FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Music in Life's Context
I've been reading a really interesting interview with a well-known saxophonist from Seattle called Skerik. Although I'm not particularly familiar with this person's music, I was intrigued by his remarks to Glide Magazine because they confirm everything I've always felt about what is really important for a musician preparing a performance or recording :
Personally, I don't think it's even about age as much as it's about an awareness of self and one's environment. Yes, in order to be a great performer (and I'm certainly not claiming that I'm personally anywhere close to that state!) you need to have done the ground work, practised the scales and arpeggios, gotten to know the rhythms, keys and / or modes inside out, really made friends with your instrument of choice etc. - this supplies you with the technical 'knowledge' that Skerik refers to in the quote above. After that it all hangs on personality: what you have to say through the medium of music and then how you go about conveying those things.
In vocalists it's usually pretty clear who just sings the melody and who really thinks about what they're saying in the music, allows the individuality of their personality to interpret it and brings that understanding through in the nuances of their performance: bringing the lines and dots off the page and injecting life into them.
With instrumentalists it can be more difficult to sift through the technically brilliant performers to find the gems who really bring themselves to a gig, recital or recording session. I like to think, though, that the more we are involved in music the more tools we acquire to make this transition happen and so most of those who have found the time to perfect their instrumental technique will also have been afforded the opportunity to deal with the more important aspects of music. In many ways, though, listening to an imperfect effort that brings the audience closer to the performer(s) is more fulfilling for everyone involved than when an audience is subjected to a note-perfect but mechanical rendition - but the two positive elements combined can trigger the most profound response. This way, when you listen to a really good concert pianist, a rapper or a bass player, you get the benefit of finding out something about who they are - what they want to say, rather than just being shown a glorified programme.
...after a certain while there’s an amount of mechanical knowledge
absorbed. It’s mostly like a mental state. You can practice all you want, music
theory and technical stuff, but unless you have a philosophical idea on what
music should be and what life is, then none of that theory is going to help you
because you’re not going to have any context for it. So you get to a certain
age, after a certain amount of study, it’s more about building context and
philosophies for the music to exist in.
Personally, I don't think it's even about age as much as it's about an awareness of self and one's environment. Yes, in order to be a great performer (and I'm certainly not claiming that I'm personally anywhere close to that state!) you need to have done the ground work, practised the scales and arpeggios, gotten to know the rhythms, keys and / or modes inside out, really made friends with your instrument of choice etc. - this supplies you with the technical 'knowledge' that Skerik refers to in the quote above. After that it all hangs on personality: what you have to say through the medium of music and then how you go about conveying those things.
In vocalists it's usually pretty clear who just sings the melody and who really thinks about what they're saying in the music, allows the individuality of their personality to interpret it and brings that understanding through in the nuances of their performance: bringing the lines and dots off the page and injecting life into them.
With instrumentalists it can be more difficult to sift through the technically brilliant performers to find the gems who really bring themselves to a gig, recital or recording session. I like to think, though, that the more we are involved in music the more tools we acquire to make this transition happen and so most of those who have found the time to perfect their instrumental technique will also have been afforded the opportunity to deal with the more important aspects of music. In many ways, though, listening to an imperfect effort that brings the audience closer to the performer(s) is more fulfilling for everyone involved than when an audience is subjected to a note-perfect but mechanical rendition - but the two positive elements combined can trigger the most profound response. This way, when you listen to a really good concert pianist, a rapper or a bass player, you get the benefit of finding out something about who they are - what they want to say, rather than just being shown a glorified programme.
