TubeNet

bloke wrote: - MUST all music convey emotions in order to be music?
...

From this point, I'm going to try to sit this one out and leave it to the intellectuals and deep thinkers with polished vocabularies.

I'm not one of them, but I'll stick in my $.02 anyways. I don't think it's possible for music not to convey emotion, even if you tried not to. No matter what the music, I think the listener will always feel something, some kind of emotion. I think whatever specific emotion is conveyed is what defines that piece of music.

The gal singing the solo in church today probably overdid the emotion stuff. I'd call it affected - a little too much American Idol influence I'd say. But there were probably plenty of people who liked it. Now take your Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor for organ, there you got yourself some mathematics. It's generally played unemotionally, but by the end, if done right, one is still left thinking "Wow!" and feeling some emotions.

I'd say it depends on the music. I wonder how much emotion one should throw into doing Pagliacci.

This is mostly re:musical/affected....and how to convey the emotion that you want of a piece....

My experience (and church choir director's view) is that in rehearsal/practice is when you the performer feel the emotion of a piece. and then through rehearsal you figure out how to produce that music to the audience. In the performance if you are really 'feeling the emotion' it sounds affected, and is often emotionally flat. When you give yourself to the technical presentation of that emotion, you present it to the audience and they feel it and it is 'musical'.

I remember taking a course during college called "Philosophy of Music" where we talked about almost the exact same thing. It is late and I am too tired to remember now, but I'll go over my notes and books tomorrow and throw out some of the various ideas we discussed.

-TM, too tired to go poking around the bookshelf right now

In photography (and other visual arts), most artists who produce work that I enjoy viewing believe that gimmicks are to be avoided. What's the difference between a gimmick and a technique? For me, that answer was easy: Did I notice the gimmick before I noticed the art? Stated another way, did the gimmick distract me from the art?

I once won a photo contest by taking a photo of a bike racer and reducing it down to pure black and white using line film. The composition was very direct when presented that simply. I tried the same trick the next year, but though the gimmick was executed flawlessly, the underlying composition was not consistent with that approach. One judge said that it wasn't enough to apply a fashionable technique well. It had to fit with the style of the image.

So, there's a difference between fashion and style.

C. S. Lewis wrote a short book called An Experiment in Criticism. He discusses the proper role of a literary critic, which he argues is not to complain about stuff. He argues that the critic's role is to present material in such a way that it widens the audience of people who might like such material. He also argued that art should be defined such by how it affects those who receive it, rather than by what the artist claims it to be.

It seems to me that good musical performance is conspicuous by the absence of distracting affectations. Pokorny demonstrates this with two different renderings of the tuba solo in An American in Paris. One has subtle decoration consistent with the style of the music. The other is over the top with decoration that was nearly laughable. Both were executed flawlessly.

Another example from Gene is his rendering of the Bach flute sonata on one of his CDs. There is considerable phrase shaping and quite a lot of liberty with the tempo. But most people who listen to it don't notice that. They just notice that has a floating quality that evokes a particular mood.

Sam Pilafian applies a range of stylistic decoration in the jazz stuff he recorded on his first Travelin' Light CD. Again, most listeners don't notice that stuff. They don't notice their foot tapping or that their attention is held. That's what I noticed--but I'd already heard the recording and was interested in their reaction.

And in a different sort of example, I have a recording of a Vaughan WIlliams symphony made in the 30's. The violins applied quite a lot of portamento. Since nobody does it now, I can only assume it was fashionable then. But it did not at all fit with the style of the music, and it sticks out conspicuously, at least to my modern ears.

So, if most folks listen to a performance and go, "Oh, puh-leaze" because of over-the-top affectations, then it's unmusical affectation. I would bet that in nearly every case, the cause is a performer applying a series of affectations rather than simply feeling the style of the music and performing it from the way he feels. I've heard some performances by supposed world-class performers that made me wonder if they even particularly liked that music.

Does music have to be beautiful? I would answer that with two examples, both from Vaughan Williams. When I listen to his F Minor Symphony (#4), I don't hear beauty. I hear power, gut-wrenching intensity, and (in parts) sadness to the point of depression. Vaughan Williams certainly had beautiful music in his head, but it didn't get used in that work. He was feeling something orthogonal to concepts of beauty. The Tuba Concerto is another example. Fletcher and Lind both recorded beautiful renderings of the concerto, but they seem to me to miss the essential goofy humor of the work. Hans Nickel gets it. Bill Bell (despite technical flaws) got it. Lind and Fletcher both set a standard for beautiful performance, but I think that beauty was better applied to different music.

A good critic carefully observes the reaction of regular people to performances, it seems to me. Too many try to impress us with their skepticism, as if it's their job not to be taken in by the orchestra.

