 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 12:35
People have been using this phrase in various threads.
It's the wrong metaphor. You rather find what context (including emotion to whatever extent is appropriate) will have the written text 'be alive' as music; and then you play out of that context, including the emotion if it is there.
Like ham acting, 'ham' playing imposes an all-purpose, inauthentic, utility expressiveness on the material.
Notice that finding the 'context' has many ramifications: historical, technical and (unavoidably) personal.
"One must not search, one must find. Searching implies conscious manipulation. Finding is a result of devotion to a composer and his music." (Rudolf Kempe)
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: hans
Date: 2005-09-25 15:43
It may be the "wrong metaphor", but IMO most people intuitively understand what is meant by "Putting 'feeling' into the music" so that this is not something that needs to be "corrected".
Satis verborum.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: bryris
Date: 2005-09-25 15:48
[ Please don't quote an entire post unless it is very short - just the portions that are relevant to your point need to be quoted. Mark C. ]
"One must not search, one must find. Searching implies conscious manipulation. Finding is a result of devotion to a composer and his music." (Rudolf Kempe)"
Who?
The beauty of making music is that you can do your own thing with it. I have heard K622 played 50 different ways, and all communicate something just a tad different.
Post Edited (2005-09-25 15:51)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-25 15:58
I know many people that just seem to play a load of notes rather than playing a piece music.
And then they teach.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: joannew
Date: 2005-09-25 16:32
A very interesting metaphor, Tony, and one that could be interpreted in other fields as well as in music.
In science it is often tempting to try impose a "feeling" or interpretation onto your experimental system, whereas the idea of coming to understand your system such that you "find" what is already there is more likely to lead to real insight. Similarly understanding the context still must depend on historical, technological and personal factors.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 17:32
hans wrote: >> It may be the "wrong metaphor", but IMO most people intuitively understand what is meant by "Putting 'feeling' into the music" so that this is not something that needs to be "corrected".>>
You're wrong. Most people don't understand what is required to play music both straightforwardly and movingly. The misunderstanding embodied in the idea that you should 'put feeling into it' can be a particularly pernicious contribution to that, especially when hammered in at an early age.
On the other hand, many not particularly sophisticated musicians do understand it, and many 'celebrated' musicians don't.
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 17:36
bryris wrote: >> "One must not search, one must find. Searching implies conscious manipulation. Finding is a result of devotion to a composer and his music." (Rudolf Kempe)"
Who?>>
Now we have to applaud your lamentable ignorance?
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-09-25 17:51
And I don't know if it's been mentioned, but sometimes people COMPLETELY different feelings into the music. I posted up a very long time ago two clips of two people playing the same exact piece of music. Theme and Variations by Weber. The two people were Kathay Pope and Charles Neidich. And they both played it DRASTICALLY different. C. Neidich putting much more energy and zip into it while K. Pope played it very smooth and legato.
So is one more correct than the other? I don't know. I wasn't around when Weber composed it and wasn't there to ask him how he felt he wanted it performed. Did he want it slow and smooth? Or did he want it fast and staccato? Don't know. I know one appeals to me more than the other. But other than that, can we really fault one performer or the other for playing it drastically different?
Or has it been discussed how someone can put so much feeling into the music, that it almost in effect ruins the mode? Imagine trying to put "feeling" into a march and play a Sousa piece slow and legato. It just wouldn't work. Or how about (a situation I'm encountering right now), playing a chamber piece and having one person putting so much feeling into it that it's nearly impossible for the others to follow since there's almost no discernable tempo due to the constant rubato being used throughout the piece?
So while I agree that feeling really ought to be put into the music in order to really make it perform for the audience, it's a little up in the air as to what type. Some things are a "given". If a piece is in a minor key, my gut feeling would be to make it a little somber and sad.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's good to put feeling in there and not just "play the notes", but sometimes people don't realize that there are, or should be "limits" to this. I mean if I have to sit through Rossini's Theme and Variations, there's no way I'm going to make it if it's mechanical, nor if there's so much rubato and feeling in there that I can't discern a tempo.
Alexi
PS - I failed last time, but I'll try to post up those two clips of Neidich and Pope. I used my computer to snip three different areas (all the SAME spot), and splice them together. So you can directly compare the different ways Neidich and Pope approached the same piece, in three different areas of the piece.
US Army Japan Band
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-09-25 17:55
I think Tony's point is that a good many people think of "feeling" as something that can be attached to music at any time, just as you can put in "legato" or "German style" or "correct notes."
