Klarinet Archive - Posting 000492.txt from 2000/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Performance [was, Peplowski continued]
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 18:56:31 -0500

I think that there's a sort of general principle involved in this
discussion, and I'm going to take the risk of making it explicit.

All music (all art?) is partly conscious and partly unconscious. You
could say that it's 'about' the relationship between consciousness and
unconsciousness; or, that it's a partly conscious and partly unconscious
*message* that the audience appreciates partly consciously and partly
unconsciously.

The conscious part of music is what can be made explicit. In classical
music, that's the score. In jazz, it's the chord sequence, or whatever
the basis of the improvisation is.

Music, of whatever sort, requires both the explicit and the unconscious.
Without these it is, respectively, incoherent or mechanical.

On Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:09:02 -0800 (PST), Bilwright@-----.net said:

> The weight of public opinion is that 'classical' performers should
> bring their music 'to life' by representing the original music
> accurately, and that 'jazz' performers should bring music 'to life' by
> doing something new with it.

I'd say that this is almost, but not quite right.

Classical performers bring the written scores of others to life. Jazz
performers create their own music, either within or relative to the
improvisation template, and within or relative to a style.

Both sorts of performers need to relate to something fixed, otherwise
they cannot begin. This something 'fixed' is what can be made explicit
-- and every musical endeavour starts with *something* fixed.

In classical music, what is fixed is the written instructions of the
composer. But any score leaves unspecified a large number of variables:
what you might call the 'freedoms' of the score -- such as nuance,
tonecolour, mood and so on -- that are the complement of the
restrictions of having to play the notes that the composer wrote.

Period performers do what they do because they feel that the world of
the modern performer has left unavailable certain important freedoms
that can make the written music live better -- like the use of
particular sounds, instruments or phrasing techniques -- and so they
wish to recapture those freedoms. But recapturing those freedoms
sometimes involves rejecting other freedoms -- just as, if you choose to
swim, you can't at the same time fly -- and so 'period' performance
sometimes looks, to modern players, like 'restrictive' performance. But
that isn't really the idea. Modern players restrict their own
performances in ways that they aren't aware of.

The restrictions of the written score are of a different order, and
something that all serious performers accept, except in styles where
departures were a part of the style of the period.

The restrictions on jazz performers, on the other hand, are much more
general. They might have to follow a chord sequence, for example, or
to play within or relative to a style. This in turn means that their
freedoms are much more particular. Jazz consists essentially of
variations, initially based on chord sequences, but now building -- as
composers of written music have done -- on what has previously been
achieved by others. Nevertheless, jazz players may choose their own
notes, and in this way are much more like composers in their own right.

For this reason, I regard my own contribution to music, and the
contribution of my fellow performers of written music, as in one way on
a much lower creative level than the level of the best jazz players;
which is perhaps why I become rather testy on this list and elsewhere
when I feel that what we do is relegated even further, to the level of
mere technical expertise, as in 'making it all seem easy'. We are
creative too, but under a different interpretation of the word,
'creative'.

This feeling of myself operating at a lower level of creativity than
the jazz performer, however, is somewhat offset for me by the feeling
that the end result of the jazz enterprise is not on such a high level
of artistic achievement. The best composed/performed pieces are for me
on a different level from the best improvised pieces. Also, even though
'straight' players often find jazz improvisation difficult or
impossible, it has to be said that some very good jazz players find it
impossible to do what 'straight' players do well. So perhaps it's not
so easy after all.

> Still, the announced goal for classical players is to approach an
> unchanging goal: to honor the composer's intent.

I don't know about that. I don't want to study some music with (still
living) composers in case they tell me *what I don't want to hear*. The
relation I have with what they write is enough. That's because I want a
point of beginning that is sufficiently rich, but not an interference
with my own way of making it come alive. I won't change what the
composer has written, but I'm capable of following that to the letter
whilst making it alive in a way that is my own. (If I get stuck, of
course, I might consult them.)

In fact, what they write is something I don't want to change, not
because I have a deep respect for them -- sometimes I don't -- but
because I don't want to be at the mercy of my manipulative conscious,
which is what would happen if I allowed myself to alter what is on the
page. What my unconscious can provide is enough.

But the other side of that is, I don't want to lose the possible
freedom, with composers of the past, of making what they write live more
effectively simply out of ignorance of what was available, or normal,
when they were writing. So I'll read very carefully what they and their
contemporaries have to say.

And equally, I am very willing to use the 'freedoms' that become
available to me when I am open to the norms of previous performance
practice, in order to make the music of today 'work', and 'live',
better.

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

..... Taglines that make you go "Hmmm..."

.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org