
is nothing about composing per se, but there is something special about
how certain people compose.
> Does that help understand where I'm coming
from any better? Does it > clarify the waters, or muddy them further?
> I don't argue about the need for someone to write the music we play, but
in 97% of the pieces I've written, I have to have the creativity of the
performer in order to complete the process. I don't see why the creative
acts of the player need to be under-rated here. Every player worth his/her
salt does things with the music that are not written on the score. Is
that not creativity in a sense. True, they may not have written it, but
they are creating how the listener perceives it.
Jim Sclater
> > ====================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> (leeson@-----.edu)
> ====================================

James Sclater inet: sclater@-----.edu
Mississippi College (601)925-3445
Clinton, MS 39058