Today, we continued to explore the ways in which music provides us a family.
Ideally, family and friends are people who will never abandon us. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.
David Dubal once told my class that music will never abandon us. I think this is true in virtually everyone's case. We develop a relationship with music from childhood, and that relationship continues and deepens, if we nurture it, for as long as we live. Family and friends may forsake us, but music will still be with us providing memory, catharsis, and a vehicle for expression. This is one way in which music is a great gift to humanity.
Two New Testament examples:
Paul and Silas had music as their companion in jail.
Jesus, in his most dire hour, quoted a psalm. On the cross, he remembered the words of scripture and found expression in a song.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
From Baltimore to Murfreesboro
Night before last, I drove back from Baltimore to Murfreesboro after spending three days in the William Garrison Collaborative Piano Competition. One of many wonderful aspects of the experience was the renewed sense of purpose and belonging here in Murfreesboro. This is home to me now, and as always, I was happy when I drove up the hill and around the curve to see the Murfreesboro skyline (a few street lights across a field.) A startled deer leapt from the roadside, across the ditch, and ran to dark woods.
I learned or re-learned lots of important lessons this weekend.
1. It is very good to view music-making in a broader context than the music itself. Jeff had chosen a set of sacred songs to include in our repertoire for the competition, and the judges chose several of those songs for us to perform. That allowed us to witness to our beliefs and to worship on Sunday morning at the same time we were performing for the judges.
2. Competitions that pit voices against instruments put judges in a tricky bind. Vocal and instrumental music are clearly different genres, are hard to compare and contrast, and many musicians tend to specialize in one or the other.
3. Playing in the competition confirmed, yet again, the importance of balance. From a technical standpoint, I ideally approach the instrument in such a way as to be active, but not to waste energy. That wasted energy can create tension and playing problems. I felt our performances had balance in another way. We maintained technical control while also engaging all of the passion within us to perform. Often, one of these can interfere with the other.
4. Unknowns create tension. Not trying out the instrument in the hall before playing, not knowing who the judges are, not knowing which works they will request to hear: all of these things made the semi-final round very tense.
5. Regarding our repertoire, we learned that the second of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets probably stands alone the best of the three.
6. The esoteric experience of playing for judges gave new life to my belief in the importance of performancing and the appropriateness of joy and freedom being part of performing in a normal public setting.
7. When you work hard applying all you've been taught, and when you know you've executed your plans well while managing yourself in relation to your environment, then you can have a sense of achievement and pride in your accomplishment that doesn't require affirmation from others.
Things I really liked about the weekend:
Spending three days with my good friend Jeff
Showing him around Baltimore
Seeing the renovations at Peabody
Being warmly welcomed by Mr. Shirley-Quirk and Dr. Falby at Peabody
Hearing Alan Walker's speech and Petri's Ricordanza recording
Visiting with other competitors and Peabody graduates, ushers, Liszt Society officers
Attending Mass
Staying at Ariel and Vivien's home
Thinking of my parents while on a breezy morning walk in the Dechosa's beautiful neighborhood
Ariel's prayers for us that encouraged us to boldly witness
Realizing the quality of colleagues I have at Chowan
Returning home to where I belong
I learned or re-learned lots of important lessons this weekend.
1. It is very good to view music-making in a broader context than the music itself. Jeff had chosen a set of sacred songs to include in our repertoire for the competition, and the judges chose several of those songs for us to perform. That allowed us to witness to our beliefs and to worship on Sunday morning at the same time we were performing for the judges.
2. Competitions that pit voices against instruments put judges in a tricky bind. Vocal and instrumental music are clearly different genres, are hard to compare and contrast, and many musicians tend to specialize in one or the other.
3. Playing in the competition confirmed, yet again, the importance of balance. From a technical standpoint, I ideally approach the instrument in such a way as to be active, but not to waste energy. That wasted energy can create tension and playing problems. I felt our performances had balance in another way. We maintained technical control while also engaging all of the passion within us to perform. Often, one of these can interfere with the other.
4. Unknowns create tension. Not trying out the instrument in the hall before playing, not knowing who the judges are, not knowing which works they will request to hear: all of these things made the semi-final round very tense.
5. Regarding our repertoire, we learned that the second of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets probably stands alone the best of the three.
6. The esoteric experience of playing for judges gave new life to my belief in the importance of performancing and the appropriateness of joy and freedom being part of performing in a normal public setting.
7. When you work hard applying all you've been taught, and when you know you've executed your plans well while managing yourself in relation to your environment, then you can have a sense of achievement and pride in your accomplishment that doesn't require affirmation from others.
Things I really liked about the weekend:
Spending three days with my good friend Jeff
Showing him around Baltimore
Seeing the renovations at Peabody
Being warmly welcomed by Mr. Shirley-Quirk and Dr. Falby at Peabody
Hearing Alan Walker's speech and Petri's Ricordanza recording
Visiting with other competitors and Peabody graduates, ushers, Liszt Society officers
Attending Mass
Staying at Ariel and Vivien's home
Thinking of my parents while on a breezy morning walk in the Dechosa's beautiful neighborhood
Ariel's prayers for us that encouraged us to boldly witness
Realizing the quality of colleagues I have at Chowan
Returning home to where I belong
Monday, September 10, 2007
Freshmen Devotionals
Today we read Gensis 1:1-5 - God bringing order to chaos.