This "feeling" is often attached by means of wild bodily movements, schmaltzy rubato, exaggerated dynamic changes, and other "checklist" items.
If feeling is attached by such checklist items, it is usually tasteless and unauthentic. I hear it *all* the time.
Instead, authentic, meaningful feeling evolves out of one's understanding of the music, and is tied heavily to a consistent awareness of the direction of energy within the piece. I had the very good fortune to have played in ensembles for five years under the direction of a person who truly understood this and also knew how to help people learn to very gradually, eventually, achieve it.
Without full awareness of each note's relation to the overall phrase and the musical direction of each downbeat, a performance with feeling is almost impossible. However, once you start to know each note's place, in the phrase, in the bar, in the grand scheme of circles within circles within circles, the elusive "feeling" begins to happen automatically. At this point, the nuance that brings additional feeling becomes instinctive, and is extremely effective. Once consistent energy exists in a performance, aspects so commonly FORCED into music to attempt to emulate feeling practically suggest themselves to the performer, to pick and choose as s/he sees fit.
It is also quite difficult to maintain this for any significant period of time.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-09-25 18:03
sfalexi wrote: And I don't know if it's been mentioned, but sometimes people COMPLETELY different feelings into the music. I posted up a very long time ago two clips of two people playing the same exact piece of music.
I would suggest that these, as you described them, are not "feelings," but "interpretations." And I think the frequent lack of distinction between the two is part of the problem that Tony is suggesting.
Imagine trying to put "feeling" into a march and play a Sousa piece slow and legato. It just wouldn't work.
Why does "feeling" have to meen slow and legato? Another problem with people's conception of feeling.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's good to put feeling in there and not just "play the notes", but sometimes people don't realize that there are, or should be "limits" to this.
This applies to "putting feeling in," as you said, and I agree. "Putting feeling in" leads to inauthentic schmaltz. FINDING the feeling that the music offers is where it truly exists, and the music itself dictates the limits thereof.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tyler
Date: 2005-09-25 18:05
I agree with Tony's main point. Exaggerated hairpin dynamics alone will not give the audience a complete presentation of the m-u-s-i-c. Nor by exaggerated facial expressions and rapid changes between them will an actor or actress convey realistic emotions or tell a believable story.
-Tyler
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-09-25 18:08
Didn't mean for it to sound like "feeling" had to be slow and legato. It was just a good example to come up with (of how to take a piece of music and completely misinterpret what it's about).
Didn't think about the different interpretations though. I guess that's what it was in these two pieces of music. Got confused there. I guess they both put "feeling" into it, however into their respective interpretations (I think . . . sheesh. I starting to confuse myself. Time for a break from the internet . . . . )
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2005-09-25 18:25
I've always loved this quote, and perhaps I've started to understand it ...
"There can be no freedom without discipline." - Nadia Boulanger
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 18:32
sfalexi wrote: >> I guess they both put "feeling" into it, however into their respective interpretations (I think . . . sheesh. I'm starting to confuse myself.)>>
The problem goes away if you think of it the other way around. Different performers, each excellent in their own way, find that the music 'wants to come alive' in different ways. That's because they recognise different musical aspects of the text -- and because they have different backgrounds, and different sorts of knowledge about the music, and so on. They can't avoid that.
But they can all be 'authentic' because their attention is on what the music wants -- not on their 'putting feeling into it'.
Consider: some parts of many pieces don't live in the world of 'feeling' at all. You get what I call the 'cup of coffee' problem, when the musical equivalent of "would you like a cup of coffee?" gets played in a hypercharged manner, more appropriate to, "I've...I've always loved you!"
(So of course, the player isn't believable when the music talks later about love.)
And so on.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-09-25 18:33)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: bryris
Date: 2005-09-25 19:30
Tony,
I am ignorant, eh?
I think that music has been made so complicated over such a long period of time. Back in the really early times (I am ignorant, so I don't remember the exact time period), music was something that was considered so holy and sanctified that it was knowlingly altered and complicated with the intention of making it unreachable to the masses. It was intended to be something that only learned clergy could take part in.
It is human nature in any field (especially art) to try to make a subject more and more esoteric so as to make it more and more elite. You find this at the top of any field.
Regarding putting emotion into music, it also takes a knowledgable listener to be able to interpret what is happening. Art can be defined as the quality of communication. If it doesn't communicate well, regardless of how complicated one tries to make it, it doesn't serve its purpose as art. On the other hand, if one can put emotion into thier music in a specific way (as you mentioned should be done by learning the context of the music, composer, era, etc) and that interpretation can be perceived by the listener, well then I agree with you.
