Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-10 15:59
All right. I guess that (in the words of one prehistoric radio comedian) I got some 'splainin' to do.
Wicked:
Would you please take a second to check out what I wrote after the dash below? I think you might have stopped reading a bit early. Perhaps I pushed a button or two, for which I apologize.
(me)>> The benefits of sightreading probably ARE overrated – I think of it more as a by-product of good musicianship, a goal to shoot for, than a tool that develops other playing skills. <<
Getting the phone to keep ringing (a benefit of sightreading ability) isn't strictly a *playing* skill. It's a skill that earns you the privilege to *keep* playing. Even a few excellent musicians are poor sightreaders, although their phones don't ring as often, if at all.
I'm honestly a little conflicted that you agree with the rest of what I wrote. It's pretty damn cynical, although as someone whose musicianship far exceeds his reading skills, I think I come by that cynicism honestly. Music is something of a cynical pursuit even for pure art's sake. Idealistic in abstract, but often cynical in practice.
Bob:
>> (me)> "1939 is so long ago that it basically never even happened. " <
(you)>> I'm sure you are kidding; it was just before Pearl Harbor which has been well documented. <<
Only half-kidding. Talk to most well-educated people, read the popular press, and there's much more consciousness of what happened after Pearl Harbor than before it. (The exceptions in pop culture seem to be baseball and movies.) 60 years - more often 50 - is kind of the cutoff date for what the average person feels is relevant to their lives. What happened before that falls off into kind of a collective unconscious.
I by no means endorse this world view. But then again, I'm an old history major, and as I note above, a practicing cynic.
>> As I recall, the original post was regarding symphonic orchestral auditions. My experience involved school bands. <<
Well, on some basic level school band contests (now usually called competitions) are about encouraging ideals of musicianship, which in the right hands can take the young player to any level. I do agree that reading is much more important the higher you go. But it's important on more levels than ever now.
Frankly, symphonic music interests me only as a listener, so I hope I can be forgiven the digression to the bigger picture. Which I conclude herewith.
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