Rick "suspecting Picasso was not particularly interested in beauty" Denney

rocksanddirt wrote:My experience (and church choir director's view) is that in rehearsal/practice is when you the performer feel the emotion of a piece. and then through rehearsal you figure out how to produce that music to the audience. In the performance if you are really 'feeling the emotion' it sounds affected, and is often emotionally flat. When you give yourself to the technical presentation of that emotion, you present it to the audience and they feel it and it is 'musical'.

That is the exact opposite of my experience. My worst performances resulted from being analytical about trying to evoke emotion. My best performances resulted from feeling the emotion I was trying to evoke.

You can't convey emotion. You express it, and the audience receives it and feels it empathetically, it seems to me.

Rick "who would have been a method actor" Denney

SplatterTone wrote:Now take your Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor for organ, there you got yourself some mathematics. It's generally played unemotionally, but by the end, if done right, one is still left thinking "Wow!" and feeling some emotions.

Hopefully I'm going to piggy-back some of the previous good comments made. As a tuba player, the only way music can sound affected for my taste is if you lose color with your tone or if your sound does not project. Dynamics as listed above are not the only key to successfully portraying wonderful aesthetic experiences. SplatterTone touched on another expression of music, continual motion with motives.. Not only are dynamics important (especially for Romantic and later) but also driving motives and suspense in harmonies that create clashes that do not need loud or soft relevance to convey stress or release. However, this is keyboard music and does not relate well to music written specifically for tuba (non-transcriptions).

As a tuba player, like I said earlier, I think that not affected, great music is pushing the dynamic limits without sacrificing the quality of the sound being emitted from the instrument.

Also great time is quint-essential for portrayal of strict, prompt, or pompous emotion or on the other hand relaxed, flexible or even lacksidaisical emotion.

I definitely feel that there is a difference between an affected musical performance and a genuine musical performance. The key word is genuine.

I think that the same question can be asked about one's personality. Are they nice, or are they "nice"? Is someone smart and articulate, or are they that type of person who needs to shout you down with their "intellect"?

As humans, I think think that we all possess a "BS" detector. For some, this is a keen sense, for others it is a sense that could be developed a bit further. This applies also to the ability to discern "truth" or "beauty" or any other word that you might choose to describe an organic and genuine performance, painting, book, etc.

One man's treasure is another man's trash... it is not up to any one of us to determine what is UNIVERSALLY good. It is the height of decency to have a set of values that defines who you are as a thinking person and what rings your bell. It is the height of arrogance to suggest that your values should be the universal values and that the values of those that disagree with you should be discounted, discredited or otherwise insulted. This is the line that is constantly assaulted in our mass media and political environment, and unfortunately all too frequently crossed on this board.

As Duke Ellington once said, "If it sounds good, it IS good." I think that in devolping your own aesthetic sense, this should be the rule of thumb. If you hear something that would indicate an "affected" performance, your BS detector will likely go off. But, just because yours goes off, it doesn't mean that everyone else's will-- and that's okay. Your ability to assess aesthetic beauty is yours and yours alone... it helps to define who you are as a person. The tragedy that I see in our society is that many seem happy to let others (mass media, peers) make these decisions for them.

As far as performing goes, play the music the way that you hear it. Be flexible enough in your thinking to consider many different ways to play a piece, but in the end, if you don't believe yourself, no one else is likely to believe your product either.

In all things, not just music, be true to yourself-- no promises that good things will happen, but at least you'll be able to look in the mirror every morning and recognize the person you see.

DZ

Rick Denney wrote:

rocksanddirt wrote:My experience (and church choir director's view) is that in rehearsal/practice is when you the performer feel the emotion of a piece. and then through rehearsal you figure out how to produce that music to the audience. In the performance if you are really 'feeling the emotion' it sounds affected, and is often emotionally flat. When you give yourself to the technical presentation of that emotion, you present it to the audience and they feel it and it is 'musical'.

That is the exact opposite of my experience. My worst performances resulted from being analytical about trying to evoke emotion. My best performances resulted from feeling the emotion I was trying to evoke.

You can't convey emotion. You express it, and the audience receives it and feels it empathetically, it seems to me.

I think these perspectives are reconcilable, though we would need a more precise vocabulary for `feelings', `emotion', etc. If I'm right about that, the point is not that performance should come from an utterly dispassionate state, but rather just that the performer can't afford to be a `victim' of the emotional content. Communicating something is different from reacting to it - you're supposed to make me weep, not you!

bloke wrote:making the assumption that "pure music" is an art form that should primarily appeal to the aural sense:

- Could two reasonably aurally-similar performances be correctly analyzed whereas one performance (where Musician A is gyrating and flailing - distractingly so) is "affected" and the other acceptably similar-sounding performance (where Musician B keeps their body motion to a minimum) is "musical"?

