Klarinet Archive - Posting 000354.txt from 1999/04

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Deep understanding
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 21:04:24 -0400

I think this is a reasonable occasion to comment that I find that what
Roger G.
writes frequently incomprehensible, if I assume his words to have their
generally agreed meanings. The same is sometimes true (though not lately)
for TOm
Ridenour. Am I stupid, or am I expecting something unusual?
Roger Shilcock

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Tony Pay wrote:

> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 23:14:08 GMT
> From: Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Deep understanding
>
> On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:13:27 -0600, rgarrett@-----.edu said:
>
> > At 09:52 PM 3/31/99 GMT, you wrote:
>
> > > On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 11:04:08 -0600, rgarrett@-----.edu said:
> > >
> > > > Deep understanding of any subject takes patience and constant
> > > > attention to achieve. Deep understanding of how to express
> > > > musically in front of others takes the same kind of patience and
> > > > determination.
> > >
> > > You use here the word 'deep' as though it were the end result of a
> > > process of continued refinement of peforming skills.
> > >
> > > But I would rather say that what is truly 'deep' is the
> > > understanding of musical expression that comes *before* such
> > > refinement. And it's the sort of 'deep' that human beings find
> > > natural, even if it's very sophisticated in actual fact.
>
> So now, Roger, in the following, I'd just like to find out what it is
> exactly that you are saying, nothing more or less.
>
> > Yes, I did use it that way,
>
> ...you mean, as I described it above:
>
> > > as though it were the end result of a process of continued
> > > refinement of peforming skills.
>
> ....?
>
> > and I believe that knowledge of how to project something that is
> > already deeply understood and internalized is a continued refinement
> > of performing skills - as a way of realizing what is internalized.
>
> So we agree, I think. But...
>
> > That you feel it should happen before is contrary to what I believe.
>
> So now I want to know what this 'it' in your sentence above is, and
> what you mean by 'before'.
>
> I'd wanted to say that we would do well to tell students that they
> already had an idea of what musical expression was. It wasn't a
> question of our gradually leading them towards the light.
>
> Here's an aside, to explain a bit more what I mean.
>
> I don't know whether I've already posted this here, but I used to take
> part regularly in fortnights of chamber music in Naples, with players
> like Salvatore Accardo, Bruno Giuranna, Bruno Canino....you might not
> know the names, but I assure you, they're on the very highest level in
> Europe. Or the world, for that matter.
>
> One year there was young girl who had been a part of the event -- I
> think she was the daughter of one of the organisers. Anyway, at the end
> of the dinner after the last concert (we always ate very late, winding
> up around 2 am -- but the concerts started at 9 pm!) she said that she
> would like to play something for all of us. So, she sang a song that
> she accompanied on her guitar. And I tell you, although the concert had
> included some wonderful performances -- I remember in particular the
> Brahms piano quintet with the Brazilian pianist Jacques Klein and a
> quartet led by Accardo, with Giuranna on viola -- what she did brought
> tears to all our eyes. I thought it was the best thing in the entire
> evening.
>
> When I congratulated her, she said: "Next week, I go to Milano, to learn
> how to be a musician."
>
> So I told her, sure, go to Milano. But don't think you'll learn to be a
> musician there, because you already are one.
>
> > My experience with young students and developing students is that they
> > don't really achieve the level of musical expression/understanding you
> > describe UNTIL they learn to project it through their instrument. It
> > is the same concept of not waiting to learn the notes and rhythms
> > before projecting expression musically - it should all be developed
> > simultaneously - in my opinion of course.
>
> And here, again I have no disagreement. Obviously, you couldn't begin
> to tell the bedtime story in French until you knew at least *some*
> French. And the two things then develop side by side.
>
> > I really don't want to argue with what you believe vs. what I believe.
> > I also don't intend to get into any kind of dialogue regarding why I
> > believe what I believe with you. You understand that I disagree with
> > you.....therefore, you are free to say what you want regarding such.
>
> Well, what I want to say is that I don't understand what you disagree
> with.
>
> > > Now, I suggest that at a very fundamental level, children who play
> > > music understand the sorts of story that there are to be told, if we
> > > don't get in their way too much. There's this piece of music, and
> > > it's pretty, or sad, or cross, or playful, or....whatever. And
> > > because the audience *can't read it* (why else do we read bed-time
> > > stories?) we have to tell it to them.
> > >
> > > And that is the basic model of what performance is all about.
> > >
> > > The rest is just refinement.
> >
> > In my opinion, it depends on what you are using as a vehicle for
> > teaching that understanding of expression to "children" (a term that
> > you don't define in terms of musical learning on an instrument - say,
> > perhaps, the clarinet). I define a child learner as one who is around
> > age 11 or 12 and has played between 0 and 3 years.
>
> OK.
>
> > If you mean expressing half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and
> > quarter notes in easy diatonic literature that doesn't go over the
> > break, I would agree that it is as simple as the "refinement" you
> > discuss.
>
> I don't understand this.
>
> > A difficulty level beyond that and I would say that the "refinement"
> > describe is simplistic and unrealistic.
>
> Or this.
>
> > Again, that is only my opinion based on my teaching of such children
> > and observing the teaching/learning process with others.
>
> All I am wanting to say is captured by the following statements:
>
> The fundamental idea is that young musicians naturally have responses to
> the music. The best way we have of talking about the process of
> performance is to speak of the communication of their notion of the
> meaning of the music to an audience that needs their communication in
> order to understand the music, just like the analogy of the bedtime
> story. That's something that they do very early, and with simple
> pieces.
>
> The continual technical refinement of their means of expression, in
> which we participate, then takes place within the understanding of
> performance as such communication to such an audience.
>
> You seem to me to have agreed with everything I say, while saying that
> you disagree with it.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... Make like a Dolphin and move with Porpoise.
>
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