 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Piper
Date: 2004-10-13 01:05
A few days ago I read an article in the Aust Clarinet and Saxophone magazine on "The "Flow" State and Music Performance", (about the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Andreas Burzik) and started to apply it to my own practice. Really interesting, may be just what I have been searching for; its possible to get so caught up in technical stuff that you forget to feel. No that's wrong, because without technique you can't even start.
Anyway........ interesting ideas. I don't know whether the article can be accessed from their website yet, as its only just been published, but try www.clarinet-saxophone.asn.au if you're interested.
ttfn
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-10-13 02:28
Not TOO sure on the message of this post (whether it's bringing an article to attention or agreeing/disagreeing with it), but I'll work with it!
Quote:
its possible to get so caught up in technical stuff that you forget to feel. I agree completely. Sometimes you can hear a recording where the person gets all the notes correct, but maybe it just doesn't seem to have the energy or passion that the music seems like it SHOULD have.Quote:
No that's wrong, because without technique you can't even start. Technique and 'flow' really go hand in hand. You can't be an outstanding and truly notable performer if you don't have both. You can't have one without the other (much like "love and marriage" for those who know about that poor shoe salesman Al)
It's true (in my mind/ears) that a piece doesn't sound right if it doesn't have a certain 'flow'. Think about some pieces that maybe aren't technically demanding - for instance the second movement of Mozarts Clarinet Concerto which probably EVERYONE here can relate to. Not technically demanding in my opinion. But probably one of the hardest pieces I've ever heard/tried to play to get the message and feeling of across to an audience.
But on the flipside, like you stated above, you can't even ATTEMPT a piece like Rossini's Theme and Variations without having a great deal of technique.
I personally have found that when you can really feel out a piece and put your heart into it, the technique almost becomes easier. Instead of mashing out that diminished seventh run thinking about the notes and where your fingers have to go next, if you can picture the message and how it fits into the musical landscape of the piece, and are playing with as much feeling as you can muster, it becomes easier and seems to just, well, "flow".
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2004-10-13 15:14
Piper - Dr. Burzik (sp?) came to the VCA last year and gave a few talks. Now, VCA's ex-head of woodwind, Eve Newsome, is becoming a teacher on it and we've had a few lectures/classes on it. It's an incredibly powerful practise tool when used correctly and to it's maximum effect. I can't wait until it catches on and it's more widely-taught.
By the way, she plans on writing the firest ever book on it.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2004-10-13 15:26
sfalexi wrote: "Technique and 'flow' really go hand in hand. You can't be an outstanding and truly notable performer if you don't have both. You can't have one without the other (much like "love and marriage" for those who know about that poor shoe salesman Al)"
There are many great and very successful performers that don't have good technique. Miles Davis for example - definitely not the greatest trumpet player, but one of the best musicians. He was full of new ideas in his music so the lack of technique didn't matter much. Anotehr example is Monk. There are much better pianists, but try to play like Monk, and you will probably fail.
Much like love and marriage 'flow and technique don't necessarily go together.
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Author: sdr
Date: 2004-10-13 15:40
Suggest you read two books by bassist Barry Green:
The Inner Game of Music.
The Mastery of Music: 10 Pathways to True Artistry.
-sdr
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Author: Tom J.
Date: 2004-10-13 18:11
Piper wrote :
"its possible to get so caught up in technical stuff that you forget to feel."
Perhaps it is less important what the performer feels than what the audience feels because of what they are hearing.
What I suspect "flow" refers to is what I prefer to call "presentation", which is the confluence of tone, technique and musicianship that either moves or loses an audience. To sucessfully blend those three aspects requires discipline, not just mere feeling.
Post Edited (2004-10-13 18:21)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-10-13 20:17
Quote:
There are many great and very successful performers that don't have good technique. Miles Davis for example - definitely not the greatest trumpet player, but one of the best musicians. He was full of new ideas in his music so the lack of technique didn't matter much. Anotehr example is Monk. There are much better pianists, but try to play like Monk, and you will probably fail.
Much like love and marriage 'flow and technique don't necessarily go together. However these are jazz artists. Jazz allows more flexibility in which you can make up a lack of technique with style or creativity. In classical music, you are there to play and portray the COMPOSER'S ideas. If (s)he writes a piece that requires you to play a technically demanding piece, it's your DUTY to do so. Otherwise, whatever ensemble you are in will be looking around for someone who CAN outperform you technically. There's a reason that GBK, Ken Shaw, msloss, and other professionals on this board routinely say that playing through the Baermann III should be daily practice. And it's to keep your technique up to par.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: sbbishop
Date: 2004-10-13 21:09
As a lone amateur adult player, trying to figure things out by himself; I think technique comes first, artistry and feeling come second.