The idea that the basis of creativity is the bringing of order goes against the commonly encountered stereotype of artists being disorderly, wild, irrational, etc.
Music students can also make creative works of their lives as they fashion well-ordered ways of working, resting, thinking, and so forth.
The idea that the basis of creativity is the bringing of order goes against the commonly encountered stereotype of artists being disorderly, wild, irrational, etc.
Music students can also make creative works of their lives as they fashion well-ordered ways of working, resting, thinking, and so forth.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Vision
Night before last was my first performance at Chowan. My friend Jeff Prillaman (tenor) joined me for this recital. It went well, and we had a great audience. Also, we continued to experiment on stage with out interpretations and came up with a few new ideas through that spontaneity.
My main post-recital reflection relates to planning.
One of my father's favorite Bible verses was Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It actually continues, "but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." But most often, we hear the first half quoted alone. When you read the entire proverb, it seems that the vision needed comes from God's law.
The name of the newsletter of my father's home church in Durham was "The Vision." When he had the opportunity later in life to name his own church's paper, he named it "The Vision," too.
So I've always had those words in my mind.
For a while, I paraphrased the verse as my own musical slogan "Where there is no plan, the music perishes." That was during the period after I realized that a totally spontaneous and emotional approach to interpretation is extremely problematic. I saw that I needed a vision - a plan - for performing.
I now believe the music doesn't need the interpretative plan to survive, except in extreme cases. The plan is more for me.
Having a specific plan for each passage of each work in a performance provides the performer many valuable things. First of all, you are provided with a narrow and clear path through the performance, and that protects you from many of the distractions - internal and external - that might compromise the focus and meaning of the performance. Second, you are provided a clear way to gauge your success when evaluating the performance afterwards.
Thinking on this issue of planning has brought me to a new thought about the nature of spontaneity. I wonder what the difference is between a spontaneous interpretive decision and a planned decision in terms of the listener's experience. When a critic praises spontaneity, on what grounds does he or she make the judgement that what the experience was a spontaneous happening? Sometimes my spontaneous playing has sounded planned to other musicians.
All of this leads me to yet another question, and it is a question about that seemingly illusive characteristic of performers - charisma. I think our culture tends to think of charisma as something the individual performer possesses. As I write, that strikes me as an odd stance in a mostly relativistic culture. Certain performers demonstrate tremendous charisma, but it is completely lost on some listeners. What are we to make of that?
As I understand them, sounds have absolute qualities related to physics. However, those qualities are perceived differently depending upon the makeup and functioning of one's ears. While I think I hear sounds the way they really are, a whale or a dog may hear very different aspects of those same sounds. The differences in perception exist not only between species, but also within the human race. Ears of different ages hear different aspects of sounds, too. These facts pinpoint the reality that the experience of music at the basic level of experiencing sound may vary widely from person to person, in spite of the absolute nature of the qualities of the work experienced. And these differences have nothing to do with personal preference or culture. They are rooted in absolute physical qualities of the hearing mechanism.
The preceding paragraph relates to my question about charisma in that it touches on the fact that perceptions of the same musical event vary widely from person to person, and that fact is built into the nature of things.
I sometimes pray that my music might be coordinated within God's will to touch specific listeners in the contexts of their lives - that musical experiences might work together with other life events to bring about good in lives of listeners. A listener may need to be musically inspired in a particular way at one point in his or her life but not at another. This need for inspiration has nothing to do with me, and the fulfillment of that need also transcends the score or my efforts.
Thus, I wonder if charisma is not a quality possessed by a performer, but a gift of experience that comes to listeners when they need it. Perhaps that was the way the people who invented the word understood the gift they were experiencing, and therefore created a word that means a grace, favor, a divine gift.
My main post-recital reflection relates to planning.
One of my father's favorite Bible verses was Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It actually continues, "but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." But most often, we hear the first half quoted alone. When you read the entire proverb, it seems that the vision needed comes from God's law.
The name of the newsletter of my father's home church in Durham was "The Vision." When he had the opportunity later in life to name his own church's paper, he named it "The Vision," too.
So I've always had those words in my mind.
For a while, I paraphrased the verse as my own musical slogan "Where there is no plan, the music perishes." That was during the period after I realized that a totally spontaneous and emotional approach to interpretation is extremely problematic. I saw that I needed a vision - a plan - for performing.
I now believe the music doesn't need the interpretative plan to survive, except in extreme cases. The plan is more for me.
Having a specific plan for each passage of each work in a performance provides the performer many valuable things. First of all, you are provided with a narrow and clear path through the performance, and that protects you from many of the distractions - internal and external - that might compromise the focus and meaning of the performance. Second, you are provided a clear way to gauge your success when evaluating the performance afterwards.
