Klarinet Archive - Posting 000042.txt from 2000/08

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Body movement
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 08:28:37 -0400

<><> Neil=A0Leupold wrote:
We could start a whole new thread on this, but I'm not a big proponent
of bodily movement while playing

At this week's master class, Fred Ormand noticed a student missing a
particular note repeatedly and coached the student into not moving. The
bad note disappeared instantly when the student stopped waving the
instrument all over the place.
As a member of the audience, I find body movements extremely (not
just a little bit) distracting because they seldom are graceful or move
towards completion -- as opposed to how true dance movements would
appear.
On the other side of the coin, most of the Klezmer and jazz
performers at ClarinetFest (IMO) did move at appropriate moments and in
a truly communicative manner. Especially they covered larger distances
on the stage. Dancers don't have their feet glued to one spot on the
stage. Swaying and waving without travelling somewhere really disturbs
me.
I close my eyes in extreme cases at a concert or recital so that I
don't have to watch it -- which means that I'm missing some of the
impact of a live performance, but this is better than being 'derailed'
by uncomposed fits of movement.
If I were going to start a discussion about body movements, I would
wonder whether there is truly a difference in 'dance vs. mere release of
nervous energy' between the movements of classical vs. non-classical
performers.

Cheers,
Bill

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