Surely there is nothing wrong with
postings (on a message board for
whistle players) discussing and even teaching
ornamentation and other whistle
technique. That’s an important
part of playing celtic whistle. Plainly
it doesn’t follow that anyone is
minimizing the importance of passion and simplicity.
I believe a quote from the great Johann S. Bach is in order here. When asked how he played the organ with such magnificent technique, he is said to have replied, “There is nothing very wonderful about it. You only have to hit the right notes at the right moment, and the instrument does the rest.”
Yet he also said, “Music’s only purpose should be for the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.”
A choice between technique or heart? Hardly.
Tom
And yet, Tom, the unfortunate truth is that there are many that cannot see the beauty in Bach’s music. They see it as stilted and mechanical; not full of heart or life. Go figure.
Erik
I think Bach’s music is the most
sublime and moving I’ve ever
heard. It’s interesting how some
of it was considered merely technical
until someone came along who played
it with passion–for instance, Pablo
Casals transformed the world’s
impression of the suites for unaccompanied
cello by playing them passionately.
And Glen Gould plays the keyboard
stuff with such passion, ferocity,
and dizzying technique that
many people feel they are hearing
the music for the first time.
I wonder what Bach
would have thought of such performances?
There is, you know, this old
tension and symbiosis in human
arts between passion and rationality
(technique, in this case I guess).
Passion without rationality is
howling; rationality without
passion is the typewriter clicking.
No art without both, yet they
are at war too–the pendulum
swings back and forth between them,
as in this thread.
One of the marks of a certain sort of
genius, I think,
is to find passion in what seems
to others to be merely rational
or technical, as Bach (and Casals) did.
I think it’s
tough to be a rational animal–
a sort of walking contradiction.
But I guess that’s where
human creativity comes from.
Last nights memory of some of the dynamics at a session, which I attended, combined with two (Bob’s and Peter’s) of the above posts, provoked me to some thoughts to share.
I liked 99.5 percent of Bob’s initial post or 202 out of 203 words. If I replace the word ‘crap’ with ‘stuff’, it gets a full 100 percent, keeps the points, changes the tone just a little. For one of Peter’s comments, taking the same word leaves:
… I think a few issues have been become mixed up in this discussion, music is emotion, communication and can only be played properly and meaningfully from the heart so far I agree, using the means at hand (i.e. ornamentation, technique) should not be dismissed …
Now I was thinking that, rather than mixing or dissecting the technical versus emotional; maybe we might talk about merging these dimensions of the music. Perhaps our discussions of technique and ornamentation, might be richer if we combine both; fingering technique as digital movement and emotional feel. When describing how to do a cut, roll, tap, slur, or fade; it might help to include what the ornament can add to the feel of a tune.
Let me try to demonstrate what I mean with description of a technique I call a ‘fade’.
A 'Fade" is what I call the technique of letting my breath trail off while holding a note. I start with a solid tone and then just let the blowing air relax away. The result is a tone that kind-of ‘fades’ off, sliding a little down pitch as the volume drops to nothing. If I’m playing an ethereal feeling air, doing a fade on the whole note at the end of a phrase can add a feeling of intangablility to the tune and enhance its mystical tone. It’s like the clear image of the note or phrase appears and then slowly melts into the mist.
I think one of the things we may have been missing in our discussions is relating the technical with the emotional. If we can relate playing techniques, or even the technical characteristic of a particular whistle to what the sound engenders in the heart; then this blending might give us a deeper understanding of both the execution of the technique and the spirit of the music.
I wish I’d seen that last night, I might have contributed more and gotten more out of the time at the session.
And as always …
\
Enjoy Your Music,
Lee Marsh
[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh … several times to clean-up spelling grammer, etc while Tom, Erik, and Jim made some of the same points ]
[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-01-09 13:23 ]
Please pardon my thinking out loud here, but I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep (never should have taken a nap today) puzzling over what it means to play with heart. It seems like most of us agree that songs should be played with heart.
Do we mean that all tunes should be melancholy? Or all tunes should be Waltzes played melancholily?
Or do we mean that they should be played with the emotion that they were intended? If this is the case, then I can only assume that there are a number of fabulous actors missing their calling as musicians.
Do we really think that every well played air must have a whistle player behind it that is feeling emotional? Or is it enough that the player knows how it should sound. Knows how that emotion sounds. And if that is the case, then that is simply a matter of learning the technical aspects of producing that sound.
And so I got to wondering if we don’t really mean that we should be playing with our ears. Isn’t that what we really mean - that we should be listening to what we play, not just regurgitating a combination of notes? That we should be listening for things like phrasing, breathing, dynamics, tension, other instruments…
What does a dance reel played with heart sound like? Doesn’t it just sound like a well played reel, where the players knew the cues of the other instruments and really listened for the dynamics of the group? And so the group really jived and everything fit together - it was the best tune you can remember being played. Surely this inspires emotion, but was it derived from it? What heart emotion, exactly, should they have as they play? Or is it simply great listening combined with honed technique?
So what do we mean by heart? Maybe I’m just being dense, but I’m thinking that when your heart isn’t into playing you loose interest and stop listening. (Like a lot of you at this point in my post). But your heart can be into playing (ie. your excited, all the emotions are there) and if you don’t listen you get junk.
So maybe that middle ground of Jim’s pendulum is listening.
Then again, maybe I should have stayed in bed, though I did manage to put myself to sleep.
Erik
[ This Message was edited by: ErikT on 2002-01-09 18:11 ]
And ErikT’s post is exactly the reason technique/technical stuff is discussed here. How does one discuss the “how to” of playing from the heart on a forum? Beyond stating that obvious stock phrase, what else can you say?
I would suggest that any pointers one gives on this board about playing from the heart would still be technical stuff.
Things like “don’t over-ornament or play a piece too fast”, “listen to X person’s version of…to see how she does it”, even “close your eyes and concentrate on [whatever] when you play” are themselves merely “techno crap” proffered helpfully on this board to help others play with feeling.
Heart is something we have to work out for ourselves.
BTW ErikT, I understood exactly what you meant.
Sorry, hit the wrong button. I didn’t mean to post a reply.
/bloomfield
[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-07-01 10:47 ]