Klarinet Archive - Posting 000344.txt from 2003/07

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Ignorance and competence
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 17:44:05 -0400

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 13:39:05 -0700 (PDT), claudia.zornow@-----.com said:

> Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > The usefulness of the article for us may be that reading it makes it
> > more plausible that we should concentrate our own attention in a
> > different direction.
>
> It's important that the direction we choose be a productive one.
> Has anyone on the list read Mark Salzman's novel "The Soloist"?
> It's about a former child prodigy cellist who at age 18 found
> himself unable to play in public and almost unable to bear his own
> playing in private because he had become so aware of tiny intonation
> flaws. Of course his issues are more complex than that, but the
> hyper-awareness is a symptom--and definitely not a productive trait.
> The book is a good one and I recommend it.

Claudia, I haven't read the book; but I will read it when I can get hold
of it.

You're right that what I was advocating is a concentration more on
'awareness of the situation' than on 'what to do'.

I do have to say, though, that my own quite wide experience of students
hasn't yet involved anyone with the degree of awareness of how their
playing fails to come up to scratch that you describe.

And, though I would of course want to guard against contributing to that
sort of inappropriate preoccupation if I were to encounter such a
student, I think that the overwhelming tendency is in the opposite
direction -- and is certainly in the opposite direction on this list.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... "Bother", said Pooh, as the read/write heads flew across the room.

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