 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Plonk
Date: 2010-09-21 17:59
I was just pondering this today:
Most of my friends and family who don't play an instrument/sing at all are hugely appreciative of almost anyone's attempt at live music, no matter what standard the perfomer is. For example, my mother-in-law cannot even sing "Happy Birthday to You" in tune but she is extremely enthusiastic whenever anyone picks up and plays an instrument. She shows equal enthusiasm whether it is a world-renowned professional performer, someone like me (advanced-ish amateur) or a 12-year-old novice stumbling through their grade 1 pieces.
As I child, I can remember thinking everyone in my school orchestra who was more advanced than me sounded pretty much "perfect", whereas if I listened to them now no doubt I'd be fairly critical of their playing.
However, as I've become a better player myself, I think I have also (of course) developed a more critical ear. I can't listen to a poor player without thinking about the fact that he/she is out of tune/plays wrong notes/doesn't breathe well/etc etc etc. I am sure this is probably true of everybody - as you improve, so you become more aware. But when I listen to pros, I can rarely put my finger on a concrete "criticism" - I can say I might not like the tone someone produces, but apart from that, to me, pros sound "perfect" in the same way as the kids at school did to my juvenile ears!
Which brings me to my questions, as there are a lot of top/pro players who read this board -
As you become more and more advanced in your instrument, do you continue to develop the ability to listen critically to such an extent that you could "pull apart" (for want of a better phrase) a top-notch player who in fact sounds "perfect" to fairly advanced amateurs like me?
and
Do you therefore actually enjoy other people's music making LESS as you improve yourself? (Can you listen to school bands churning stuff out without feeling any discomfort?!)
(I am a music grad, and I do remember while at university that there came a time when I couldn't listen to music (apart from brain-numbing pop/indie) any more for pleasure, because my brain wanted to analyse everything in depth and I couldn't switch it off. I think it's the same kind of thing?)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-09-21 21:51
I decided a long time ago that when I listen to a performance I try not to listen with a critical ear. That way I can actually enjoy the music and performance. Of course I notice the obvious but unless it's really a poor performance I just try to enjoy it. Of course when I used to teach and did juries, auditions and judging recitals I had to be critical but that's the exception. I find, especially with students, that they often don't listen so much to the performance as they do for the mistakes. Students are often the worst critics, It's sad and they don't learn that way. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2010-09-21 22:18
I'm not a pro, but I've also learned to listen to the music and appreciate the good things. I certainly have certain criticisms, but I attribute them more to the player than to that particular performance. For instance, I prefer the tone of one to another, I think one does a little more musically than another, that sorta thing.
There are CERTAINLY certain performances that I own that might have a squeak or squawk that I absolutely LOVE. And the squeak makes me love it MORE. It's a reminder that pros make mistakes from time to time too, and it reminds me that even the best have something to work on. A lot less than I have to work on, but something.
Alexi
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-09-21 22:31
Yes, the art of simply "appreciating" and "enjoying" is sometimes lost the more involved/educated/obsessed you are.
Of course, I squint at wrong notes, skewed harmonics or othe glitches, but I try to concentrate on groove and style.
My enthusiasm doesn't grow in a linear fashion with increasing perfection, however. Sometimes less is more, and the occasional blip may add a human touch to a performance.
Speaking of enthusiastic audiences: Cue Tex Avery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn7Su0A-inA#t=2m30s
(sorry, "making clickable" doesn't work with embedded "#" symbols)
--
Ben
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2010-09-21 22:40
There is an adult amateur Orchestra in England I think called 'The Really Bad Symphony Orchestra'. There was a documentary on TV once about them. To be able to even put a piece together they have to have at least one 'ring-in' (accomplished amateur player) for each section. When they have a performance somewhere the audience is mostly comprised of family members ect.
If that is the one, I found myself actually enjoying the 'drama' of it all.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-09-21 23:02
Barry Vincent wrote:
> There is an adult amateur Orchestra in England I think called
> 'The Really Bad Symphony Orchestra'.
That'd be the Really Terrible Orchestra where Alexander McCall Smith is playing the bassoon.
It's on my List of Things To Do or See When In Edinburgh...
