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After a serendipitous encounter at Austin Community College, I asked Bill Whisenant, author of Psychological Kinesiology: Changing the Body's Beliefs to come into the studio for a chat. I heard his presentation on "Enhancing Creativity", and wanted to share his messages about tapping into the creative recesses of the brain with the members at Violin Lab. Coincidentally, Bill had just taken up viola and recognized me from from his online quest for instructional videos on viola playing.
During this interview, a scary thing happened. Bill asked me to improvise on a simple chord progression. As a classically trained musician who is rarely divorced from the "page", I find improvisation to be stressful. My expectations for quality performance over-ride any enjoyment I might possibly derive. Years of training for polished performances do not leave a great deal of room to "mess around". But it is precisely in the "messing around" that, according to Bill, unleashes creativity in other aspects of our lives, even in unexpected ways. So, that being said, I humble myself before anyone who watches this next part of the interview.
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Beth, that was just great. So courageous of you. I am going to try the diary writing that Bill has mentioned. Thank you for doing this interview.
ReplyDeleteThat was fascinating Beth ! I skipped the first video because I wanted to hear you improve....lol...(you did great !) I'll go back to the first video after dinner tonight....but, I did get a chance..once..to do just what you were doing. At church one of the pianists was sitting there doodling on the piano and I had my violin. He called me over and started playing chords and told me just to play something in key of C....so I did. It was a lot of fun and I would have loved to go on longer but folks started showing up and we had a rehearsal to get through. Anyway, at that point in my violin career I had no idea I could do anything like that, it was lovely. I haven't had the chance to do that again since, but I do go through YouTube and find melodies that I like and play along with them. It has helped me to find some kind of understanding of music without really understanding it...if that makes any sense at all. One of those..I can do it, but just don't ask me to explain what it is that I'm doing...haha. Bravo Beth !
ReplyDeleteYou know, every improviser I know says that like any other music-making skill, improv requires practice, but gets easier when you do practice it. I think part of that practice requires listening to the greats who have gone before, since this kind of playing is largely an oral tradition.
ReplyDeleteBut I also want to express a very personal take on playing "from the page." Every now and then I hear an improviser speak about playing classical music as if it isn't a creative act at all--as if the score somehow precludes any creative input from the performer. I think that can seem true for works that have been played over and over, but when you encounter a relatively unknown work, with no performance tradition behind it, you quickly discover how little information is really on that page, and how much of yourself you have to bring to it.
Listen to any of Gidon Kremer's recordings of the traditional repertoire--especially the Beethoven sonatas and the Mozart concertos--and you'll rapidly realize how performance tradition has shaped our interpretation of those works. When you hear Kremer's recording, your first reaction, if you're familiar with tradition, will be "Oh No! He did that?!" His take on these too-performed pieces largely chucks the performance traditions out the door--and rediscovers the joy and vitality of the music hinted at on "the page."
I think practicing improvisation should also be an invitation to bring ourselves to the page, and to relieve ourselves of the burden of all that performance history we feel somehow obliged to respect. Each of us will have a unique perspective on those written notes and signs, and if they enter us and become ours, they will be truly original creations when the audience hears them.
It just occured to me: In German we have a single verb for "playing music"; it's "musizieren". We also have a single verb for writing a poem; it's "dichten". The activity that is awkward to express is sculpting; it's "bildhauern" or "bildhauerei" as a noun, which is composed from bild=picture and hauen=hitting, chipping away.
ReplyDeleteThese videos are missing! Would love to see.
ReplyDeleteК сожалению, видео не отображается
ReplyDelete