 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: oca
Date: 2012-01-08 02:31
Here is the situation:
They I and all the other competitors have the piece memorized.
We will be required to play 20 measures from the piece.
We will play in a random order from a room where the judge cannot see who is playing.
The piece contains 16th note runs, legato passages, staccato runs, and dynamics.
I have everything memorized. My tone and articulation are solid; I'm assuming that the major difference stems from the equipment each clarinetist is using. Given that each clarinetist plays everything correct, how can I put myself above the competition?
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2012-01-08 02:37
Equipment matters very little. Play accurately and musically and take your time. Nothing sounds worse to me than someone rushing through something. Enjoy every note and rest.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-08 02:37
"I'm assuming that the major difference stems from the equipment each clarinetist is using. Given that each clarinetist plays everything correct, how can I put myself above the competition?"
Step one is to throw that assumption out in the garbage.
Step two is to realize that "correct" is both a poor and fundamentally flawed metric by which to judge a musical performance.
There are lots more steps, but these two are critical.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2012-01-08 02:42
Dave and EEBaum are correct: It's not the equipment at all. It's how you perform.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-01-08 02:55
Oca -
Read all the written instructions carefully, and listen hard to the oral instructions. If you don't follow them exactly, you will be downgraded. Even if you're told to play a single note followed by a rest, play the note and the rest, in strict time. A big part of success in a band or orchestra is following directions, and you'll often be tested on this.
After that, the most frequent reason for downgrading is inaccurate rhythm, particularly on long notes and in the length of rests. Work with a metronome until everything is perfectly even. Only when you have that foundation can you depart from it for musical purposes. Count twice as hard during rests as you do playing notes.
Play a little slower than your best speed. If the judges want to hear it faster, they'll ask, and you will have the advantage of having just played it slow.
Never play faster than perfect.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
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Author: bethmhil
Date: 2012-01-08 04:38
Assuming that you have worked up the piece correctly and have adhered to the requirements Ken mentioned, the biggest thing that will set you apart from everyone else is to play musically. Put as much energy and contrast into phrasing as possible. Anyone can memorize notes and rhythms on a page... it takes tremendous skill to play a piece musically from memory.
BMH
Illinois State University, BME and BM Performance
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-01-08 16:33
I recall Clark Brody's description of the Chicago Symphony audition in which Larry Combs came out on top. Naturally Combs clearly played the most beautifully but of all the competitors (hundreds), Brody said only a handful played with good rhythm.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: oca
Date: 2012-01-08 20:10
Thanks guys! Play in tempo (slower works toward your advantage) and musically.
So what is playing musically?
Beth mentioned putting energy and contrast into phrasing. What exactly is that?
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-08 20:37
What is playing musically?
This is a question I've struggled with for 18 years. Finally I think I've found how it relates to my performances. Two things that I find important on this subject are crescendo and decrescendo to develop the musical phrase, and landing (slightly stressing) on the important notes in the piece. To do this, you will need to understand the music, it's harmonic structure throughout, it's movement through the piece, and what the piece means to you. I'm not saying you need to break it down Dm, A7, blah blah, but understand the feeling of it.
An example: There's a small phrase in a piece I'm playing. The piece is in 3/4 time, and in a major key, and the phrase is the opening phrase. It's an etude with no accompaniment. The phrase goes, half note ![[A4]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/a4.gif) quarter ![[D5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/d5.gif) quarter ![[F#5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/gb5.gif) quarter ![[E5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/e5.gif) quarter quarter . I start the phrase soft in the first measure, crecendo into the second measure (f#), and decrescendo into the last note (d). I land on the last D not with force, but with a slight stress, so signify to the listener that it is the end of the phrase.
This principle hopefully you'll be able to use in the piece you are working on. Good luck.
A side note: There's other ways to play this phrase. You could slightly stress the first a, Or stress f#, but the way I've described it works for me. There is no one way to play musically. It's all interpretation.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2012-01-08 20:44
"playing musically" - simply said, don't play like a robot but try (within the limits of good taste) to interpret the piece.
