My music guru, the late Arnie Lawrence, used to say: Play great! You know what it sounds like, so play that way!
If it were only so easy, every musician (and artists of all kinds) would be great, and we're not.
Arnie wasn't dumb. He knew that. So what did he mean?
Once I brought my clarinet to his workshop, and he said, "Play like Barney Bigard," Duke Ellington's clarinet player. If I could have played like Barney Bigard, I would have been giving Arnie's workshops, not attending them.
My natural response to Arnie's manic encouragement was to shrink: Man, I can't play clarinet like Barney Bigard.
But my response was self-defeating.
Why tell myself that I could never be great? That I can never even come close to playing like a really great musician?
Why not say: That's the way I want to play, and, damn it, I'm going to go for that!
My new music guru - and I only use the term tongue in cheek, here and above - Raanan Eylon, who is teaching me how to play the flute, has been working with me for nearly two years on my sound, on getting a focused sound on the flute, and on vibrato. It takes a long time for a man my age to catch on.,
I didn't really have to put myself through the hard work I've been doing to meet Raanan's demands. I could have accepted the crummy sound I had figured out how to make by myself, with the help of some Youtube lessons, and let it be at that. But I said to myself, if I'm going to play the flute, I'm going to play it as well as I can. Otherwise, why go for it at all?
So I've gone back to the basics of long tones, scales, arpeggios - a long warmup before I even try to play music. It's had an amazing (good) effect on my saxophone playing, on my ear, and on my awareness of sound - a kind of remedial musical education. Better late than never, eh?
Recently, I've been coming much closer to producing a decent sound on the flute, and I realized that somewhere inside me there was actually fear of sounding too good. I don't know what that is about (or, maybe I do, but I'm not going to post that kind of thing on a blog).
Raanan has frequently said - and it's kind of astonishing that a man who could hardly be more different from Arnie Lawrence, should be saying many of the same kind of things - that when we play music, we are free to do and be what we are unable to do and be in ordinary, life. But you have to want that freedom and enjoy it.
In ordinary life, I'm not interested in impressing people, but I have to remember that when people listen to music, they want to be impressed. Why else would they listen to music, to say, "That wasn't so interesting"?
If it were only so easy, every musician (and artists of all kinds) would be great, and we're not.
Arnie wasn't dumb. He knew that. So what did he mean?
Once I brought my clarinet to his workshop, and he said, "Play like Barney Bigard," Duke Ellington's clarinet player. If I could have played like Barney Bigard, I would have been giving Arnie's workshops, not attending them.
My natural response to Arnie's manic encouragement was to shrink: Man, I can't play clarinet like Barney Bigard.
But my response was self-defeating.
Why tell myself that I could never be great? That I can never even come close to playing like a really great musician?
Why not say: That's the way I want to play, and, damn it, I'm going to go for that!
My new music guru - and I only use the term tongue in cheek, here and above - Raanan Eylon, who is teaching me how to play the flute, has been working with me for nearly two years on my sound, on getting a focused sound on the flute, and on vibrato. It takes a long time for a man my age to catch on.,
I didn't really have to put myself through the hard work I've been doing to meet Raanan's demands. I could have accepted the crummy sound I had figured out how to make by myself, with the help of some Youtube lessons, and let it be at that. But I said to myself, if I'm going to play the flute, I'm going to play it as well as I can. Otherwise, why go for it at all?
So I've gone back to the basics of long tones, scales, arpeggios - a long warmup before I even try to play music. It's had an amazing (good) effect on my saxophone playing, on my ear, and on my awareness of sound - a kind of remedial musical education. Better late than never, eh?
Recently, I've been coming much closer to producing a decent sound on the flute, and I realized that somewhere inside me there was actually fear of sounding too good. I don't know what that is about (or, maybe I do, but I'm not going to post that kind of thing on a blog).
Raanan has frequently said - and it's kind of astonishing that a man who could hardly be more different from Arnie Lawrence, should be saying many of the same kind of things - that when we play music, we are free to do and be what we are unable to do and be in ordinary, life. But you have to want that freedom and enjoy it.
In ordinary life, I'm not interested in impressing people, but I have to remember that when people listen to music, they want to be impressed. Why else would they listen to music, to say, "That wasn't so interesting"?
1 comment:
No harm in doing something unpleasant for the last time,as long as it is not the last time that you do something.
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