After last Thursday’s class, I was inspired and humbled by the instrumentalists in HNRS 125. It was so amazing how each student was able to improvise on demand, yet make it sound completely rehearsed. I remember in class, Corina and I even turned to each other and was like “I wish I could do that” because to us, it seemed like a different language. This reminded me of the show at the 92ST Y because they compared learning a language to learning how to play an instrument. Some abilities are innate, while others you have to acquire after years of practice until it becomes second nature. Another thing it reminded me of was when I went to interview our very own Professor Smaldone for the “Interview a Professor” assignment. I asked him if there was any moment in his life that has changed who he is as a musician and he told me about Modest Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”, which is a piece in the Disney movie “Fantasia”. He had seen the music score for the piece and it motivated him to want to learn how to read and compose music. When I went home to look up the piece, I could see why.
While listening and watching the movie scene, I had trouble imagine a person capable of composing the piece because of all the little nuances in tone and sound. I found myself paying more attention to the music than the actual images in the movie, although the two went together very well. There were parts when the orchestra was at full blast, which made the scene dramatic and chaotic. Then there were other parts when there was just a single bell ringing. The piece constantly went up and down in dynamics and volume, which is what added to the emotion and sort of eerie quality to the piece. I also tried to picture what instruments made what sounds because sometimes it wasn’t clear to me since there was so much going on.
In the end, this video and the session we had in class made me very appreciate music a lot more than I already do. It really is another language because it serves the same functions: it can convey thoughts, idea and emotions…and sometimes it can even do it better than language itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ca_edg6RE
I too was impressed with the performances in class. The people who didn’t play might have wished they could, and the if you ask any of the people who played, most of them would say that there was a certain level of anxiety, because it was unrehearsed, and it is a challenge perform. A real performer thrives on the adrenaline of the performance, which is a necessary component. The adrenaline, the nerves, the anxiety are all part of what makes “live” performance exciting.
There is also a big difference between performing a set piece that is completely notated, and improvising. As I said in class, you have to practice improvising, to get good at it. That seems like a contradiction, but the spontaneity of improvisation has to be trained. An analogy would be to compare different kinds of sports. Some sports rely on the flawless execution of a precise action (figure skating, diving, football). Others require split-second reaction to real-time interaction within narrowly defined parameters (baseball, lacrosse, soccer, tennis). Both types of sports require substantial levels of training and have skills that can be learned and developed.