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2004-10-14 11:06
Erm... Flow is incredibly hard to explain. The simplest surface-explanation I can give is that it is a heightened state of awareness of one's body, their contact with the instrument, their technique, the sound (feedback) and how they're feeling.
Three major ares: Feeling, Feedback, and Contact. During Flow, you go between these things at an incredibly fast rate.
It's not a magical out-of-body experience: It's a heightened in-body experience!
__________________
Don't hate me because I play Leblanc! Buffet
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-10-14 11:18
Hi,
The whole question is simpler. When you play music versus when you play notes.
Take a simple comparison. Would you rather hear David Shiffrin play Twinkle. Twinkle, Little Star or have a 5th grade beginning clarinet player play the same piece. I believe even the most casual listener (parents excluded to avoid the River City Effect) will know which rendition has flow and which probably does not.
HRL
Post Edited (2004-10-15 01:13)
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2004-10-14 11:20
Technique must come before any real musicality can be conveyed. Because if you can't play it technically, the musicality won't come through - you won't be able to share the thought.
Now that's not to say that musicality shouldn't be taught from day 1 which I do. It's like learning to speak - learn how to and then express yourself.
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2004-10-14 11:43
Drawing from an older thread, I think this is where it's important for our students to hear us play their exercises from time to time so they can hear how these don't need to be just thumped out with the metronome wailing away in the background, but even simple exercises can be real music that touch your soul. It's amazing how arpeggios and major and minor scales can be played so beautifully if we only try.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2004-10-14 13:21
sfalexi worte: "In classical music, you are there to play and portray the COMPOSER'S ideas. If (s)he writes a piece that requires you to play a technically demanding piece, it's your DUTY to do so. Otherwise, whatever ensemble you are in will be looking around for someone who CAN outperform you technically."
Yes, if you want to get a job as a clarinetist in an orchestra or something like that, technique is probably the most important thing (or sometimes the only important thing). If that is all you want to do, that is fine, but look at the truely great clarinetists in the history like Benny Goodman, Eric Dolphy, and lets even consider Louis Sclavis as a modern example. Yes, they all had/have great technique, but that certainly wasn't what made them different than others. All 3 could easily play classical pieces with their technique, but they chose to do something more interesting and creative.
Another comparison can be Miles davis and Wallace Roonie (spelling?). Davis has medium technique but Roonie has amazing technique. Who would you prefer listening to?
Maybe I should emphesize that I am not against practicing technique. I think it's very important, but unless you have more than that, technique will useless.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2004-10-14 14:41
In my opinion, it is as simple as this: There are two basic aspects to musical performance -- technicality or technique and musicality.
By technicality or technique, I mean being technically able to play the notes, the the rhythms, etc. By musicality, I mean interpretting the music or putting feeling into it.
One cannot achieve musicality without a certain degree of technique. However, one does not need to be proficient in high-speed arpeggios to bring musicality to a piece that is not technically demanding. But being proficient at the level required by the piece makes it much easier to achieve musicality with it.
On the other hand, one can have technique without ever achieving musicality. One could learn to play the most difficult passages flawlessly but never achieve musicality. You could liken this to programming a synthesizer to play a piece of music -- rhythms will be perfect, no notes will be missed and all will be in tune, but there will be no feeling.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-14 15:01
There's more to playing than technique, which is only the skeleton or tool kit for making music.
I love the great musicians who are technically perfect -- Heifetz, John McCormack, Lipatti.
I love the great musicians who drop notes in profusion -- Rubinstein, Cortot, Schnabel. Monk's piano technique was rudimentary, but he made great music.
What counts is that each phrase has tensile strength and momentum -- that it goes someplace, based on its own integrity rather than anything you add.
With great players, the music seems to play itself -- they just let it come out naturally, in its own shape. That's not true, of course. This kind of "artlessness" comes only from intense study. (See, for example, Abram Chasins, Speaking of Pianists, in which he discusses his studies with Josef Hoffman, and Hoffman's concentration on the smallest details.)
The art that conceals art. That's my ideal. Even in pieces that are all about showing off your virtuosity, everything needs to come out of the music.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tom J.
