Klarinet Archive - Posting 000799.txt from 2000/11

From: StephanieDavis99@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] Interpreting versus playing
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 17:18:45 -0500

In a message dated 11/25/00 11:06:09 AM Central Standard Time,
Bilwright@-----.net writes:
> Stephanie, you've described most succinctly what bothers me.
> Thank you for posting this. I'm not a 'flamer', and so I hope this
> doesn't offend you; but who owns my mind and my feelings? Me or you?

I'm not at all offended, Bill. In fact, you said one thing in particular
that does much to put things into perspective:

> The feelings and responses and behaviors that your composition
> (music or prose) generate inside me.... well, if they were exactly the
> same as yours, would you want to 'talk' to me in the first place? Do
> you want a mouthpiece or an audience? Do you want to inspire me to do
> things with your work after I've performed it to myself, or do you want
> a parrot?

Very well said. When people read my writing, I don't care if they think it's
technically well done so much as I care about the fact that my writing has
evoked emotion and has made the reader care about the characters. I strongly
believe that when an artist's work evokes feelings or inspiration, then that
artist has done his or her job. Art, whether it's prose or music or canvas,
is all about emotion. So perhaps it's not so important whether the
interpretation of the work is exactly what the artist had intended.

The decade of the 80's spawned one of my favorite pop songs, which I have
always loved because of it's happy-sounding music and peppy tempo. I'd
always told people that it was the happiest-sounding song I'd ever heard, and
I often listened to it as a pick-me-up during personal down times. Come to
find out a couple of years ago that the songwriter (who also happened to be
the singer) wrote the song in anger at his lover in a floundering
relationship. When I really listened to the words I could read the
accusation in the lyrics. Those lyrics had always been there, but I'd
preferred to interpret it my way and impose my own meaning on it. I still
love the song, but it no longer evokes the happiness in me that it once did.
Its meaning has been ruined for me.

An artist's creation is a very personal thing, but so is someone else's
interpretation of it. I don't think there's any way to make both sacred, but
I certainly see more from the interpreter's viewpoint than I did before.

Stephanie

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