--
Ben
Post Edited (2010-09-21 23:03)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2010-09-21 23:21
Victoria wrote:
>> As you become more and more advanced in your instrument, do you continue to develop the ability to listen critically to such an extent that you could "pull apart" (for want of a better phrase) a top-notch player who in fact sounds "perfect" to fairly advanced amateurs like me?>>
I think the thing to see is that you only become an advanced player by being critical of *yourself*. A really good player is constantly listening for what's missing, or what's wrong, in their own playing. Indeed, some of the life of a good performance can come about by accident in this process, as when a small discrepancy in someone's playing needs to be made retrospectively 'right' by playing the next bit in a different way.
That 'looking for what is wrong' habit can have an effect on a player's evaluation of others.
I can imagine several different cases. For example, if you have a very clearly defined idea of what someone else is trying to achieve in their performance, then you may be able to assess quite accurately the degree to which they succeed in achieving it. You might be critical of their whole enterprise, so that even though they succeeded in what they were trying to do, you don't think yourself that it was worth doing.
Or, you might be pleasantly surprised by their enterprise, so that you see a new way of doing something yourself.
>> Do you therefore actually enjoy other people's music making LESS as you improve yourself? (Can you listen to school bands churning stuff out without feeling any discomfort?!)>>
For myself, it depends very much on my mood. I do find that I can tolerate honest incompetence more than presumptuous incompetence, so if a player is obviously 'pleased with themselves', at the expense of the music, my response is instinctively harsher. (But actually, funnily enough, I can also experience that harshness of response when I hear exceptionally proficient playing that nevertheless seems to me to betray the music.)
It is possible to turn off your critical faculty to some extent, and just listen to the piece. But I think that the rewards of being able to take part in excellent professional performance can come with a cost. Mark Twain said that the Mississippi lost much of its magic for him when he learned to navigate it; see his Two Views of the Mississippi (a bit mangled in this link, sorry).
For an alternative argument, though, see this quote from Richard Feynman:
http://www.fieldstudy.com/Classes/Announcements/feynmanquote.htm
:-)
Tony
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-09-21 23:30
"...do you continue to develop the ability to listen critically to such an extent that you could "pull apart" (for want of a better phrase) a top-notch player who in fact sounds "perfect" to fairly advanced amateurs...?"
In my experience, yes.
"Do you therefore actually enjoy other people's music making LESS as you improve yourself?"
To one degree, yes. The drive to constantly improve and reach a level of music making that has a truly singing, expressive quality is one that leads me to be dissatisfied with anything less in myself--and that spills over into dissatisfaction with performers who fail to achieve those same goals.
On the other hand, the hyper awareness gained by the constant honing of this difficult art brings an even deeper level of appreciation and satisfaction from hearing the "real thing." J.J. Johnson playing "Georgia on my Mind", Sonny Rollins playing "You Don't Know What Love Is", Benny Goodman's final solo on "Sing Sing Sing" at Carnegie Hall: these performances reach a level of profound expression not reliant mere technical yardsticks. They are the essence of singing, transcending technique. Those joys get deeper, just as the dissatisfactions get more pronounced. It's a worthwhile tradeoff, in my opinion, especially if one is fortunate enough to actually begin reaching that more profound level of music making.
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2010-09-22 03:35
Thanks for that information Tictactux.
I've just read the Really Terrible Orchestra's web site , wow , they actually performed at Cadogan Hall London in 2007 and in New York (USA) at the Town Hall on April 1st 2009.
There's hope for some of us yet
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-09-22 05:52
Sensitivity to what's done poorly increases with time, as does sensitivity to what's done well. For every five, ten, maybe twenty performances I find lackluster that I might have liked before, there's one I find spectacular.
I've found a shift in my own perceptions over the past few years, from "man, they screwed this and that up" to "they were SO DARN CLOSE to playing it awesome, but this and that held them up." Sometimes an awesome moment where everything comes together can make an otherwise disastrous performance worthwhile.
I also regularly find myself screaming at the radio, whether it be "aw, hell, you're NOT EVEN FRICKIN TRYING!" or "THANK YOU!!! It's about darn time SOMEONE played that right! HECK YEAH!!!" Lately I've been trash-talking a Brahms recording to no end.
On another point, I know some seasoned-veteran performers who say they don't listen to music. Some part of it is wanting down time because music is work, but a lot of it is wanting some time for relaxation. As attuned as they are to nuance, they can't listen to a recording and NOT analyze all aspects of the performance.