Is that piece supposed to convey happiness, or is it of a more melancholic nature? Mendelsson's Spring song has a different tenor (for lack of a better word) than Satie's Gymnopédies.
Play lyrical passages (like the theme from "La Strada") differently than rather "mechanical" passages (eg the bassoon line in the Sorcerer's Apprentice) which better be played with impeccable precision.
Play them as you think the composer wanted it to sound like. Don't overdo it, though, and have friends comment on different ways of playing.
--
Ben
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-08 20:47
To add to Ben's suggestion, I'd say DO overdo it, at least in practice. Play it for people in a way that's overdoing it, and see if THEY think you've overdone it. Your definition of overdone may be someone else's of tame, and this will also help you get a notion of just how far you can take something.
I typically hear people underdo things more than overdo. Consider it a broad spectrum, on which you're constantly seeking the elusive sweet spot. Get comfortable with the entire space.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-01-08 22:33
The next step up from technical and rhythmic accuracy is the realization that musical phrasing is based on harmony. It isn't everything, but it's the foundation of musicality.
Think of your skeleton. It supports your body and also determines its shape. You couldn't have three arms, because there are no bones for a third arm. Artists study anatomy, beginning with the skeleton, because you can't draw something without knowing what's possible and not possible. Even if you decide to draw a person with 3 arms, you'd have to imagine what the bones would look like.
Exactly the same thing applies to music. A chord is like a bone in the skeleton. Changes of chord are like joints. The muscles have a shape and can move parts of the body only because they are attached to the skeleton. To understand how phrases work, you must know what the underlying harmony is and where it changes.
Thus, you should take a pencil and look at the harmony in the score. Put in a vertical mark every time it changes. These marks will show you where your phrases begin and end, or at least change direction. When you study music theory, you'll learn about chord progressions. They are like the bones and joints. The melody lies over the harmony.
Go to http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=20&i=768&t=768.
There is much more. For example, Tony Pay's articles Phrasing in Contention http://woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/Phrasing.pdf and The Cocktail Party Theory of Classical Music http://test.woodwind.org/oboe/BBoard/read.html?f=20&i=687&t=687 take the subject well beyond the subject of harmony. However, you can't run until you learn to walk. Get your harmonic understanding mastered first.
This may be more than you can do between now and the contest date. If your technique and rhythm are solid, you'll be miles ahead of almost everyone else.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2012-01-09 03:40
Assuming several play it very accurately, smoothly, good clean articulation and phrased well it will come down to personal taste in tone quality, intonation and what the judge considers to me the most musical, all which depends on personal taste. ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-01-09 16:08
My problems with "musicality" are dominating my practice these days; and I fear that the advice given here will be hard for our auditionee to apply to the current problem of doing the best possible job on that upcoming audition.
There is all sorts of advice available. It is hard to understand, and it needs to be focused on the particular piece you are working on.
Here's what happens to me: I will work diligently on a new piece (at the rate of, maybe, 2 pages per week. Then, I will expose it to my teacher and be fetched up short with the fact that he can sight read it with more expressivity than I've been able to muster.
This happened most recently with the Sarabande from the first of Bach's Cello Suites. (It has just two repeated 8-measure sections.) I'd been sort of mimicking YoYom Ma's playing from youTube. Teacher's comment: "Nice... But there are a couple of things you might want to think about..."
That meant that we spent the rest of the hour poking into it.
Here are some of the mark-ups. They'll make sense if you look at a copy. IMSLP has it for free:
In what follows, I identify the notes by their duration and order because there are several transcriptions in different keys, and that might confuse the discussion.
Tempo: 1/8 = 69
Support your tone.
*last three of the 1/16ths in measure two are pickups to the 2nd beat 1/4 note.
*cresc/decresc over the 1/8th notes ending measure 2 and starting measure 3.
*Play the 1/64ths i measure 3 cleanly, and don't rush them.
*Last 1/8 in measure 3 is a pickup to the 1/16ths in measure 4.
*Breath before the last 1/8th in measure 4.
*After arppegiating the double stops leading to the 1/4 note in measure 4, start the trill from above.
