Klarinet Archive - Posting 001424.txt from 2000/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Being an Actor
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 13:25:59 -0500

On Sun, 31 Dec 2000 10:18:00 -0800 (PST), leupold_1@-----.com said:

> Interestingly, he would never have had that epiphany had he not spent
> the prior period of time thinking about it first. Without the period
> of intellectualization, obesessing on the minutiae, picking at,
> analyzing, searching for the effortlessness of the flow that he
> ultimately discovered, there would have been nothing of which to
> suddenly "make sense."

Yes, this is true, for him. But of course, some people don't need that
prior period of time, because they get it right at the beginning; and,
sadly, for some people, no period of time is enough, because they never
make it.

I have to be honest, and say that I don't know which way to go,
responding to you on this one. My purpose here at the moment is to make
more real the ways in which, as teachers, we may help players 'make it'
in that sense, even though they may presently be struggling. This post
was a beginning in that enterprise -- to set a context in which it was
more plausible here that, as Callow puts it, what is required is not
'more of the same', but rather 'being in another way'. I have some
other things to say about that.

I would like -- would always have liked, though you may not believe me
-- you to be a colleague in that enterprise. It's a difficult
enterprise, and I find that not many people think that it's possible
reasonably to be concerned with it, in music. Actors have a different
set of rules, because it's obvious when someone is just going through
the motions *as a character*. Musicians get away with going through the
motions rather more easily, unfortunately.

I can read what you write above as supportive of this enterprise, or as
dismissive of it. You say:

> Without the period of intellectualization, obesessing on the minutiae,
> picking at, analyzing, searching for the effortlessness of the flow
> that he ultimately discovered, there would have been nothing of which
> to suddenly "make sense."

In music, we can hear what a musician does. All we have to do is do
what they do, seemingly. But my point is that that doesn't always work,
however good we get at just reproducing it. What I'm interested in
here, at the moment, is how we can approach that 'not-working' so that
we can generate it, on the contrary, 'working'. And I maintain, that
isn't a technique, because it needs to be approached in a different
world from the world of technique. And the shift between the two worlds
can occur at any time. Callow puts it well, I think.

I am not your enemy, Neil. In fact, I wish you the very best in your
musical career, if you choose that. But if I have to argue against your
current ideas, I will.

It's interesting, this 'wanting to be right' that I am accused of. What
I am in fact doing is making a stand for the validity of the viewpoint
that musical expression and creativity are overwhelmingly important, and
worth discussing.

It should be noted that Sherman tanks, if you consider me to be one of
those, are much more importantly characterised by what they are used
for, than by what they are.

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

.... I call my computer Hole in the Desk
.

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