The science of music, and the human element.

As I was practicing the other day with my accompanist the other (the amazingly talented Mrs. Babcock) I felt compelled to ask her, "you have such amazing practice skills. How did you develop them and how can I be that good?" She answered my question my saying that she had to practice a lot in school (Eastmen School of Music) and that her teacher made her work so hard on technique that she had to practice hours and hours a day. She said that she eventually got pretty good at know what to practice and how, two very important aspects of practicing. One topic lead to another and we eventually wound up talking about how she had to work so hard on the technical aspect of music, but not so much on the musical aspect of the music. That came easy to her she said, but she went on to say that other people were the exact opposite. Some people, she elaborated, would come in technically perfect but would play every thing so unmusical and almost scientific. Her teacher however had ways of telling those types of students exactly what to do with each note to "make" it sound musical. This got me to thinking, what is music, an exact science or more of a human flexible thing. There are some people that strive so much for perfect pitches and rhythms and strive for perfection as much as possible. I do not enjoy that kind of approach. Music to me is as much about emotion as it is about right notes and perfect rhythms. I listened to Chantacleer (top notch male singing group) do a concert at NDSU a few years ago now. They had some of the most perfect intonation and just perfect sound I have ever heard, but there are other groups that sing with that much perfection of pitch. The one thing that Chantacleer had that a lot of choral groups are missing is heart and intensity. On every one of their songs they sang with so much emotion and intensity, at some times a few of them would get so into it that there vocal quality would be affected a bit and they might stick out. To the perfectionist, they would cringe, lean over to there perfectionist friend and say "some one is over singing!" and then maybe chuckle a bit and give one of those looks. Me, I love that stuff! Makes me know that their not machines, makes me know that there into it and have a spec of emotion. It makes it human and I can connect with that. That being said, I defiantly am not suggesting that every drunk girl that sings "I kissed a girl" and gets really into it at the bar is the next Natalie Dessay. There is defiantly room for correctness and precision. Wrong notes and really poor technique do indeed detract from a performance, no matter how much emotion she puts into it, the drunk girl at the bar still sounds like a strangled cat, and that's annoying for everyone which negates her emotional performance entirely. But I would much rather hear a pianist play Mozart's fantasy in C minor with all the nuance, quirks and a few clunkers than a pianist that plays it as straight as a board and doesn't miss a note. That to me is way, way harder to listen to.

Just a thought I had one day as I was floating like a bubble through the air, being blown around by the winds of life.