Klarinet Archive - Posting 000164.txt from 1999/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Auditions
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 02:29:04 -0500

On Fri, 05 Nov 1999 19:11:52 -0500, webler@-----.net said:

> Technique without musicality is boring. Go for both.
>
> Jay Webler
> Jay's Clarinet and Percussion
>
> On Fri, 5 Nov 1999 00:42:12 -0600 (CST), Edwin V. Lacy wrote:
>
> > On 4 Nov 1999, Noelette Stout wrote:
> >
> > > Which makes the bigger first impression: technique or musicality?
> >
> > Yes.

This technique/musicality thing is another false dichotomy, as Ed's post
is I think suggesting.

Here's something I wrote a few years ago about this, in part:

Yes, but he's got a good technique
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is common to speak of someone's technique in approving terms, but as
though it were in some way independent of their musicianship, or vice
versa. You hear the statement as in the heading above as well as its
opposite: namely, that X is a good musician but "has a bad technique".
It is imperative to argue against this because it shows a profound
misunderstanding of both terms. 'Good technique' is not something that
exists independently of that to which we speak of it being applied. If
we can specify what a task consists of, then we can say that the manner
of executing it is more or less successful; which is to say that the
technique applied is more or less appropriate, or that the person doing
it possesses to a greater or lesser degree a good technique for
performing the task.

If the task is a musical one, that is, to make a piece of music come
alive for performer and audience, and if we then judge that the result
is unmusical or fails to convince, we must say that the task has not
been performed, and that the executant on the evidence available to us
is not possessed of a good or appropriate technique. Equally someone
who fails significantly to play what is written cannot be said to be
playing that particular passage musically. That people differ about
these sorts of judgement is not an argument to say that we can separate
the music from the technique.

To speak in a way that presupposes that this separation is possible can
be particularly misleading in the cases that we have been considering.
Mostly we hear it said that a player "has a good technique" if he or she
can produce a superficially accurate rendering of some passage commonly
held to be difficult. But worthwhile composers write music neither in
order to be difficult nor in order to be played superficially
accurately, as they will tell you if you ask them. The 'good' technique
of such a performance is a technique good for playing notation
wrongheadedly -- that is, good for nothing. For a student to try to
emulate such playing leads to meaningless study and, in the worst cases,
unjustified complacency. *Good technique *is* musicianship, looked at
from a particular viewpoint*.

Because I think the point is really important, I would like to be even
more outspoken on this matter, addressing mainly those of us who are
teachers. Some of us may be tempted to foster this so-called 'good
technique' in isolation from musical requirements, because in dealing
with some players it may for the moment seem the only option. I would
say that our primary responsibility is always to engage with the musical
side of our relationship with our students. Now, obviously at the
beginning of our playing lives there is a certain minimum instruction,
say in the production of any sound whatever, which needs to take place
independently of any musical consideration. But this moment is very
soon past. The existence of this article shows that I am interested in
how we may play music with greater technical command; but in my
experience it is a very grave mistake to ignore a lack of musical
response in a student and press on with the business of achieving
fluency of execution in the hope that all will be well in the end.

The reason for this is that our solutions to the problem of playing
pass, as a natural process, from consciousness to functional embodiment.
What we do at the end of this process is to solve the problems in an
automatic way, as part of our natural physical response to the
situation, and how we do this is no longer accessible to investigation
without considerable effort. We have examined some of the tools we may
use to make the effort in this article. If our solutions are not
sufficiently rich, which is to say that they have not addressed the real
problems, this automaticity promotes rigidity rather than flexibility.
We then have the double difficulty of unlearning our habit and of
searching anew for the problems.

Some people quickly become quite able at the mere mechanics; in this
situation the half-way passable is the enemy of the better, and we must
persist in engaging the growth of musical comprehension and its
articulation (in a supportive way, of course) even when it seems
impossible for the student to achieve it.

Rather a player who is still struggling to produce for us something that
we can say is alive, whose playing may move into another world perhaps
even in the end just out of the sheer frustration of the situation, than
someone who comes to believe, because we have given up, that he or she
is already 'doing the job'.

Some will say, "But what about playing for our own enjoyment? Isn't
there a place for that?"

The answer is that of course there is. Privately, of course, any level
of execution can be of value to the participants, and even publicly some
amateur musicians can be counted among the most creative and imaginative
artists that there are. The crucial thing is precisely that we all play
for enjoyment. But just as there is such a thing as the worst of
professionalism, there is a worst of amateurism, and here they coincide
in embodying a misunderstanding of what it is to play an instrument.

Though we may work on technique, we must be careful in so doing not to
be in the business of being, or teaching other people to be, 'better'
bad players.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... I'm dangerous when I know what I'm doing.

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