 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2006-11-28 17:03
Hi , I'm looking for the post which dealt with the listeners/audience perception of a musician who tries to play expressively vs a musician trying to focus on mechanical issues such as rhythm or other techniques. As I recall the outcome was the listener got it backwards......they found the technical playing to be more musical. I've looked in the Archives but have been unsuccessful in locating it so far. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks John
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-11-28 17:45
Interesting thread, despite the tangents and flames.
In a very old number of The Clarinet (perhaps the first series), I remember an article about playing the Mozart Trio on a 5 key clarinet. The writer said that he had to work so hard to get the notes out that he had no attention left for "musianship." Nevertheless, the audience loved his playing, probably becaue Mozart was such a genius in setting imporant notes on the instrument's strong notes, and unimportant ones on the instrument's weak ones, that everything came out right automatically.
Jean Hakes, a wonderful singr, said that even though Monteverdi was one of the greatest composers, he was frustrating to sing. He wrote out all the ornaments, and putting any "experession" into her singing spoiled everything. "It's about as much fun as singing a telephone book."
As a legal advocate, I learned that it's important to lay the facts out so that the concusion seems obvious, but not to say so. If you describe outrageous behavior, you want the judge or the jury to think "that's outrageous." If you say it yourself, you take the satisfaction away from the listener.
When I perform, I try not to drive home the musical point, but rather to let phrases unfold naturally. It's "the art that conceals art." Let the listener think "how beautiful" instead of saying it yourself.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2006-11-28 18:48
Hi, I don't think this is thread I was looking for. There was definitely a thread that mentioned the auditor's impression of the performer who focused on different aspects of playing. Perhaps it was a tangent of a different thread....sometimes tangents happen! Thanks John
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-11-28 21:03
Ken Shaw wrote:
>>In a very old number of The Clarinet (perhaps the first series), I remember an article about playing the Mozart Trio on a 5 key clarinet. The writer said that he had to work so hard to get the notes out that he had no attention left for "musicianship." Nevertheless, the audience loved his playing, probably because Mozart was such a genius in setting imporant notes on the instrument's strong notes, and unimportant ones on the instrument's weak ones, that everything came out right automatically.>>
I'd have another explanation of this, more in line with what you write later on. It's this: a great deal of what's important about playing goes on outside our awareness. That means that if we have to concentrate on something else, we may play better -- especially if what we'd usually be concentrating on is ourselves, and how good we are.
The following quotation from "Style, Grace and Primitive Art" by the English anthropologist Gregory Bateson is apposite:
"I am indebted to Dr Anthony Forge for a quotation from Isadora Duncan: 'If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.'
"Her statement is ambiguous. In terms of the rather vulgar premises of our culture, we would translate the statement to mean: 'There would then be no point in dancing it, because I could tell it to you, quicker and with less ambiguity, in words.' This interpretation goes along with the silly idea that it would be a good thing to be conscious of everything of which we are unconscious.
"But there is another possible meaning of Isadora Duncan's remark: If the message were the sort of message that could be communicated in words, there would be no point in dancing it, BUT IT IS NOT THAT SORT OF MESSAGE. It is, in fact, precisely the sort of message which would be falsified if communicated in words, because the use of words (other than poetry) would imply that this is a fully conscious and voluntary message, and this would be simply untrue.
"I believe that what Isadora Duncan or any artist is trying to communicate is more like: 'This is a particular sort of partly unconscious message. Let us engage in this particular sort of partly unconscious communication.' Or perhaps: 'This is a message about the interface between conscious and unconscious.'
"The message of SKILL of any sort must always be of this kind. The sensations and qualities of skill can never be put in words, and yet the fact of skill is conscious.
"The artist's dilemma is of a peculiar sort. He must practise in order to perform the craft components of his job. But to practise has always a double effect. It makes him, on the one hand, more able to do whatever it is he is attempting; and, on the other hand, by the phenomenon of habit formation, it makes him less aware of how he does it.
"If his attempt is to communicate about the unconscious components of his performance, then it follows that he is on a sort of moving stairway (or escalator) about whose position he is trying to communicate but whose movement is itself a function of his efforts to communicate.
"Clearly, his task is impossible, but, as has been remarked, some people do it very prettily."
Tony
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