Thinking on this issue of planning has brought me to a new thought about the nature of spontaneity. I wonder what the difference is between a spontaneous interpretive decision and a planned decision in terms of the listener's experience. When a critic praises spontaneity, on what grounds does he or she make the judgement that what the experience was a spontaneous happening? Sometimes my spontaneous playing has sounded planned to other musicians.
All of this leads me to yet another question, and it is a question about that seemingly illusive characteristic of performers - charisma. I think our culture tends to think of charisma as something the individual performer possesses. As I write, that strikes me as an odd stance in a mostly relativistic culture. Certain performers demonstrate tremendous charisma, but it is completely lost on some listeners. What are we to make of that?
As I understand them, sounds have absolute qualities related to physics. However, those qualities are perceived differently depending upon the makeup and functioning of one's ears. While I think I hear sounds the way they really are, a whale or a dog may hear very different aspects of those same sounds. The differences in perception exist not only between species, but also within the human race. Ears of different ages hear different aspects of sounds, too. These facts pinpoint the reality that the experience of music at the basic level of experiencing sound may vary widely from person to person, in spite of the absolute nature of the qualities of the work experienced. And these differences have nothing to do with personal preference or culture. They are rooted in absolute physical qualities of the hearing mechanism.
The preceding paragraph relates to my question about charisma in that it touches on the fact that perceptions of the same musical event vary widely from person to person, and that fact is built into the nature of things.
I sometimes pray that my music might be coordinated within God's will to touch specific listeners in the contexts of their lives - that musical experiences might work together with other life events to bring about good in lives of listeners. A listener may need to be musically inspired in a particular way at one point in his or her life but not at another. This need for inspiration has nothing to do with me, and the fulfillment of that need also transcends the score or my efforts.
Thus, I wonder if charisma is not a quality possessed by a performer, but a gift of experience that comes to listeners when they need it. Perhaps that was the way the people who invented the word understood the gift they were experiencing, and therefore created a word that means a grace, favor, a divine gift.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti passed away this morning.
I was privileged to hear him once at the Met singing Giordano's Andrea Chenier in the mid-90s. I was struck by two things about him during that performance. The first was the richness of his voice that was not apparent from recordings. He wasn't singing especially well that evening, and didn't seem to be in good voice, but the stunning quality of his gift was still overwhelming.
The other thing was more of a surprise. His persona comes across strongly in videos, but it can give the wrong idea. In person onstage, he had great humility. As I experienced his performance, my sense was that he was concentrating on the same work with his voice as all the other singers were doing with their voices - only his voice shone more brightly, even in that cast of international opera stars.
I was privileged to hear him once at the Met singing Giordano's Andrea Chenier in the mid-90s. I was struck by two things about him during that performance. The first was the richness of his voice that was not apparent from recordings. He wasn't singing especially well that evening, and didn't seem to be in good voice, but the stunning quality of his gift was still overwhelming.
The other thing was more of a surprise. His persona comes across strongly in videos, but it can give the wrong idea. In person onstage, he had great humility. As I experienced his performance, my sense was that he was concentrating on the same work with his voice as all the other singers were doing with their voices - only his voice shone more brightly, even in that cast of international opera stars.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Freshmen Devotionals
On Mondays, I'm sharing a one-minute devotional thought with my first-year music theory class.
There are at least two themes to be developed in this context over the course of the semester:
creativity
music as a family
Our very first devotional referred to our being made in God's image. My friend Paul Scaringi pointed out to me that, at the point in Genesis at which we learn that we were made in God's image, one of the few things we know about God is that God creates. Perhaps being made in God's image means, in part, that we are creative beings, too.
Today's devotional dealt with one of the obvious things about music as a family. Families are groups of people with which we have meaningful relationships. Music provides us with similar groups of people.
It may be that music draws its practicioners closer together than some other disciplines do. Why might this be? In each piece of music we make together, we experience a life story in miniature: beginning, middle, end, with struggles and a climax, etc. Sharing these compressed and intense life experiences with other musicians can create strong emotional ties between us.
Being in music also gives us a group of people known as the audience. Even though we may not always feel like it, most audience members are on our side. They want to see us succeed and are proud when we do well. That's just the way our biological family members ought to root for us in life, even though not everybody's family always does so.
There are at least two themes to be developed in this context over the course of the semester:
creativity
music as a family
Our very first devotional referred to our being made in God's image. My friend Paul Scaringi pointed out to me that, at the point in Genesis at which we learn that we were made in God's image, one of the few things we know about God is that God creates. Perhaps being made in God's image means, in part, that we are creative beings, too.
Today's devotional dealt with one of the obvious things about music as a family. Families are groups of people with which we have meaningful relationships. Music provides us with similar groups of people.
It may be that music draws its practicioners closer together than some other disciplines do. Why might this be? In each piece of music we make together, we experience a life story in miniature: beginning, middle, end, with struggles and a climax, etc. Sharing these compressed and intense life experiences with other musicians can create strong emotional ties between us.
Being in music also gives us a group of people known as the audience. Even though we may not always feel like it, most audience members are on our side. They want to see us succeed and are proud when we do well. That's just the way our biological family members ought to root for us in life, even though not everybody's family always does so.
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