On 6 December 2010 23:05, <[email protected]> wrote: > Movement of the musician(s) is one thing for solo music, another for > ensemble music.
Slightly off-topic, but I cannot resist my experience of playing sankyoku (music for an ensemble of three people) in Japan many years ago. The Japanese are not known for their grand gestures, expressive facial expressions or theatricals in everyday life. But what I experienced on stage went far beyond this For a public concert I was coupled to a koto and a sho player, both very, very high professionals. I was playing shamisen and a beginner on the instrument. We played Rokudan, _the_ classic instrumental instrumental piece of the danmono repertoire. There was no time for rehearsal, other pieces in other combinations of players (there were more musicians, also amateurs, and I was playing lute and guitar as well; a busy show for me) were more in need of rehearsing, and we were all pros anyway, so we'd manage. But did I get a shock! On stage my fellow musicians bowed to the audience, picked up their instruments and started. No cues, no gestures, no nothing. I played along, parallel seconds in the first measures! I must be wrong, I was thinking, but jumping ahead or backwards might make things worse, they are the real pros here, so I'll let them fix it. It needn't be fixed, the score had parallel seconds (I had not seen a score, just my part, and not heard the piece in this combination before). The gradual accellerandi and subtle microtonal changes in pitch were all done without visible cues. I felt so alone. But I also realised that I could actually play along; I survived. This experience has opened my ears in a way I had not experienced before. Ever since I need to rely so much less on visual clues from my fellow musicians. my two yen David -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [email protected] www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