- If the answer to the question above is "yes", could many of the Berlin Philharmonic's performances be classified as "affected" whereas most of the San Francisco Symphony's performances would be considered "musical"?

That's a matter of context. I usually hear rather than see the Berlin Philharmonic so their body motions don't enter into my perception of them.

I once played under an orchestra conductor who insisted that we move our bodies as we played. I told him that I could move my body all the live-long day, and still not be any more musical. For some people, the music affects them at a visceral, physical level and they move. It is a reflection of what they feel, along with what comes out of the instrument. For others, it is a manipulation, just the same as the manipulation of sound, dynamics, articulation, pitch, and so on of the non-genuine performance. I really like Dave's BS detector--when it's fake, people often detect it. And his use of the word "genuine" seems to me right on the mark.

And Dave is right that different people perceive that in different ways. This was also one point that C.S. Lewis made in the book I mentioned. He suggested that many critics were so desensitized to a sense of wonder in the face of literary art that they would denigrate literature in their review just to demonstrate how hard it was to please them. But it may be that some of those critics have so much experience receiving art that it becomes difficult to surprise them, and they become jaded. Lewis suggested that if there were people--even modest art consumers--who came to love the literature because of its artistic effect on them, then that should outweigh the opinion held or expressed by typical critics.

Back to the body motions. I suspect that the cultural context of the concert attendee should really determine whether such motives will seem affected or genuine. What we see has blatant emotionalism might be tastefully restrained to Berlin's usual audience. They may look on San Francisco (to continue your example) as stiff and unfeeling, because, for them, the body motions inform their BS detector.

Personally, I find excessive body motions distracting. I once when to a live concert of the Vienna Philharmonic wind quintet, and I had to shut my eyes while listening. The sound was ethereal, but the body motions were distracting. I don't think they were an affectation, but rather just part of their performance tradition and they allowed themselves to respond to their feelings that way. But I have also seen musicians whose body motions were clearly intended to impress the audience, and I could hear their body motions, or so it seemed, even when I shut my eyes.

Rick "noting that musicians can be pompous and also be good" Denney

Donn wrote:I think these perspectives are reconcilable, though we would need a more precise vocabulary for `feelings', `emotion', etc. If I'm right about that, the point is not that performance should come from an utterly dispassionate state, but rather just that the performer can't afford to be a `victim' of the emotional content. Communicating something is different from reacting to it - you're supposed to make me weep, not you!

I'll accept that. It's a matter of control. But that control is more than just emotional. Our objective as artists is to channel our message into our art by whatever tools. Emotion usually forms a big part of our message, and such things as dynamics, articulation, phrasing, sound, and so on are the tools that serve that message. If we lose control of the tools, we lose control of the message. And if the message is diffused by being out of control, then we have nothing to convey with tools. And an overabundance of uncontrolled emotion will usually get in the way of executing those tools properly.

I could see the flute player at the close of the slow movement of the Vaughan Williams 4th Symphony committing suicide right there on stage. That would be over the top, though there have been flute players...no, I won't say it. But if the flute player is bright-eyed and cheerful, the music will sound that way, and it will undermine the emotional power of the music.

I played in a group on Sunday that performed six movements from an arrangement of Susato's Dansyrie. This is Renaissance dance music, and I had to imagine Elizabethan dancers with their formal clothing and formal movements. I felt my back get straighter, and my conception become more crisp and even pompous. Had I been imagining ballet like Swan Lake (or modern dance), I could not have done my part to express the notion and emotion of a Renaissance dance. I was making a very different sound than when we played Washington Post March a few minutes later. For that, I was marching in my head, and holding a 40K with malice aforethought. But I didn't actually stand up and start marching in place, or even bob up and down in my chair (though I have done that just a bit when playing certain latin music). As you say, it has to be controlled. If the music I'm playing doesn't provide me an opportunity to assume those emotions and attitudes, it's ultimately unsatisfying to play.

Rick "thinking technique flows from emotion, not the other way around" Denney

Rick Denney wrote: But I didn't actually stand up and start marching in place, or even bob up and down in my chair (though I have done that just a bit when playing certain latin music). As you say, it has to be controlled. If the music I'm playing doesn't provide me an opportunity to assume those emotions and attitudes, it's ultimately unsatisfying to play.

How about `objectified', where you said `controlled'?

These are in a way not real emotions. You aren't going to need grief counselling after that Vaughan Williams, because whatever you felt - player or listener - it wasn't connected to your life and you can walk out into the sunshine a half hour later. The performer has already worked this out, and won't be experiencing any grief whatever, subjectively.