*Linger on the last 1/8th in measure 5, but don't break rhythm, and it is a pickup to the 1/16ths in measure 5.
*Trill the dotted 1/8th, starting on the main note.
*Break the slur between the dotted1/8 and the 1/16 in measure 5 to breath.
*Play the last 1/16ths of measure 5 very evenly.
*Do NOT cresc on the last 1/16ths of measure 5, just let the rising pitch bring them out.
*The last 1/16ths of measure 5 are pickups to the FIRST 1/16th of measure 6.
*The last three 1/16ths of measure 6 are pickups to the dotted 1/8th.
*Trill the dotted 1/8th, starting on the main note.
*Do NOT breath between the dotted 1/8th and the 1/32nd.
*Cresc starting on the 1/32nds in measure 6 through the first couple of 1/16ths in measure 7.
*The last 3 1/16ths of measure 7 are pickups to the 1/16th that starts the 2nd beat of the measure.
*Accel (fairly sharply) through the end of measure 7.
*Legato tongue the last 1/16 of measure 7
*Dim from the end of measure 7
*Recover to tempo by the repeat at the end of measure 8.
*Substantial dim on the first 1/4 of measure 8
*Linger on the last beat of measure 8 before repeating or continuing with the second 8--measure segment.
If you've read this far, you get the idea. The second 8-measures take about the same amount of diligence.
This, although detailed, is relatively simple because all of the harmonies are right there where you can see them, not off in the strings or brass where you'd need to study the score to understand how what you are about to do will fit with the entire harmonic thread.
Bob Phillips
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-09 17:36
Damn, that's a lot of notes, Bob.
I'd say that's a step to get possibilities in your head, and a decent pedagogical exercise. A good way to expand your repertoire of ideas.
However, as far as musicality goes, I find it far more effective to enhance your ability to make decisions like that on the fly rather than pre-planning every minutiae. Perhaps the moment takes you to start a crescendo a couple beats later, and this causes a chain reaction... as a result, you can either stick with your initial plan, which will now sound out of context, or look at what possibilities this fleeting change has opened up.
I would approach musicality as a micro-improvisation atop the score. You still play all the proper notes at the proper rhythm and so forth, but everything NOT on the page becomes a product of the moment. Something that may work one time may not work the next, and I recommend getting comfortable with and embracing that aspect.
Within the confines of something as benign as a single accent, there are countless tiny grades of louder or softer or more or less pointed or harder or lighter or a faster or slower decay or very slight offsets in the placement of the attack and so on. Each of those may change matters for the notes that follow. Play with this.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-09 17:50
I'm not really sure how much improvisation a conductor wants you to do in his orchestra. This can be a unit of 100 players, and if you have 100 improvisors, things might start sounding like a washing machine. Now if you're a soloist, or part of a rock band or jazz band, improvisation is key, but I'm not sure when applying of an orchestral position that is a skill that will be deemed an asset. I think Bob's got the right idea. It looks like a lot written down, but as you continue to do this technique on all your pieces, it will come more quickly. Good luck.
Drew
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-09 17:55
I will beg to differ on that entirely, Drew. I think the lack of willingness to improvise within proper confines is the chief factor leading to lackluster "phoning it in" performances.
The improvisation all happens within a context, and it happens in response to what's going on around you. A section string player will have a lot less latitude for improvisation than the solo trumpet, but there is latitude nonetheless.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-09 18:06
Fair enough, I'm not an orchestral player, and don't know what it takes to get an orchestral gig. Maybe Jason is around to give us a bit of info on his experience landing a job as an orchestral clarinetist.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2012-01-09 18:59
Dear Mr. Sramek:
Have you ever:
a) been on the jury of a professional audition?
or
b) won a professional audition?
I suspect not, given your point of view.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-09 19:23
Care to elaborate as to why you think that, rmk?
I haven't been in those situations, and frankly I don't care to. I have performed gigs alongside professional orchestra players, however, and I believe my opinion to be sound as far as making quality music goes. These slight improvisations lead to dynamic performances, and they build on each other. This awareness and willingness to go out on a limb and take chances and commit is what makes the difference between a compelling performance and a lackluster one.
