Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2018-11-14 08:17
Hi Dreamer.
"You cannot play both as an art and with absolute scientific precision at the same time." That recalls something great pianist Artur Schnabel said at a recording session. The engineer asked him if he wanted to rerecord a passage where he'd made a technical error. Schnabel declined, saying words to the effect of "I could play it more correctly, but I can't play it any better."
Art doesn't require absolute precision, but it certainly requires some. Precision lets a performer project just what they intend to. The closer their playing matches their intentions, the better.
Precision does not hurt art, and they don't inherently exclude each other. Great musicians don't need to spend much focus on technical execution as they play - they've got it fully wired in. There are many recordings of fabulous musical performances that were technically impeccable.
They may be rather more similarly great performances with varyingly frequent mistakes. There are also some wild performances of uniquely great interpretations combined with a good deal of technical, ah, approximation. The musical values were still communicated. But the sense of difficulty can distract listeners. Of course, some music is written to be difficult just to incorporate that tension.
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