Who cares if you listen?... Apparently I do
You know... sometimes I really wonder if we are being effective in our progression of music. Today in my private lessons, I was working on the Hindemith Sonata, I get to perform it in a student recital here in three weeks. We worked specifically on the first movement and spent the entire lesson on the first movement discussing interpretations, what the composer intended, obscure words used to describe music, ect. Now I can go into all the details of what we talked about... but I really don't want to bore you to death... actually, you know what, this is my blog, who cares what you think of my rambling. If you don't care to read this part, ignore the next paragraph.
All right, first off we discussed the type of composer that Hindemith is. Hindemith is a neoclassical composer, which implies that he uses the general forms and structure of classical music. Where he is different is basically in the modern harmonies well and melodies for that matter. That being said, the phrasing of the piece should as symmetrical as possible. The first movement follows an ABA pattern. The second section is more agressive than the first section, but still is more of the same style. As we get to the climax of the first piece, there is a matter of personal interpretation as far as what the composer wants you to do, or what, oh let's say what Roger Bobo did in his recording. If your a tuba player and don't know this name, well, your not a tuba player then, if you aren't a tuba player, well I'll get to that later. Anyway, the composer wrote Poco largamente in the part, let me run get my music dictionary really quick... okay, maybe not, must be in my office, alright, I'll do it from what I remember, poco is little and largamente means broader, larger, without variance in tempo. I got reamed in my lesson for not having my music dictionary with me at all times. Anyway, Bobo's interpretation of it is for a molto rit. His choice, he doesn't have to follow the composers strict adherance to classical rules. Anyway, the part that might be a little contradictory to some people is the fact that for the recap, without having a tempo change he puts "a tempo" basically return to the origonal tempo. Now why would he put that if the poco largamente doesn't change tempo. Well apparently in classical form, with the return of the A theme, their is an implied rit. signaling the recapitulation. Hindemith expects us to be competent in classical forms and expects us to know this on our own. Now let's go to the coda. The tempo change has dotted half = whole note. Alright, the starting tempo is dotted half = 76. Now at this point in the piece half note = 76. So a whole note would be 38. So the value of a dotted half is now equal to 38, which I boubt very many people could keep time without subdividing, so we find out what the quarter no would be, basically 114, much more reasonable. I betcha didn't know so much math was involved with music, huh?
Now, as I look through all of what I just talked about, the little voice in my head screams, "WHO GIVES A FLYING RAT'S BUT ABOUT THIS!?!?!" I can already tell you how this student recital is going to go. I go on the first set of three student recitals. The six of us playing the first night will all get up there and play our pieces that we've spent countless hours preparing. The audience is consisted of.... big surprise, all the tuba and euphonium players who aren't playing. Oh wait... is that... is that... oh, okay it's just the people who are required to come becuase they're in the tuba methods class, and that kid over there is here for recital attendance. Just who in the world are we performing for? Are any of us there really getting something out of these performances, is the rest of the world benifitting from the recitals? You know what? I absolutely hate recitals whenever I attend them. They are the most absolutely boring thing I can think of. Now, if I don't enjoy them, how in the heck is the rest of the world ever going to enjoy listening to them. I went to one that I really enjoyed. It was Oystein Baadsvik's concert, absolutely phenominal player, and the only full-time soloist in the tuba world. Guess who was at the concert? I don't even have to answer, I think you know. Now, when I'm up their playing, I'm obviously enjoying myself, I'm performing and showing just how much I've accomplished practicing three hours a day for the past month. There's obviously a sense of pride and accomplishment in that, but really does anyone benifit from that? Some of the others actually do enjoy these things, for the life of me I can't see why. I have absolutely no personal attachment to them at all. They evoke absolutely no emotional response in me, so why would it evoke a response from somebody who doesn't know anything about it? There's a subject for another day, that last sentence, but let me continue on. So what are the benifits of these recitals.... we hear new pieces for tuba, we have a chance to perform, improve our musicianship, and so we'll actually sound decent when we've got an audience and playing the Bydlo lick from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition at an orchestra concert, or whatever highlight in orchestral literature a tuba has. But really is it all that necessary. Most people probably wouldn't be able to tell any difference whatsoever, outside of us tuba players who purposely sit on the "tuba player" side of the orchestra, so we have the best possible seats to listen to the tuba and critique their performance. So what's the point? Why do we have all these music majors practice hour after hour on peices that enhance our abilities that absolutely no one but ourselves even care?