It may be a question of terminology, as I know many classical players avoid the word "improvisation" like the plague for some reason I can't fathom. Perhaps they call it "that little extra something" or "sensitivity to context" or "listening and matching", but these are all decisions to be made on the fly, whether in response to your own playing or to everyone else's, or to the slightest flick of the conductor's hand.
Without these improvisations, we're effectively midi.
What I do hear, time and time again, from student ensembles to professionals, is a disconnect between those that are flexible and sensitive to the moment and those that have a set gameplan. I recall a particular performance by a pro orchestra of Scheherazade, where the bassoonist played the most exquisite solo I've ever heard, bringing out incredible nuance, playfully melding every line to flow into the next, opening so many subtle stylistic doors for the rest of the ensemble to build on. It was followed by a shamefully drab "this is how I played it for the audition" flute solo that killed the rest of the movement.
If the conductor wants it different, if the soloist plays it different, if the trumpet comes in a hair faster than everyone else, if you yourself futz up an articulation, you can either put your blinders on and pretend it didn't happen, or you can embrace the possibilities that have just opened themselves. Once you realize that you can take the LEAD in such circumstances, the doors open further. A conductor shouldn't have to forcibly drag ideas out of the group and pull and push them along. The musicians should offer ideas to the conductor, which he can then encourage or discourage. It's a two-way dialogue.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2012-01-09 19:56
And besides, there's a reason that music is "played" rather than "carried out" or - shudder - "executed".
In all seriousness, music is supposed to delight the listener as well as the performer. We might want to show that from time to time...
--
Ben
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-01-09 21:50
Since we're talking about an audition, the first question is: what is the player auditioning FOR?
I'd say that your first consideration should be to try to demonstrate the abilities that are required for the position you are trying to fill.
You might be auditioning for a solo position; you might be auditioning for an orchestral position; you might be auditioning for a band position; etc etc.
You might even be auditioning for a particularly picky music director. If you want to succeed, you could ask: what is HE/SHE looking for?
And so on.
The excellence with which you provide that demonstration, if you're any good, will speak for itself.
Tony
Post Edited (2012-01-10 03:08)
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2012-01-09 22:09
"Care to elaborate as to why you think that, rmk?"
...and then:
"I haven't been in those situations, and frankly I don't care to."
QED
-------------------------------------------------
Look, I know from reading your posts you have little if any respect for those of us that make a living playing in an orchestra. Fair enough; you are entitled to your opinions.
But please don't give misleading advice just to further your agenda.
One performs at auditions differently than for an audience. As a matter of fact, you need to play differently in a first round than in a final. This pertains to tempi dynamics, and other aspects of interpretation.
I doubt anyone who "improvises" during the Scherzo from Midsummer Night's Dream will get very far.
That's not to say one shouldn't play musically, but there are certain parameters one must adhere to. To me, "improvising" connotes a free-for-all approach that is not appropriate in an audition setting.
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-09 22:39
Tony has a good point, know your audience, give them what they want. If you don't know what is expected of you, then you're going to have a tough time providing a good experience. If you can get any extra info on what style of musician the judges have liked in the past, that could be a good start. If there's no other information, just be yourself, hope for the best, and learn from your experience.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-01-09 23:08
........ and if you want some good snippets of what an excerpt should sound like, start going through the Vandoren TV website and look at some of those videos such as Carbonare's and Eugene Mondie's. They give you a sense of how these pieces should be "under the fingers" at a moments notice.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-09 23:18
>>"Look, I know from reading your posts you have little if any respect for those of us that make a living playing in an orchestra. Fair enough; you are entitled to your opinions."
I hardly think that's a fair assessment. I have plenty of respect for the profession, but I also believe that a lot of the system biases itself against what I would consider musicality. My comment was in response to how to play something musical, not about how to win orchestral auditions, and I for one do not find those aspects to be incompatible.
>>"To me, "improvising" connotes a free-for-all approach that is not appropriate in an audition setting."
