Klarinet Archive - Posting 000694.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Beginners/Enthusiasts Welcome?
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 06:40:55 -0500

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 14:55:41 -0800, gir@-----.net said:

[snip]

> I am sorry to reveal this to you, {that is why this message is sent to
> you and not to the list, you can ask others later to see if anyone
> backs me up} but once you become "GOOD" you are no longer a clarinet
> player, or even a clarinetist. At that point you will have
> accomplished just the opposite of your intended goal. You will have
> become just a lowly technician. A master technician, yes, but just an
> expert an operating the clarinet. You can, however, become a famous
> clarinetist only under the following conditions:

It's worth applauding Gary's perceptive and amusing post, even if he
didn't mean to send it to the list as is implied by the above. I'm glad
he made the mistake.

[snip 1-7 of the conditions, some of which are hilarious, and all of
which ring true. I'm glad he included #7, which is my favourite too,
even if it's never really believable, and nothing personally to do with
you, probably, anyway.]

> You feel good inside, and try to keep your perspective on reality, and
> try not to forget, you are nothing more than an expert at the
> manipulation of a piece of wood and metal, and that you will be doing
> it for only a while. You hope, for your own feeling of worthiness,
> that when you are gone that you have made a positive difference in the
> lives of those around you and that they will remember and occasionally
> thank you for what you have given them, that which is carried within
> them and, in their own way, is passed on to the younger ones in
> perpetum.
>
> What we do in the presence of others is to create in them the emotion,
> love, sorrow, understanding.....the feelings of humankind. The
> feelings which we all have or will have, and a sense that we are all
> connected through these feelings.
>
> When you have learned that music is simply a medium through which we
> recreate or communicate feelings then you understand the importance of
> using the best technical tool you can get into your hands. The more
> the tool can do for you the more divorced you can become from the
> physical aspects of operating that tool and thereby be able to apply
> more of your inner self to the recreation or communication of human
> feelings and understanding. Music which has no feeling to offer a
> listener has worth only to the composer or those that play it.

To which moving statement I'd only want to add that music also involves
integrating the 'thinking' and the 'feeling' parts of us. ('Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is a good communication of the spirit of
that, I'd say.) So it's something that it's valuable to do for
ourselves, at whatever level, as well as something that it's valuable to
do for an audience.

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

... No one is listening until you make a mistake.

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