However, most people who listen to, say, chamber music in a concert setting, or orchestral music, etc aren't as learned as the people who are performing the music and who have likely (or I would assume) studied the music and have some acquaintance with its orign. This being the case, the goal then becomes to merely communicate. To communicate at all, someone must hear and understand what is being communicated. Making beautiful music has always been good enough for me. And, I think this has been good enough for most.
To try to complicate something further and to make it seem more and more out of reach to the mere diletante has no purpose and only serves to impede the purpose of music.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 20:45
bryris wrote: >> Tony, I am ignorant, eh?>>
Yes, you are ignorant. You didn't know who Rudolf Kempe was, and, more importantly, then didn't bother to find out -- which would have taken you a few seconds on the internet.
He was a great musician.
But you wrote other things, to the effect that music shouldn't be hijacked by complicated theories. In that, I agree with you.
What I want to say is that 'ordinary' audiences can actually hear the difference between:
...musicians who are telling the truth about the music they are playing, and:
...musicians who are merely 'telling the truth' about themselves(as if that were interesting).
But, audiences need to have this difference pointed out, because we live in a culture that actually applauds this sort of crappy self-aggrandizement.
"How POWERFULLY they EXPRESS THEMSELVES!!"
It's too easy to be caught up in this sort of [ snipped - GBK ]
And -- and this is my point -- if you're a performer caught up in it, then you need to extricate yourself for the sake of your soul.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-09-25 20:52)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-09-25 21:08
Audiences don't need it pointed out. It's the classical music world's obsession with "pointing things out to the unclean, uneducated masses" that gets us into a lot of messes to begin with.
We don't give people enough credit, and we don't play things well often enough. When something is truly well played, the audience knows it. They don't know why, but they do. There's a difference between "that guy was great" and "that music was right." If you do it right, people will know.
I would suggest that we play music really well SO seldom that the audience usually just finds something else to hang on to. A bunch of semi-forced feeling is often the best we give them. Perhaps this is why the Yannis of the world are so popular.
On another note, our director told us at the start of the semester that we are not playing to please the musicians, because we as musicians are impossible to please. He asked, "When was the last time you left a concert and said, 'That was excellent, I loved it.'?" No, he said, we always nitpick about some missed note or a passage that was played differently than we'd like it. Instead, we are playing for the non-musicians in the audience. If we play it well, they won't know why, but they'll like it better and want to hear it again, because it's just right.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-09-25 21:13
"When was the last time you left a concert and said, 'That was excellent, I loved it.'?"
I think I said that to myself in at least half the concerts I've been to.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2005-09-25 21:14
>>>>
But, audiences need to have this difference pointed out, because we live in a culture that actually applauds this sort of crappy self-aggrandizement
<<<<
<clap, clap, clap> Well said, Tony. (I do not agree with your narrow definition of ignorance, though)
But what in the world is the "truth about the music someone's playing"?
Boy, I must be a real dolt. All I usually can say after a performance is that I liked it or that I didn't, that it was stirring or boring, that the band did a 08-15 job or that they loved what they played.
Maybe we should listen with our hearts, not our heads. Thinking too often interferes with feeling.
--
Ben
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Grabnerwg
Date: 2005-09-25 21:36
When you look at the situation analytically, it is impossible to "put feeling into music". There simply is no qualitative or quantitative measure of what "feeling" the artist is putting into the music, or the listener is getting out of it.
Where one person may be deeply moved by a performance, another may be bored and annoyed.
I have always felt that those you tried to put "feeling" into the music are superimposing something from outside of the music, rather than bring out something from within the music.
This is not to say that I have not had some deeply personal and profound emotional moments in my past while performing. I had one such, several years ago, in a performance of the Mozart Quintet, particularly the in Adagio movement.
But I will say, that these moments come after many hours of rehearsal, study and concentration; when the music seems to flow out of itself, in an almost inevitable outpouring of what I deem, to the best of my ability, to be the composers intention.
Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com
really good clarinet mouthpieces
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2005-09-25 22:28
A certain amount of contrivance may be necessary at times. I can remember being told my my college clarinet professor to really exaggerate expressive dynamics that I thought were pretty reasonable. But he what he was trying to tell me was that I was not playing into a microphone, and that I would have to put out a sufficient amount of power and dynamic change to emotionally reach people who had to hear my sound live from 50 feet or more.
