 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-05-17 21:44
Responses in another thread made me want to say:
There is a profound difference between playing music in the first way, and in the second way above.
Expertise has nothing to do with it. Amateurs and professionals fall into both classes.
We all have experience of both ways of being.
The first amounts to following (any sort) of instruction.
The second amounts to what we do when we read a bedtime story to a child.
That's it!
One is the 'hard science' world, the other the 'world of communication'.
Tony
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Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-05-17 23:22
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying, to make an analogy, that "The Wizard of Oz" would have us dislike the so-called wicked witches of Longitude (East and West) -- because that's what were "suppose to do," while stories like the musical "Wicked," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(musical) which is somewhat of a prequel to the former, suggest a different story.
Or maybe are you saying that a marching band (more apt to follow musical rules that don't stray beyond 8th of 16th notes) plays a movement from a symphony different than the Viena Philharmonic?
Are you saying that science is in one corner, and communication in another, and never shall the two meet, despite effective communication being the cornerstone upon which discovery is shared? Or that, say, the study of acoustics doesn't lead to better communicating (intonation, sound, materials) clarinets?
Are you saying that when, for example, Buffet says its Greenline was created to "ease stresses on grenadilla," that what it wants to really say is "holy smokes, grenadilla is really running out," and what you are suppose to do is buy their greenline clarinets only?
Maybe none of the above.
And maybe your furnishing examples, particularly as they relate the clarinet world might be useful here.
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Author: ariel3
Date: 2014-05-18 03:53
Tony,
Thank you, thank you so much. I cannot tell you how much these few well chosen words mean to me. I shall carry this thought with me from now on.
Gene Hall
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-05-18 16:07
>> Are you saying that science is in one corner, and communication in another, and never shall the two meet, despite effective communication being the cornerstone upon which discovery is shared? Or that, say, the study of acoustics doesn't lead to better communicating (intonation, sound, materials) clarinets?>>
No, just that the world at any moment can be seen to consist either of objects subject to laws of motion, or instead to consist of communicating entities and their communications.
When you're playing, you want to be dancing with the world primarily under the second description -- as you are in the bedtime story.
People easily forget that.
Tony
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Author: ruben
Date: 2014-05-18 18:39
Mr. Pay: I think what we need from you is a book, which would give your thought time and space to develop and get through to the reader. A "thread", to use the barbaric IT word, will never accomplish this. If and when your book comes out, I will want to be be one of the first to read it.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2014-05-19 18:40
I think that "What you spozed to do" is important in terms of developing the tools to express what one wants to say through the music. That is technique in the broadest sense.
The other thought that I had when reading this thread is that how many of us have experienced a conductor actually expressing something they experience or want to express in the music and somebody pipes in with "So you want it softer?" or "You want it faster then?" rather than really processing and working with what the conductor has expressed.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-05-19 22:59
The important point, and it's easily missed by any of us, is that in:
"...the world at any moment can be seen to consist either of objects subject to laws of motion, or instead to consist of communicating entities and their communications."
...the words, 'at any moment' are crucial.
When you're developing tools, as in what you write above, consideration of objects subject to laws of motion can be crucial.
But when you're performing, consideration of what the music wants to communicate are more important.
I myself find that I operate in both modes as I perform, but I think it important always to ground myself in the second.
Occasionally, I do find myself exclusively in the second -- but that's a rare blessing.
A long time ago, I wrote something extended about all of this. It was apropos how we may bring up our children; the idea was to draw an analogy between 'non-coercive parenting' and musical performance, drawing heavily on Bateson's ideas. I may repost it here under another heading.
Tony
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