Date: 2004-10-14 18:33
clarinibass wrote :
"There are many great and very successful performers that don't have good technique. Miles Davis for example - definitely not the greatest trumpet player, but one of the best musicians. He was full of new ideas in his music so the lack of technique didn't matter much."
The "successful performers" referred to must not be professionals because a professional must be competitive and faclility is a large factor. Also, the perception of inadequate technique may obscure the mastery that goes beyond dexterity.
The myth about Miles' playing is pervasive. When he had his early quintets with Red Garland, the young John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, and a few other technical wizards, his prodigious facility was very much in evidence.
Miles was influenced by the brilliance of Clifford Brown, as was Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Wynton Marsalis, many others. At some point Miles decided to diverge from that standard and incorporate certain non-Jazz elements, to the dismay of Jazz purists. He altered his "presentation" to include just enough facility to attract attention to his musical ideas, but not interfere with them. In concert music no such luxury exists since composers continue to record their specifications with meticulous, and sometimes tedious, detail.
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Author: Piper
Date: 2004-10-15 00:50
As Le White says "Flow is incredibly hard to explain. The simplest surface-explanation I can give is that it is a heightened state of awareness of one's body, their contact with the instrument, their technique, the sound (feedback) and how they're feeling."
Yes, that whole body awareness thing is incredibly exciting to experience when you are playing. It does remind me of the 'Inner Game' way of approaching music, but I am finding it a much more powerful tool to counteract muscular tension when playing. Also nervous tensionand mental tension, (or inability to totally focus on the music instead of negative emotional input or other distractions)
It seems to be a major technique for connecting technical aspects and musicality together.
btw, I wouldn't mind having technique like Miles Davis!
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2004-10-15 14:48
No offence, but I think you've all missed the point - only Piper seems to understand what Flow is. I know I couldn't explain it very clearly, and I'm sorry, but I think it's best that if you're interested in this 'new' technique, follow it up by doing some further reading.
Flow is not really talking about the difference between playing notes and playing music. That's a different subject.
__________________
Don't hate me because I play Leblanc! Buffet
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Author: claril
Date: 2005-06-20 13:44
I think unlike musicality, you can learn technique quite easily. In the flow state your technique improves incredibly.. Pity you can't just ask for that stae when giving a concert or exam..
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-06-20 15:04
I think that being in a flow state means that the oversight part of your brain is off duty, and you're deeper intelligence is "in charge" and working free of intellectual distractions.
In computer programming and other highly intellectual activities, it takes something like 20-minutes to get submerged in one's task. The practitioner is totally "in to it," and something like a telephone ring snaps him/er out of the flow state --suddenly awake and aware, and uncomfortable.
Great athletes experience the same mental condition. Their muscles, reactions and learned "technique" all operate through long training and perform to perfection. They are fast, lith, accurate, intuitive, anticipative --on the ball.
The musician must integrate both of these intellectual and physical elements to get "in the zone" and play wonderfully. The technique/athleticism must be there, of course --but only as an enabler. The self-appraisal must be submerged so that the creative flow, the excellence, can assert itself and make the performance wonderful.
Personally, I've managed to get "in the zone" and flow with my music only rarely --I remember an inspired jazz improvisation on Bach's Fuge in G-Minor as my college orchestra rehearsal broke up. It kept everyone quiet for several minutes --until their hissing a booing (required criticsm) snapped me out of it; and I've never been able to go back to that union of Bach and something else. I'm still searching.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Karel
Date: 2005-06-20 15:11
I have not been able to locate this article on the Australian Clarinet and Saxophone web site. Where else can it be found? Or other related material? Thanks in advance, Karel.
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-06-20 15:30
Clarnibass wrote: “There are many great and very successful performers that don't have good technique… Another example is Monk.”
Monk didn’t have good technique?
Well, he couldn’t play like, say, Art Tatum, but not many can do that. And he played with flat fingers, but big deal.
Saying that Monk didn’t have good technique is, to an extent, like saying that Basie didn’t have good technique. Just because he didn’t always play a lot of notes doesn’t mean that he couldn’t play a lot of notes.
Besides that, Monk was creative and innovative in ways that put him in a rare class of composers. Some have even compared him to Beethoven, and that’s not too much of a stretch. He would throw in notes that sounded discordant to most of the ears of the time. It has taken decades for the general public to get a clue—those who even listen to that kind of music.
I have a piano book of Monk’s music. (What kind of masochist would transcribe that?) All I can say is, if you don’t think Monk had good technique, you try to play it!
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