Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-10-07 19:27
clarnibass wrote:
>> An example could be studying your favorite subject in university and realizing that to get your degree, you will probably need to learn things you actually don't want to learn at all. So some will give up, some will accept that and just do it, some will realize they actually like those things they never thought they would, and some might realize (after studying and undersatnd those things they don't like) that maybe a degree is not so important as they originally thought.... in spite of what your grandfather told you. Music is in many ways the same. >>
It seems to me that you're talking about your own choice to play the music that you want to play, rather than the music that perhaps you were expected to play -- and even the music that you thought at the beginning you might want to play.
Of course I understand that, and support you in making your own choice.
But I was rather talking about the requirements that I, and other lovers of already composed music -- including the whole canon of masterpieces for our instrument from just pre-Mozart to the present day -- might want to IMPOSE as a discipline on those who have already CHOSEN to continue with the task of playing it. It's our responsibility, I'd say.
Mike made a very good post that illustrated such a responsible attitude toward that task, as applied to the Copland concerto. Unfortunately, I can't comment in detail on his post, as I don't have a score with me. But I have made posts about the piece myself:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/09/000786.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/09/000792.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/09/000795.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/09/000817.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/09/000847.txt
...and I think that anyone playing the Copland should consider the issues raised in those posts.
And some parts of the long thread:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=184733&t=184698&v=f
...engage with some relevant issues, including the necessity of 'local' modulations of sound to deal adequately with such a piece as the Copland.
See, it just isn't good enough to encourage students to play it 'how you feel it', any more than it's enough to allow decisions about the piece to be determined by the 'market', as Silly Billy suggested here.
Students mostly aren't equipped to play the Copland concerto. They have limited techniques, most of them, and more importantly, limited ideas about how whatever technique they have might be appropriate to play it.
Of course, whatever discipline students go through, in the end they will choose their own voice. But if they have been left to their own devices, and therefore have a very limited range of options within which to choose, they will be disabled.
Ed said that he encouraged his students to listen to discs of famous players, and then to 'mix and match' what they happened to fancy in order to come up with their 'own' performance.
What a crappy way of engaging with the ever-fascinating task of finding the 'big picture' that Mike talked of.
Tony
Post Edited (2008-10-07 19:36)
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