We also see this in theatre. On videotaped TV, actors can be very subtle since the camera is directing our vision and getting so close that you can count the actors' pores and see the slightest twitch. Contrast this with the live stage where makeup and costuming are rarely subtle, and performers must work to keep the viewer's attention at the proper place. Ever see an actress in makeup from point blank range? Or have you ever noticed an entire stage cast wheeling around in place to direct your attention to someone making an entrance or delivering a one-liner? Either will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.
And we can confront this same thing in our early instruction. One of the first needs that we encounter is to try and breathe some life in a half note or whole note. We also suffer from the overly academic approach that is taken to learning band and orchestra instruments. We often wait for teachers to explain the same thing to us that your guitar-playing counterparts are actually gleaning by listening to recordings.
I will agree with Tony that we often go overboard trying to make the instrument cry, while forgetting to make it laugh, shout or ponder. Perhaps we are trying to make up for those early years when we operated the horn as if we were blowing darts.
This might bring up a question. When we try so hard to teach phasing and expression, are we releasing the student's own talent, or smothering it in our own sensibilities?
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-09-25 22:31
What an enlightening and profound discussion, its hard for me to digest it. It does go well beyond the "sob" in Taps, and the ?grace notes? by the oboe in the Eroica [3rd mvt?] to the joy in Beeth's 6th and elsewhere. Just PM thots about feelings [uneducated]. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-09-27 18:06
I’m sitting with a copy of the Swedish magazine “Contemporary Music”. In this edition there is an article about Stravinsky’s booklet “The Poetics of Music”, a collection of lectures that Stravinsky gave at Harvard.
The article has the title “The interpreter-traitor or fellow musician”. The author gives examples of Stravinsky’s view on interpreters being demolishers of the written context of the music by polishing trivialities but losing the essentials. He was very disappointed with many of his contemporary musicians reading of the classics. They stood for a way of interpretation that he never could identify himself with, neither was it applicable to his own music.
He’s complaining about superficial virtuosos [and narcissistic soloists] who in their “misguided attention are wasting time by splitting hairs over a pianissimo not noticing the grave mistakes they commit to the context”. (My translation)
This shows that already Stravinsky had deep concerns about authenticity. He expected his music to be executed according to his intentions and his tradition, also that every musician has an obligation to be historically informed about whatever music they play.
As I understand him he’s complaining about musicians who are overdoing everything written but instead of striving for the composers intention and identification of the meaning of the context they put too much of their own “feelings” into the music and by doing so they destroy the work leaving themselves untouchable.
Alphie
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: chipper
Date: 2005-09-27 18:57
When I first started throwing pots on the wheel I would call the instructor over and say "look what came out of that hunk of clay." He was amazed that I thought the peice was expresive while he thought I had very little control of the media. Although a satisfactory piece was produced it was quite by chance and not through my own skill. As my skill level advanced I was able to take the raw clay and deliberatly shape it into the desired form. Sometimes I'd be emotionally detached from the process and sometimes I'd be fully involved on an emotional level. As long as I had the technical skill to produce the desired result there was no difference to the recipient of the piece. It was what it was in the end.
To relate this to music, each piece of music can be interperted in a variety of ways. A skilled musician can play the piece to the audience, it's mood and the particular place in time. So it is not the musician's place to preform a piece as the musician feels like it (unless alone in the practice room) but to play for the audience. And sometimes the musician's mood will match that of the audience and sometimes not, be that as it may, we are the public servants, not the other way 'round.
C
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-09-27 19:13
This topic brings to mind the following. At a rehearsal of a broadway show a nameless musician asked the conductor......"Is all this nuance really necessary?"
ps. to clarify, the musician did actually have a name. I am just refraining from using it. John
Freelance woodwind performer
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-09-27 19:18
There are many ways to play music right, but there is only one way of playing wrong: to not play it right.
Alphie
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-09-28 06:13
I am curious about..Mr Kempe's use of the word "find".......I don't know how he comes up with this. Do other people define" find "in the same way as Mr Kempe and Tony. If one finds a quarter on the street it doesn't matter whether you were looking for it or you were just out of for a walk. You still could find the quarter. Conscious manipulation would still get you the quarter. Perhaps music isn't the same as a quarter.
Carmine Caruso had many interesting teaching techniques. Many times if a student asked him how he should fix a problem in his playing. Carmine would respond "If I told you it wouldn't help you." The student had to go through a process and internalize the techniques. Trying to go directly wouldn't work. Perhaps the student had to" find" the solution and not "search" for the solution. I'm not sure.
