When I'm worried about playing all the notes correctly, I have a tendency to play mechanically rather than musically. My new flute teacher is having me play Mozart duets based on The Magic Flute. If you don't play that lyrically, you might as well throw in the towel.
In general I don't listen to opera very much, and my teacher loves opera. I'm happy to go along with him. Anything that will expand my musical horizons is of benefit. As I write this, I am hearing (not quite listening to) La Traviata (The Woman who Went Astray). I concede that the music is beautiful.
Last night my wife and I went to a concert of Arabic music, the final concert of the annual Oud Festival, with two male solo singers, a chorus, and a small instrumental ensemble. Arabic music is still alien to me, and it would have been better (probably) if I could have understood the lyrics. Again, it's a matter of expanding horizons: nothing musical should be alien to me. Though some things that other people think are musical are not, in my opinion, at all musical - but that's another matter.
The singers, Ziv Yehezel and Mamun Zayud, were not mechanical to an extreme degree, and the nai player, Jamil Bishtawi, was as astounding as the star oud player, Tayseer Elias. There were plenty of Arabs in the audience, and I'm pretty sure that a good proportion of the Jews there were conversant with the music. The seats were expensive, and they were almost all taken. That's encouraging.