It's thoughts like this that have got me leaning more towards teaching general music to elementary students instead of teaching at the college level, maybe I just feel I can make a difference while everyone's still young. But these are thoughts for another day.
All right, first off we discussed the type of composer that Hindemith is. Hindemith is a neoclassical composer, which implies that he uses the general forms and structure of classical music. Where he is different is basically in the modern harmonies well and melodies for that matter. That being said, the phrasing of the piece should as symmetrical as possible. The first movement follows an ABA pattern. The second section is more agressive than the first section, but still is more of the same style. As we get to the climax of the first piece, there is a matter of personal interpretation as far as what the composer wants you to do, or what, oh let's say what Roger Bobo did in his recording. If your a tuba player and don't know this name, well, your not a tuba player then, if you aren't a tuba player, well I'll get to that later. Anyway, the composer wrote Poco largamente in the part, let me run get my music dictionary really quick... okay, maybe not, must be in my office, alright, I'll do it from what I remember, poco is little and largamente means broader, larger, without variance in tempo. I got reamed in my lesson for not having my music dictionary with me at all times. Anyway, Bobo's interpretation of it is for a molto rit. His choice, he doesn't have to follow the composers strict adherance to classical rules. Anyway, the part that might be a little contradictory to some people is the fact that for the recap, without having a tempo change he puts "a tempo" basically return to the origonal tempo. Now why would he put that if the poco largamente doesn't change tempo. Well apparently in classical form, with the return of the A theme, their is an implied rit. signaling the recapitulation. Hindemith expects us to be competent in classical forms and expects us to know this on our own. Now let's go to the coda. The tempo change has dotted half = whole note. Alright, the starting tempo is dotted half = 76. Now at this point in the piece half note = 76. So a whole note would be 38. So the value of a dotted half is now equal to 38, which I boubt very many people could keep time without subdividing, so we find out what the quarter no would be, basically 114, much more reasonable. I betcha didn't know so much math was involved with music, huh?
Now, as I look through all of what I just talked about, the little voice in my head screams, "WHO GIVES A FLYING RAT'S BUT ABOUT THIS!?!?!" I can already tell you how this student recital is going to go. I go on the first set of three student recitals. The six of us playing the first night will all get up there and play our pieces that we've spent countless hours preparing. The audience is consisted of.... big surprise, all the tuba and euphonium players who aren't playing. Oh wait... is that... is that... oh, okay it's just the people who are required to come becuase they're in the tuba methods class, and that kid over there is here for recital attendance. Just who in the world are we performing for? Are any of us there really getting something out of these performances, is the rest of the world benifitting from the recitals? You know what? I absolutely hate recitals whenever I attend them. They are the most absolutely boring thing I can think of. Now, if I don't enjoy them, how in the heck is the rest of the world ever going to enjoy listening to them. I went to one that I really enjoyed. It was Oystein Baadsvik's concert, absolutely phenominal player, and the only full-time soloist in the tuba world. Guess who was at the concert? I don't even have to answer, I think you know. Now, when I'm up their playing, I'm obviously enjoying myself, I'm performing and showing just how much I've accomplished practicing three hours a day for the past month. There's obviously a sense of pride and accomplishment in that, but really does anyone benifit from that? Some of the others actually do enjoy these things, for the life of me I can't see why. I have absolutely no personal attachment to them at all. They evoke absolutely no emotional response in me, so why would it evoke a response from somebody who doesn't know anything about it? There's a subject for another day, that last sentence, but let me continue on. So what are the benifits of these recitals.... we hear new pieces for tuba, we have a chance to perform, improve our musicianship, and so we'll actually sound decent when we've got an audience and playing the Bydlo lick from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition at an orchestra concert, or whatever highlight in orchestral literature a tuba has. But really is it all that necessary. Most people probably wouldn't be able to tell any difference whatsoever, outside of us tuba players who purposely sit on the "tuba player" side of the orchestra, so we have the best possible seats to listen to the tuba and critique their performance. So what's the point? Why do we have all these music majors practice hour after hour on peices that enhance our abilities that absolutely no one but ourselves even care?
It's thoughts like this that have got me leaning more towards teaching general music to elementary students instead of teaching at the college level, maybe I just feel I can make a difference while everyone's still young. But these are thoughts for another day.
posted by Trueblat at 9:51 AM
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