As for school bands, I've actually come to enjoy them in another way. There are sounds produced by a school band that can never be produced by trained professionals. I was once channel surfing through the local public access stations, and I heard what sounded like some fantastically new spectralist minimalist string work with all sorts of overlapping rhythms, Grisey meets Gorecki with a dash of Meshuggah. It was awesome, probably one of the ten coolest things I've ever heard, easily a masters thesis project in composition. Due to the poor picture quality, I couldn't immediately tell who was playing. After about a minute, I realized it was a beginning middle school orchestra playing Greensleeves.
I now listen primarily for the exciting, the unexpected, the perspective. Unless it's distractingly bad, I could care less about missed notes. Everyone sees the notes on the page, and given enough time and practice, everyone can play the notes on the page. A page-perfect performance with no further opinion has peaked in its potential for musical awesomeness. A technically flawed performance where the performers put themselves on the line and do something meaningful or unconventional or uncomfortable or experimental or otherwise really cool is what I look for. I can imagine the botched note into correctness, and the group will have given me something I *wouldn't* have expected. A group that plays a piece without offering anything above and beyond, though, gives me nothing I couldn't have imagined on my own.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-09-22 16:15
As an amateur, I have indeed become more critical over time, but I also enjoy music more. I don't define "critical" as something negative. "Critical," to me, means "analytical." I understand what I'm hearing better now than I used to. Understanding is more enjoyable than not understanding.
Understanding does include making a value judgment: *This* is competent playing; *that* is incompetent playing; while *that* is both competent and inspired playing. But criticizing in the sense of understanding means a lot more: it means knowing why things sound the way they do.
Forty or fifty years ago, I don't think I could have listened to a clarinet performance and said to myself, "That's not a modern clarinet - it's a basset clarinet," or, "What's she using for a reed? Cast iron?" or, "Wah-wah-wah, he's moving his jaw around." And then there's the next level: "I love that sound. Let's see if I can figure out how to do that."
I apply the same standards to everything I hear, I think. I can't help it. A wrong note is a wrong note, whether it comes from a pro or a 9-year-old beginner. A squeak is a squeak is a squeak. But I separate this type of criticism into different kinds of understanding: What do I hear *and* what do I think about it? I hear the squeak, but if I hear it from the 9-year-old, I think, "Good - work in progress, accidents part of the learning experience, and since this kid's unafraid of making the mistakes, s/he can learn from them!" If the grammar school band sounds like the seventh circle of Hell, then I sit there quietly and politely and analyze -- speculate about things such as whether the teacher could've done something differently (such as choose less-advanced music) to avoid this outcome. But if a major symphony orchestra sounds like that, I probably wouldn't hiss and throw fruit, but I might stand up and walk out.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Bill G
Date: 2010-09-22 16:51
I am certainly not and accomplished performer, although people have paid me a lot of money over the years to experience my playing. However, I do have a point of view which I think can be valid for listeners of all levels.
Music is more than just notes perfectly played. One can enjoy a forest without looking for blemishes in the individualy trees; and in fact the imperfections can contribute to a uniqueness which surpasses perfection.
Bill G
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-09-22 17:02
Perfection is a red herring in musical performance. "Spectacularly awesome?" Yes. "Transcendent?" Occasionally. "Perfection?" No.
1) There are too many different, valid ways to do any given thing to have any sort of notion of what's perfect.
2) If you think you've heard perfection, I'd suggest there's more you could become aware of.
If I had a notion in my head of what musical perfection sounded like, I would stop playing music because there would be nothing left to explore. Solved problem. A notion of perfection sets an artificial ceiling of how good the performance could get.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Plonk
Date: 2010-09-22 17:13
Yes I agree Alex.
I put the word "perfect" in quotes because I don't mean it in its literal sense - I was just looking for one word which would mean "spectacularly awesome and/or transcendent and/or whatever floats your boat".
I mean "perfect" in the sense that the musical experience was 100% enjoyable without any negative (or even neutral, perhaps) feelings on the part of the listener.
I didn't really want this debate to be about whether or not a musical performance can be perfect - music is far too subjective.
Thanks for all the responses so far though!
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2010-09-28 06:00
Perfection is attainable and has been attained in many different fields at various times.
Familiarity often takes the edge off some perfect expressions of genius, but that doesn't make them any less perfect.
The Mozart clarinet concerto is perfect!
Good Bye Mr. Chips is perfect!
Snow Bound is a perfect poem!
The Geezer has spoken....
Clarinet Redux
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