Klarinet Archive - Posting 000073.txt from 2008/01

From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?sarah=20elbaz?=" <sarah@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Metaphor
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:47:05 -0500

Keith:
I seperated the Air and Metaphor topics.
Will write later... I work on Sunday :-)
Sarah

> -------Original Message-------
> From: Keith Bowen <bowenk@-----.com>
> Subject: RE: [kl] Metaphor
> Sent: 06 Jan '08 08:49
>
> Sarah,
>
> I absolutely agree that metaphor is very important in the teaching process,
> and we have to use it wherever we cannot employ a precise physical
> description. Thus, descriptions of breathing in terms of stomach muscles and
> diaphragm are not metaphors, but "support" is a (pretty good) metaphor.
>
> My point was that you have to find the right metaphor, one that instantly
> works with both teacher and student. Roger Scruton in "Aesthetics of Music",
> makes the important point that if you try to explain a metaphor it totally
> loses its impact. You have to know the metaphorical situation from your
> education or experience before you can use it as a metaphor. And if your
> student does not share that knowledge or experience then it is almost
> useless for teaching.
>
> I had such an experience once, when I was trying to improve my tone in a
> certain range (the higher part of the clarion register). I could hear that
> it needed improving, and two teachers had a go at helping. One said "You
> have to spin the air", which meant nothing at all to me. The other said "You
> have to focus the tone, you have to bring the fuzzy undefined bits into the
> core of the tone". Then I could do something with my mouth that worked. Both
> are metaphorical descriptions, no doubt air spinning meant something useful
> in the experience of the first teacher, but the second was the one that
> worked for me.
>
> Sometimes I think that teachers can start to believe that their own
> metaphors are physical fact. They can certainly come to believe that a
> student who does not understand their metaphors is at fault. Some metaphors
> are so deeply embedded in the way we perceive music that this is easy to do;
> for example we almost all think about "movement" in music, but this is not a
> literal, physical description (nothing moves in the linear, mechanical
> sense) but a metaphorical one.
>
> It's probably not quite true that you cannot learn a metaphor. The jargon of
> a profession includes ordinary words given, precise technical meanings (e.g.
> "dislocation" has equally precise but very different meanings to a physician
> and to a solid-state physicist), but also includes metaphors, such as (in
> our case) "movement" and "support". If the metaphor is sufficiently
> widespread it can be learned, essentially as a code. I'm sure that
> generations of students have asked "what do you mean by 'support' (in
> clarinet playing)?" and then gone on to use it themselves.
>
>
> Keith Bowen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: klarinet-return-92486-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org
> [mailto:klarinet-return-92486-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org] On Behalf
> Of sarah elbaz
> Sent: 06 January 2008 06:45
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] Metaphor
>
>
>
>
>
> >  
> > Lelia wrote
> >  >>I can't imagine a precise definition, one that doesn't depend on
> metaphor,
> >  
> > Keith wrote
> >  Lelia,
> >  
> >  I think this (metaphor) is the precise problem in communication.
>
> I find that the use of metaphor is extremly important in the teaching
> process.  
> We have to use words to describe a musical phenomen and the use of "every
> day" language
> will make it simple.  Metaphors belong to our imagination - and since music
> starts were our imagination ends
> (and this is also a metaphor...)
> that it the closest we can get to music with words.
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
> I>  
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