As I said, I think it's a problem of terminology. I'm not talking about big "I'm going to play it crazy different today" changes, but rather a sort of micro-improvisation, an awareness of the minutiae that can be controlled, enjoyed, and exploited for greater musicality during a performance. The aspects that make a passage less mechanical, more alive, the things that add a little shine or sparkle or interest. Those, in my opinion and my experience, cannot be planned.
And it also plenty applies to an audition. There are too many variables... jitters, temperature, humidity, reed condition, breakfast, who else you saw that morning, a pad that only that morning found itself slightly dislodged, what the traffic situation was like, what inanity was on the news last night. These all have the potential to affect your performance and state of mind and internal rhythm and so on. If you have not established the capability to respond to what has come out of your instrument in a confident, graceful manner, bad things happen.
Planning isn't a bad thing, but planning with flexibility is key. If you have all your breaths planned out, but you take a smaller breath at the audition, your crescendo will probably be out of whack and your staccato perhaps sluggish. How do you recover? By pretending it never happened, or by taking it for what it is, responding on your feet, and playing as if you meant to do that all along? It will take some modification of the rest of the passage to recover gracefully, and THAT is the kind of improvisation I'm talking about. Not "here are some random extra notes" or "I'm going to slow this all down", but "so ALL my staccato have to be a bit rough, and the dynamic will stay down a bit until I find another opportunity to crank it up."
Without this awareness and flexibility, you have the crash-and-burn auditions, or the "I don't know what happened" or "I was having an off day" or "it just wasn't there."
When I improvise in, say, folk bands, a helpful skill to develop is the ability to play a completely random note, then find a way to make that note make sense in the context of the piece. Perhaps I make it into an appogiatura or a passing tone or a suspension or an anticipation of a melody come. On rare occasions I'll end up digging a hole so deep for myself that the only way out is a wild atonal solo.
In classical, the situation is no different, only that the confines of this improvisation are orders of magnitude more narrow. You can't choose to play a different note, but that note may be a few hundredths of a second shorter followed by a space that's a few hundredths of a second longer. The envelope might have a slightly sharper decay and a slightly shallower release. Your forte may be a couple tenths of a dB louder or softer than before. Depending on the context, you may have more latitude than that.
Even within a line on a Tchaik symphony, there is a great deal of space within a passage of music that is entirely up to the discretion of the performer. It's what makes the second trombonist crack a smile when he hears that you subtly imitated the oboist's attack in the passage before. Use this space.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-09 23:22
What I guess I'm suggesting is that musicality and improvisation are intertwined, inextricable, and that some level of improvisation, appropriate to the context, is crucial to a vibrant, musical performance.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-10 00:12
It seems like the term improvisation is taking on a lot of meanings right now. I'm not sure that improvisation is the right term to use when describing classical music. Any time I've ever seen a composer write "Improvise!" In a piece of music, it definitely has meant something that should never be done at an audition.
Whenever I perform anything, I always know my exit plans. I have my main route, but I also have additional routes, just in case the first one gets blocked. If I get something in my nose, or have to cough, or just plain don't breathe right, I'm sure to know where I can recover musically. I'm always sure to know my trouble spots and my tendancies as a player. You never play a piece the same twice. Your dynamics will always be different. Your fermatas and caesuras will have different lengths. Your reed will respond in a different manner, but I'd hardly call this improvisation. Maybe just going along with the tide. You cannot ever be too prepared. The more preparation you have, the more confidence you will exude.
Drew
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-01-10 00:29
Drew,
I am certainly not the only person here that has played professionally, "won" an audition, nor sat on an audition committee on this forum....
*Aside from avoiding the obvious things that will "out" a player immediately as lacking the basic skills for the position, I certainly won't say "do this and don't do that."
*It is situation-dependent as Tony stated..... it's best to start with the knowledge of what the position calls for.
Just one "for instance" out of many factors: in an orchestral audition, it may just help to know the context in which an orchestral "excerpt" lies. Interpretive decisions made could be quite dependent on that. Of course, the skill with which you illustrate that knowledge is what matters in the end.
