Klarinet Archive - Posting 000048.txt from 2004/07

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Anger etc.
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 06:49:56 -0400

On 2 Jul, "Noel Taylor" <r.n.taylor@-----.uk> wrote:

> ....I remember Tony Pay saying he avoided seeking to put emotion into his
> clarinet playing (I hope I got that right), and I found it very curious and
> thought provoking. I tend to enjoy my own playing when I can feel my own
> emotional energy getting into the music - whether I feel sad or happy or
> angry - I get the deepest satisfaction from finding a voice for those
> feelings.

What I was probably trying to say was that music has its own emotional
dimension, and we need to find what that is in order to convey it. The
metaphor, "I put my emotion into the music" just gets the player into
trouble, and you can hear people getting themselves into trouble that way if
you're sensitive to such things. It makes what they do sound 'untruthful'.

> I don't claim this makes for 'good' music - but I have noticed that
> audiences or other musicians will pick up and respond.

Yes, the expression of any emotion tends to have an effect on the audience.
But a performer is most successful when they find the emotional/intellectual
path that lies closest to what the music 'wants to express'. (I don't know
how to put it better than that -- as Isadora Duncan said, if I could tell you
what it meant it wouldn't be necessary to *dance* it.) Then, what they
produce seems to have the quality of 'truthfulness' as well as aliveness.

> At other times I go kind of musically dead - I can play the notes in all
> the right places and it may sound like music, but everything lacks
> conviction, nothing is sustained.

Yes, you don't want that.

> So, in the case of anger or even the mildly unhinged rage we all sometimes
> probably feel - how do other people process those still lingering feelings
> when they play? Do they get in the way, or can you use them constructively?

There used to be a performance workshop called 'The Mastery' -- I think it
may have a different name now. It was primarily for actors, but quite a few
musicians did it too. One of the several realisations delivered by this
workshop was that if you resist the experiencing of strong emotion to the
extent that you can't choose to express it, then that stops all your
emotional expression from being convincing. And, paradoxically, the same is
true if you resist the experiencing of strong emotion to the extent that you
can't choose to *not* express it.

So, someone who can't bring themselves to shout, can't speak quietly
expressively. And someone who can't *not* shout, can't speak loudly
expressively.

The key seems to be in the possibility, not in the actuality.

Another resonant thing the workshop used to talk about was that a performer
needs to 'create their own creativity'.

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

... Monday is the root of all evil!

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