Regarding "ignorance" is Mr Kempe more significant than Carmine Caruso?
Freelance woodwind performer
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Markael
Date: 2005-09-28 12:03
The phrase, "Put some feeling into the music" could mean different things in different contexts. If the phrase is a particular peeve of yours it might be tempting to react to its use with a lecture or rant without first trying to understand what the person is trying to say. I know I tend to do that with my peeves.
Sometimes it just means to be personally engaged with playing. Musicians who work long and hard on a piece must employ a great deal of effort and concentration to remain engaged.
Sometimes it is an invitation to move beyond self consciousness and mechanical concentration on notes, and to think abstractly rather than concretely. Mr. Holland told his student, "Play the sunset."
Sometimes it just means to lighten up, relax, and have fun.
Anyone who would take the discussion in this thread too much to heart might be terrified of playing a note for an audience.
A young seeker went to the great guru to find the meaning of life. He knew he must hang on to every word, every action, of this great man.
It was very cold. The young man noticed the guru blowing on his hands. "Sir, he asked, why do you blow on your hands?"
"Why, to warm them, of course."
Later they had lunch together, and the young man noticed the guru blowing on his soup. "Sir, why do you blow on your soup?"
"Why, to cool it, of course."
The young man turned away, knowing that only a fool would use the same action for both warming and cooling.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-09-28 13:42
Well put Markael..... I too think that Tony is being a bit literal with the interpretation of the expression "play with feeling" The expression "play with feeling" as Markael says does have some meaning. That meaning might be somewhat vague. If Tony is saying that you can't add this vague "feeling" to music without being artificial (like adding cream to coffee which seems to work) , maybe this is a bit exaggerated. I do see that a very calculated, methodical approach to "playing with feeling" might be inferior to just listening at length to music in the appropriate style and then letting it "happen" naturally. A holistic approach seems fine to me.....listen and imitate as well as analyze. After all that...just play and listen.
I do have one question regarding Mr. Kempe's use of the word "find". Does his use of the word come from a different language? ie Does it have a slightly different connotation in German, Italian, Spanish or French?. John
Freelance woodwind performer
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Sylvain
Date: 2005-09-28 18:25
Tony,
Thank you for the many articulated discussions on this matter. It seems you have been on a crusade to instill the somewhat provocative (although it shouldn't be) idea, that the musical text has to be respected and that it is not merely a guideline for self expression.
A classical musician to me is nothing more than an instrument to the composer. Sometimes the music leaves us no choice but to play it one and only one way. Sometimes, it tells us about sadness, and each performer has its own set of *tools* to express that feeling. But if our own experiences of sadness can help us reproduce that feeling in sound, it is not ours we express but that of the music we read.
There has been no better learning experience for me than playing chamber music. In small groups, it is often trivial to hear that self expression does not work, and that many times you really just have to go for "a cup of coffee".
On the other hand, I also wonder if some composers would enjoy some of the alterations musicians have made to their music. After all, somebody like Stolzmann has probably performed Mozart clarinet concerto many more times than Mozart heard it himself. Maybe some of Stolzman ideas would induce Mozart to do some alterations. There is some amount of creativity in all of us, and it is quite impossible to not let it slip into our performances.
But since they are rarely with us to discuss it, sticking to the text and our educated knowledge of its context is the *best* we can do.
-S
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Morrigan
Date: 2005-09-29 12:32
It all depends on what your audience's definition of music and expression are. Some will enjoy anything, some like watching a player who over-indulges and some like to hear 'just the composer'. Striking a balance will make your audience mostly like you, anything else is a gamble, unless you know your audience personally.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-09-29 17:45
Wow, Morrigan! I'm not sure that catering to the audience is the "ticket" here. The audience might be different in China , Italy or France but you wouldn't alter a Mozart interpretation because of their definition of music or expression. Would you? John
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2005-09-30 05:39)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ken
Date: 2005-09-29 23:29
I can't put my finger on it, but every time I read any Tony Pay's word-slinging I either come away feeling I'm in the presence of greatness or just got taken on a bad car deal...![[right]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie8.gif)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: rogerb40uk
Date: 2005-09-30 14:56
Tony Pay, Ken? Who???
No, I am not that lamentably ignorant.
I just wonder (again) whether the Emperor isn't actually naked :-D
Best regards
Roger
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: hans
Date: 2005-09-30 16:04
Roger,
IMO, the "emperor" could use a little humility too.
