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Looper's Delight
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This will be totally OT.... It always bugs me that some people in the classical establishment insist on compositions being played exactly as they are "supposed" to be....when it is only in our modern day age of recording that it is even possible to have concrete examples of what that "supposed" way is. its actually even worse recently because some young classical students i've met think that a cello piece can only be played the way that yo yo ma plays it in a certain recording. obviously i'm not talking about whole scale departures from a score, but phrasing, certain embelishments, tempo, etc. my 1st cello teacher in the US (i started in public school in the UK) was an early music specialist from yale who also played viola da gamba. as soon as all his students could vaguely play, we would meet on saturdays and play for half the day as a cello ensemble. he would have us play renaissance ensemble pieces by lassus and others. however, he would encourage us to embelish the parts and would teach us what kind of ornaments were appropriate in what situations. because that is what was done... all those interesting little ornaments that people love about baroque and renaissance music were not written in. as students got more advanced we would improvise more within those old pieces...as long as we got the chords right. ;-) and then those solo cadenzas in the middle of concertos, like haydn's C major cello concerto...they were MADE UP entirely by the soloist! kind of like a jazz solo. i'm not connected to the classical world anymore. i play a looped version of the 2nd mvt of beethoven's 7th symphony and it gets some classical people REALLY upset (just read the comments on a youtube recording of it) like they are personally offended by it. i tell them its a COVER of beethoven, and i can do as i damn well please ;-) as you can see i've got my toes in two different worlds.... rant over. On Jul 8, 2009, at 5:03 AM, Steve Bingham wrote: > > On 8 Jul 2009, at 12:18, Ricky Graham wrote: > >> Just on the note of Classical music being precomposed and Bach's >> name creeping up, let us not forget that while that may be >> predominantly the case that classical music is from the score, >> Bach's fugues, to my knowledge, and correct me if I am wrong but >> I'm pretty sure that I am correct on this, were exercises to >> improvise with. (check that out for a run on) > > > Absolutely: Bach was the great improviser. Personally I feel that a > successful performance of 'written' music is most often one where > the performer(s) allow spontaneous musical interpretation to be as > important as purely technical accuracy, thus bringing some elements > of improvisation to the piece. > > Steve >