Klarinet Archive - Posting 000444.txt from 1998/10

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: RE: [kl] 1234/2341
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 13:41:51 -0400

Dear fellow players of the noblest wind instrument yet invented,

As I read this thread again today, I thought, and for far from the first
time, that talking about music is really impossible. There are no words for
the things that matter most. For instance, we have never been able even to
agree on what a light or a dark clarinet sound is really. Music is a
completely non-verbal art, like painting, sculpture and the dance. Most of
the arguments on these subjects are really fencing over the definition of
terms--which, even if defined completely, will still be unhelpful.

I teach, and have played a lot in the last 50 years, although never
anywhere near the level of many of the subscribers to this list. As a
teacher, I realize more clearly every year that I have to use words to help
beginners form the embouchure, and so on, and I can use words to tell them
how fast or how loud to play, but how can words describe how to play a
phrase--or even to tell what one is?

At some point in the development of a musician, and it is a point that some
fairly accomplished players seem never quite to reach, one abandons words
and logical reasoning, and thinks about music purely as music.

How do you play that phrase? I ask a student, and after she or he shows me,
I may say, "Here's how I like to do it," and I pick up my horn, or sit
down at the keyboard and demonstrate. Then I say, "This is not the only way
to do it. There is no one right way. You might want to play it faster, or
slower, or to use a wider dynamic range, or to put in a little rubato here
..." and so on. Then I sometimes say, "You have to decide. You're the
artist." They look at me to see if I'm joking, but I'm not. Beethoven, I
read somewhere long ago, used to tell his students, "Do not be the prisoner
of the score?" A Romantic approach, to be sure, but I think it's valid most
of the time. When you're performing (do I have to specify that I don't mean
in an ensemble? Yes, probably I'd better), you're in charge, you're the
boss, and it's not necessary to slavishly copy the work of some other
artist, or to follow cookbook rules about when to play a crescendo and how
to play a rubato and whether the first note of four 16ths should get a
little accent or not.

I play the piano and organ too, and when I'm learning something I haven't
heard all my life, I'm interested in the interpretations of artists of real
stature, particularly in their tempi. Rachmaninov's famous 18th variation
on a theme of Paganini's is one that's played all over the map, from medium
bright to painfully slow. My tempo of choice is somewhere in between, with
a generous slathering of rubato. After listening to four or five other
performances, I happened to catch a recording on the car radio, of
Rachmaninov playing it himself. He played it differently from all the
others I'd heard, and (ahem) just about like me.

But seriously, folks, all the best teachers I've had, and I believe all of
the very best anywhere, teach with an instrument in their hands, or at a
keyboard. They have to. I believe there is no way that discussion alone,
mere talking, can teach someone to be an expert performer, once the
beginner level is passed.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

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