>>> I don't like the word "imitation." I had a teacher once who told me,
>>> "imitation is the compliment mediocrity pays to genius."
>> Giorgio Vasari would disagree, and he did, describing repeatedly how
>> one
>> genius imitated another. It worked very well in Arts in the days of
>> yore,
>> and a phrase "he imitated me well" was much prized on letters of
>> recommendation...
> Certainly, "imitation," as another saying goes, "is the sincerest form
> of flattery"; hence, I am the master, and "he imitated me well." But
> I wonder how highly -prized was the phrase, "I imitated him well."
Equally so.
>>> I think of it as "emulating" an ideal rather than "imitating" a sound.
>> What's the difference?
> Good question, Roman. What I was thinking was: we can come as close
> as our understanding will bring us, to sensing from afar a
> centuries-old style of playing, but it's impossible to copy something
> we've never actually heard. So we end up re-creating something which
> ultimately resides in our minds. At least, that's how I see my own
> process of renaissance music making.
Indeed, but IMITATION puts one in an aesthetic framework that helps elude
ugliness. The ideal in never reachable, but at least our lutes look good.
RT