Regards,
Hans
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: DougR
Date: 2005-10-01 15:41
I'm sorry I don't have the book handy, but there's an illuminating anecdote in Barry Green's "The Inner Game of Music" involving an audience, a piece of music, and an instrumentalist behind a drape.
the unseen instrumentalist was asked to play the piece twice, and the audience was asked to listen carefully to each rendition.
The first time, the instruction to the musician was, "Play the piece with all the passion, feeling, and emotion you can muster."
The second time, the instruction was only whispered to the musician, who played again. The audience was asked to compare the two versions. Everyone agreed that the first rendition was well played, and the passion behind the music was evident. But the second version blew everyone away: it had sparkle and presence and clarity and cumulative emotional power that was orders of magnitude greater than the first version.
The second, whispered, instruction was, "Play the piece like a robot: interpret each dynamic, each articulation, with the scrupulousness of a computer. Make each staccato the perfect staccato, each mezzoforte the perfect mezzoforte, start each crescendo precisely as marked, end it as marked, make all note values and pitches as perfect as a computer would. Emotion is irrelevant; scrupulous precision is everything."
I heard a famous clarinetist recently. His playing (while extraordinary) was so full of what I call "precious sculpted moments" sprinkled throughout the performance, that sometimes it was hard to fathom the overall shape of the pieces he played (e.g., the 1st movements of the St.-Saens and the Chausson).
I guess it all depends on what one means by the word "feeling." Personally, I have a "feeling" that accuracy and fidelity to the written page ensure communicating the clarity of the piece, and (in my own playing at least) ought to come before anything else.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2005-10-01 16:10
I think that this feeds Tony's original point. The better the acoustics of your situation, the less you need to contrive anything at all. Just play the music.
To borrow one of his examples, imagine the coffee shop waitress as your audience.
Order your coffee without trying to be 'cute' about it, and then comment in a friendly way on her outfit or her 'flair'. Leave it at that, and you might make a small impression, maybe even start a brief conversation. (If, and only if, she has any desire to talk to you in the first place)
Order your coffee and say "I've always loved you, I come here just to see you, and I follow you home every night after work." (If you're into avant-garde, add "and I watch you through your window just to make sure you get to bed alright")
Could this be what's happened to classical and quasi-classical music, jazz, and live theatre?
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: rogerb40uk
Date: 2005-10-01 16:17
I think this is particularly true of singing.
I generally much prefer those who sing the words and music as they were written to those who 'interpret' it and inject what is sometimes called 'soul' :(
Although I'm not a 'qualified musician' I'm sure that classical music played on an instrument requires a much more disciplined approach, but one doesn't need to have a 'trained ear' to hear the differences between different performers playing the same piece.
(Mozart's CC is an example which comes to mind.)
When one who knows tells me that 'this' one is 'playing the notes as written' I usually find I've preferred 'this' one
Best regards
Roger
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2005-10-02 23:57
Singing is a good example, and the analogy works in a number of styles. As for more contemporary singing, I read with great amusement a local revue describing the singer's style as "Over-soul."
For players who emote too much, seeing such a singer might be like a visit from the Ghost of Christmas future.
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Markael
Date: 2005-10-03 00:47
"Oversoul" is quite common these days. When is the last time you heard the Star Spangled Banner sung straight?
There is, however, another aspect of singing, and also of instrumental renditions of vocal tunes: the lyrics.
I bring this up because I just finished listening to a discussion of the subject on Marian Mcpartland's Piano Jazz, and then I came home to discover that the latest post on the Board was on the subject of putting feeling into the music.
Dee Dee Bridgewater was Marian's guest, and her point was that the vocalist should be aware of the story line of the song and interpret the song accordingly.
She sang "When a Love Affair is Over" by Jobim. She pointed out that the protagonist, the singer of the song, is the one who ended the love affair. He/she felt it was necessary to make an abrupt, clean break, or else he/she would never be able to escape.
So this raises the question: Can singing or playing convey subtle differences in interpretations of a story line and its emotional character?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: rogerb40uk
Date: 2005-10-03 15:21
"So this raises the question: Can singing or playing convey subtle differences in interpretations of a story line and its emotional character?"
Well, singing certainly can; emphasising a different word in a line can change the meaning completely.
For example: "What now, my love...." v "What, NOW, my love?"
(It would be difficult to sing the second version to the same tune!)
Instrumental playing has less scope for this, I suppose, but I am not an experienced player.
Best regards
Roger
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
