Klarinet Archive - Posting 000922.txt from 2000/11

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Interpreting versus playing
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 03:35:47 -0500

The original

M
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk>
Date: 25 November 2000 21:07
Subject: Re: [kl] Interpreting versus playing

>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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