Klarinet Archive - Posting 000263.txt from 2002/10
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Copying
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 14:13:50 -0400
On Mon, 7 Oct 2002 18:27:11 EDT, LeliaLoban@-----.com said:
> Mark Charette wrote,
> > But (using Lelia's post as a springboard only) - what's so bad
> > about copying, especially when first learning a piece?
>
> History vacillates on this issue and so do I. After all, Renaissance
> art teachers started their students off by assigning them to copy
> great paintings. Many art teachers still use this method. Copying
> does teach muscle memory and some of the fundamentals, but there are
> some drawbacks. I think that when students form too much of a habit
> of copying, or when they *only* copy for too many years, without
> original assignments, they can teach themselves not to think.
Music is a bit different from painting, of course.
But as always, it's a question of 'where you are' when you do something
that determines whether that 'something' is productive or
counterproductive. Copying -- because it requires careful listening --
may be the ideal thing for a particular someone to do.
I said in one of the three posts I made that Tom's attitude, for where
he was, seemed to me an ideal one.
My main issue was about the inadvisability of writing what someone else
did *into the text*.
The text/performance relation is an example of the map/territory
relation. Famously, the map isn't the territory, and not everything in
the territory gets onto the map.
Speaking roughly, performance is about creating a territory that
corresponds to the map. It's wonderful that there are different
territories that correspond to the same map.
Performance, though, is not about *changing the map*. Or, not in the
classical tradition, anyway.
Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
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