Donn wrote:These are in a way not real emotions. You aren't going to need grief counselling after that Vaughan Williams, because whatever you felt - player or listener - it wasn't connected to your life and you can walk out into the sunshine a half hour later. The performer has already worked this out, and won't be experiencing any grief whatever, subjectively.

Probably going too far to try to pin this down. As the leader of Bloke's band might say, "Ya just gotta feel it, man."

If the emotions were that powerful and our skills that strong, people would need that same counseling after listening to our performance. Thus, the difference between objective and subjective is no different for the audience than for the performer. But the line between objective and subjective is not distinct.

Music (and other art) is meant to represent concepts that are important to us in ways that allow us to exercise our emotions productively. We should not confuse the representation of emotion with the emotion itself. But we have to feel a little of the emotion before we can know what to represent. The difference between preachment and propaganda is that the preacher actually believes what he says, while the propagandist only cares whether the reader believes it.

Rick "who would rather be a preacher than a propagandist" Denney

Donn wrote:

Rick Denney wrote: But I didn't actually stand up and start marching in place, or even bob up and down in my chair (though I have done that just a bit when playing certain latin music). As you say, it has to be controlled. If the music I'm playing doesn't provide me an opportunity to assume those emotions and attitudes, it's ultimately unsatisfying to play.

How about `objectified', where you said `controlled'?

These are in a way not real emotions. You aren't going to need grief counselling after that Vaughan Williams, because whatever you felt - player or listener - it wasn't connected to your life and you can walk out into the sunshine a half hour later. The performer has already worked this out, and won't be experiencing any grief whatever, subjectively.

But every person has different reactions to these 'fake' emotions. I'm usually not one to be affected by a piece of music for much time longer than the time it took to perform/listen to said piece. However, after a recent performance of Maslanka 4 at my school, I had a serious adrenaline high from the performance, and wanted to party all night, others who played with me were affected more deeply by the emotional message buried in the piece, and spent the night in catharsis.

Back in my rock band days I never realized how much or how often I jumped up and down onstage until I used a P.A. amp with a cheap spring reverb on a sloppily built band stand. The resulting crashing sounds kept my feet planted firmly in place and put a real crimp in my performance.

bloke wrote:making the assumption that "pure music" is an art form that should primarily appeal to the aural sense:

- Could two reasonably aurally-similar performances be correctly analyzed whereas one performance (where Musician A is gyrating and flailing - distractingly so) is "affected" and the other acceptably similar-sounding performance (where Musician B keeps their body motion to a minimum) is "musical"?

- If the answer to the question above is "yes", could many of the Berlin Philharmonic's performances be classified as "affected" whereas most of the San Francisco Symphony's performances would be considered "musical"?

If we accept your assumption, your question seems moot.

Perhaps you offer the question in order to cast doubt on your assumption?

Kylie Minogue gyrates. Works fine for me (even if I don't particularly care for the music).

Rick Denney wrote:

rocksanddirt wrote:My experience (and church choir director's view) is that in rehearsal/practice is when you the performer feel the emotion of a piece. and then through rehearsal you figure out how to produce that music to the audience. In the performance if you are really 'feeling the emotion' it sounds affected, and is often emotionally flat. When you give yourself to the technical presentation of that emotion, you present it to the audience and they feel it and it is 'musical'.

That is the exact opposite of my experience. My worst performances resulted from being analytical about trying to evoke emotion. My best performances resulted from feeling the emotion I was trying to evoke.

You can't convey emotion. You express it, and the audience receives it and feels it empathetically, it seems to me.

Rick "who would have been a method actor" Denney

My point is that in order to express the emotion in a way that an audience can understand, you must understand and repeat what you did technically during rehearsal to evoke that response in yourself. If you give yourself to that during a performance it comes of as 'self indulgent' (imo).

Slightly off topic example....in the 'dancing with the stars' tv series various celebreties and performers do ballroom dancing with professional dancers....when the celebreties and the pro's develop a 'personal relationship' (at least one couple each 'season' has ended up sleeping together) it shows in thier dancing. The ones who keep it fully professional are clearly presenting the audience with a performance that the audience feels. The 'lover' couples get so wrapped up in themselves that the same performance comes across as self indulgent.

There comes a point when you have to end discussion and anylisis and play your show.
Great points have been made here. Too much emotion creeps people out. Too much thinking by the performer can inhibit his or her performance.
The audience can play a large role in how well things go along. Audience feedback can motivate or completely distract a performer.
When everybody winds up on the same page, things really get moving and the magic happens.