Klarinet Archive - Posting 000796.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Interpreting versus playing
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 14:58:41 -0500

On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 11:20:13 -0800 (PST), leupold_1@-----.com said:

> --- Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk> wrote:
>
> > The question rather is, what do you want to do?
>
> > If you do 'just what you want' as a student, after a bit, your
> > teacher will throw you out for not being serious, regardless of your
> > arguments that you are providing a 'sincere and genuine response' to
> > the written music.
>
> > Why exactly is this?
>
> What is the nature of your question? Do you not know the answer,
> and desire feedback from somebody on the list who does? Or do you
> think you know the answer, and you're asking for a response so that
> you may then reply with your own thoughts on the matter? If the
> latter, why not just come out & say it?

Well, Neil, my thoughts on the matter, which I readily admit don't
amount to having 'the answer', are available from some of the posts I've
made here in the past, so I'm not trying to be secretive.

I do think that wondering about such questions is an important part of
being a musician. This particular question happens to connect rather
deeply with whatever playing music well actually *is*. From your own
posts, one could draw the conclusion that you think that playing music
well is a question of doing a collection of things like 'making it look
and sound easy'. I remember you going on about that, describing
performances at the ClarinetFest.

I however, don't think that that's what's really important, in any art
form. If I see a performance of 'Othello', I don't come away saying
things like, "Wow, that guy made it look so *easy*! His performance was
so *economical*! No unnecessary movement, and what a beautiful voice!"
(Neither do most of us here, I'd suggest.) My response is in a
completely different world from that. What I care about is whether the
actor playing Othello made his role come alive, and whether he moved me,
and didn't get in the way of the complexity of the character. And,
whether he didn't, as an actor, get in the way of the other characters
in the play showing the complexity of their own lives.

That sort of thing is what any serious artist I've encountered is trying
to do, and I've had the fortune to meet and work with a few serious
artists. By the way, 'serious artistry' isn't the exclusive province of
the technical genius or even of the experienced player, so I'm not
excluding anyone here from being what I mean by a serious artist. In
fact, I know that many of the non-professional musicians here *are*
serious artists.

Being a serious artist, funnily enough, is also related to the business
of being more concerned with questions than with definite answers.

Anyhow, since you question my style of post, and have in the past
gratuitously questioned my character, I'd like now to 'come out and say'
that I think that your posts here rarely demonstrate anything like a
useful way of going about matters. They almost always deal with
clarinets, and clarinet playing, in a way that is both technocentric and
unrelated to musical issues. You also tend, as you did in your last
post, to preface what you say by an IMO disclaimer, and then lay down
the law in a hectoring, almost salesmanlike style that presents, mostly,
only one side of a complex issue.

In addition, reading you, one might get the impression that you think
you're a shining example of all that's good about clarinet playing,
letting the rest of us in on the wonderful secret of your perfect tone,
intonation and technique.

You *might* be such a shining example, of course. We shall see to what
degree, if you 'decide to go' <holding my breath> in that direction.
But at the moment, you're one of what my colleague, the oboist Derek
Wickens, used to call "the great fucking unheard." And certainly
nothing you've ever said here gives me much hope of your giving
performances of any sort that *I'd* want to hear.

But, of course, I could be wrong:-)

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

.... Is this yours? Your dog left it on my lawn ...

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