*Aside from stating 'vet the source of advice', I'd prefer stay out of the "musicality" tract as it is evolving into an argument that I want no part of publicly.... with one caveat:
I would say that whatever "musical" decisions are made, starting with the music itself is not a bad choice. If you choose to divert, it's your burden to show why.
*Be flexible. First, the "meaning" you wish to convey to the committee may not vary, but the method in which you transmit it could- based on acoustics for one example. Secondly, be able to adapt if the committee asks you to repeat a passage with an alteration; an inability to do so may show them something much more important.
Sorry to be less than specific on this matter.
-Jason
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2012-01-10 00:44
Semantics, perhaps.
I consider it improvisation because I see a difference between ignoring and shrugging off what you just played in order to continue with a plan, and forcing yourself to respond to what you just played in order to make it make sense.
I find it to be an important distinction. The former relies on you having a plan, and a backup plan, and you're always mitigating things that didn't go right, and if something goes wrong, you're trying to salvage the passage. The latter, you play something, and the result of what you just played dictates the possibilities for the rest of the passage, and as long as you're still within the appropriate context, there IS no "didn't go right".
It's a matter of embracing what just happened, not compensating and distracting and covering up what didn't go according to plan. Contingency is the tool of preparation, flexibility is the tool of improv.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-01-11 18:40
No one seems to have followed up on my last post; so suffice it to say that Daryl's essay is worth reading in order to resolve the seeming disagreement about the role of improvisation in performance.
The fact is, all good players improvise in Daryl's sense. Another way of saying that is that they are 'alive' when they play; my own way of putting that is that they are always 'responding to context'. That's what living things do.
But it's a bit more than that, because they're not necessarily responding as alive PLAYERS. They're responding as PARTS of an alive MUSIC -- which is why the sort of concentration on individual clarinettists that we often see here is misplaced.
I imagine that that's what Eric is getting at in his question in the Marcellus/Debussy thread. ARE they great performances? Well, hmm...looked at from the point of view of the piece, they're OK, but probably Marcellus himself would have wanted the piece to be better represented had he heard them.
I'm reminded of a radio interview of the great Nathan Milstein by Pinchas Zuckerman. Pinky was asking, how do you bow the beginning of, I don't know, some tricky Bach piece. Do you vibrato beforehand, do you put the bow on the string, what are you thinking of?
Milstein smiled, and said, "I just try not to spoil the note."
And I think that what we do when we play the Debussy is: we try not to spoil it. It's not about OUR performances, really. It's about what the Debussy IS.
I think that Marcellus might have wanted a greater variety of character had he heard these recordings.
Ken Shaw wrote, in part:
>> ...you can't run until you learn to walk. Get your harmonic understanding mastered first.>>
I think it's more like 'dancing' than 'running'. Kids can begin to dance very early. If you say that harmony is the fundamental thing, then you teach people to overly underline it.
Imagine telling someone reading poetry that the RHYME is the important thing, or telling them that the METRE is the important thing, or telling them that the MEANING is the important thing; and then telling them to underline THAT (whichever of the three you chose) when they read aloud.
The truth is that the three things interact dynamically, creating the possibility of a variety of readings. And, it is a great help if you have an early and instinctive appreciation of that interaction -- which is why, in the case of musical performance, the reduction of 'expressiveness' to the naive McGill system is so damaging.
In the musical analogy, harmony is slightly like rhyme, because YOU CAN'T AVOID IT -- it's there whether you underline it or not. Musical metre and musical phrasing are pretty much on the same level, and as I say, CONTEND with each other.
Bob Phillips gave us his teacher's notes on a Bach Sarabande. I just went and played it to myself; and for what it's worth, I have to say that I disagree with practically all of them.
I want to say to Bob: 'expression' is not what you should try to 'put into' a piece. It's a rather silly word that people sometimes apply to the genuine aliveness that they sense when you play it 'how it is' for you -- after you've worked hard on it.
Actually, I'd probably hate the 'expressiveness' that you admire when your teacher sight-reads it, given what you say (s)he tells you.
Tony
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