Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-30 13:05
Thanks for writing so thoughtfully, Mark.
I have nothing against any of your metaphors for vibrato. You're right that I have laboured a little making my own point, and perhaps I lumped you and Sue much too quickly together with the guy who wrote, 'life's too short'. Sorry about that.
The thing is, I suppose, that I spend a lot of my time not only playing but listening to other people playing. And a lot of those people I'm listening to are ones who are asking me what they need to do, or think about, in order to get better.
The difficulty with that is that it puts their attention on 'their' playing, as though that's a real, existing thing, consisting of 'their' sound, 'their' articulation, and 'their' vibrato (or not).
Whereas I'd say a more realistic description of what happens to an expert when they play is that they don't have their attention on anything like that. What they're rather asking themselves, moment by moment, is what the music wants (not what they want), and their attention is on trying their level best to produce it. Their playing will have identifying characteristics, perhaps, but that's not what they're thinking about.
(BTW I think that's why, on the very few occasions that an expert player finds everything very easy, their performance can begin to sound superficial, if they're not careful, because they start admiring themselves and 'their playing'; and contrariwise, the experience of having to work quite hard is not *necessarily* counterproductive to the listener.)
For this reason, teachers try to get their students' attention off themselves and on to something like, 'the discrepancy between what the music is currently requiring and what they're currently producing'. In other words, they try to get them to listen for *what's missing*. This process inevitably draws the student deeper into the music. It's still true that their likes and dislikes operate -- you can see that it's *them* who gets to decide what the music is requiring:-) -- but those likes and dislikes operate in a secondary role, and can even be over-ridden.
Another way of saying it is that it's as though the piece itself becomes their teacher -- which is one reason why it's a good idea to expose yourself to the best music you can, and to play as much of it as you can.
Now, perhaps I'm wrong in this, but I think that we're talking here on this Bulletin Board essentially to players, even though there's a wide spectrum of ability. And because I think what I've just been describing is so fundamental to what being a good player means at all stages of development, I think it's worth encouraging them *all* in this direction, by talking in its terms. So instead of just saying, I like vibrato, therefore I play with vibrato, they'll tend to say, I think something special should happen on this note, let's try vibrato. (Or I suppose they might say, I'm going to play this passage with vibrato, but something special should happen on this note: let's try NON-vibrato!-)
You say at the end of your post that I seem to be dismissing the whole idea of personal taste, even my own. Well, so I am, in the sense above. It's because I'm a player. If I were just a listener -- or perhaps, *when* I'm just a listener -- I wouldn't need to.
Of course, none of us can actually do that completely in practice; but I'd have to say that there are other situations in which it can be a good idea to go in that direction.
If for example I have to decide which of several young players I think should be given money to continue their studies, I try not to let the fact that one of them has an idea different from my own of what the clarinet should sound like, influence me *too* much in that decision.
Instead, I try to ask what I would say are deeper questions about their music making.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-30 13:09)
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