[CITTERN] Re: Memorization...

[Kevin McDermott]

Dear "other" Kevin :>)
Someone else has taken on the issue of improvisation....but allow me  
to address your point speaking strictly about the black dots on the  
page.

As I wrote previously, any notation is a representation of something,  
not the thing itself. The difference between a portrait, however  
lifelike, and the subject alive and standing in front of you is one of  
quiddity: one is the thing; the other is a representation of the thing.

However carefully notated, even presuming it was possible to notate  
every nuance of expression, a score is NOT music itself. Music itself  
has an internal logic and cohesion which is entirely independent of  
its written picture. It's the job of the performer to reanimate the  
written picture, and send it back into the world to which it is a  
native: that of sound vibrations in the air, to be perceived by ears  
and the brain attached to them.

If the performer doesn't do that--that is, add what the notes can't-- 
then yes, I think it's all too possible (and all too common) for  
performers to be much too dependent on the notes on the page.

But it's only....well, you know what I was going to write.

Cheers
"other other" Kevin

PS: another correspondent on this thread mentioned that to know how to  
play the beginning and the middle, one had to know how the piece would  
end. This is certainly true, but perhaps suggests that there's only  
one way to play a piece successfully. To me, music is like an  
algebraic equation; as long as it sums to zero, it works. There are a  
host of different variables that can be plugged in, and if they  
balance, you've solved it. If they don't.....well, you end up with an  
unsuccessful performance. But this balancing can, and I believe  
should, be done on the fly. If you understand the internal logic of  
the piece you can do as your heart commands in a given performance: if  
you feel you want to play faster here, then you'll know you have to  
play slower there to make it balance (rubato); if you build to a  
climax in one place, you'll have to find some way to not have that  
unbalance the whole. This freedom to reshape a piece a hundred times,  
and do it successfully a hundred times, is what makes music music and  
not a recording. Or so it seems to me.


On Apr 7, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Kevin Lawton wrote:

Sorry if I sound a little argumentative on this point,
but isn't describing a classical musician as 'much too
denendant on notes on a page' a little like describing
a Shakespearian actor as 'much too dependant upon the
written script' ?
Kevin.
--------------------
--- guy_and_liz Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

And I fully agree that most classically trained
musicians (myself included)
tend to be much too dependent on notes on a page. I
consider it one of my
biggest limitations, especially with cittern, which
I use mostly for
relatively informal music.

I suspect one good way to learn is to get involved
with some sort of folk
group that cittern could function in, where you have
little choice but to
improvise based on chord progressions or what have
you. IIRC, Jim Stimson
mentioned to me once that he played his cittern in
an Irish band on
occasion, which would probably be a great way to
learn. If I just had a bit
more time...

Guy


----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Hartig"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "cittern list" <cittern@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 12:00 PM
Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Memorization...



Hi all,

One thing I forgot to add in my previous message
is that the other
thing I have tried to do of late is to play music
away from the page
as much as possible. Since I have two small
children running around
the house now (one is 3 years old, the other just
turned 1), I don't
have a lot of opportunity to sit down with music
in front of me (and
not have it snatched, ripped, or pages turned when
I'm not ready!).
Instead (since they are still too small to reach
the instrument if I
play while standing!) I spend time playing tunes
out of my head, or
at least trying to "hear" a tune I'm familiar with
aurally and
recreate it on my instrument.

I have found that this has greatly assisted my
memorization skills in
that I am now equating "sounds" with "locations"
without regard for
notes on a page. It becomes the synthesis of body
and mind! This is,
of course, what all good musicians do
(instinctively or otherwise)
and is also the basis of improvisation. I use this
technique along
with the hearing/visualizing I mentioned earlier.

Of late I have been sight reading the tablature to
get a sense of
what the piece is supposed to sound like. Once I
have the "piece"
committed to memory as "sound," I spend the rest
of the time seeing
if I can figure out how to recreate that sound on
the instrument
until it is memorized. In some instances this has
resulted in me
fingering phrases differently than the notation
(which, once I've
discovered this, allows me to look back and see
*why* it may have
been written the way it was) or playing runs or
other phrases in the
spirit of the piece rather than what is written
(the "making music"
not "making early music" that Kevin referred to
earlier).

I could not agree with Guy more about the
importance of sight reading
skills. Tablature is a near-perfect medium for
sight reading;
unfortunately, I feel too many (myself, for one!)
have probably
fallen into the trap of not being able to escape
the reading!

Two more cents for a total of four from me,
Andrew



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