a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
Devac  ·  2707 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Help me learn new things! – Art History

I have recently recalled this post, and I feel a bit justified with making a separate response over editing the old ond. Just to be on the safe side, please don't take me as a show-off. This is what I think that I wanted to say, but lacked a point of purchase to base my explanation better.

Today I was pondering what use for my practice and looked-up my list. Bach, Prelude and Fugue… "well, poop" was my firth thought as it's hardly my favourite composer or number. But being a man of rigour who works on trying to reduce his amount of bitching and moaning I went along.

Here is how it went.

While I don't feel like it's bad, I can spot more and more problems each time I'm listening to it back. Uneven tempo, too short or long pause, my skill with enforcing dynamics sucks as always etc. But without listening to it as played by a professional, I was unable to see most of the problems.

When it comes to Chopin… it just flows. Memorising notes is not even a problem, it simply happens. I don't need to hear someone play it, because something in the back of my head can spot every single thing that goes astray (by the way, English question: would a word 'heteroclite' even fit here? If so, how? I don't want to start using it like a pretentious prick, but my vocabulary surely could us a boost), it's almost a burning shame that I'm doing a disservice to the masterpiece. Every bit of dynamic, tempo change or slightest inflection scream at me and I can easily realise each technical mistake. To a point where I feel that if Chopin was to rise from his grave the first thing he would do, would be finding me to deliver a solid bitch-slap.

I don't know why or how, but for a few composers I seem to 'get' to be on their wavelength. Bach, despite being amazing in and of himself and very ambitious and challenging to play, just isn't like that for me. When I see Chopin's or Vivaldi's notes I can hear whole symphony in my head. With Bach, I'm like a child who needs to resort to muttering something like "pa-pa-Pa-pam, pa-pa-Pa-pam, na-pa-pa-pa-Pa-pam-paM-na-PaM" in an effort to make out how that's supposed to sound in the first place.

That said, kantos - I owe you an apology regarding my remark from about a month ago regarding 'feeling the music' and 'portrayal of musicians' I made in this post last month. I think I now get what you wanted to tell me, but didn't realise what you actually meant something similar at the time. Sorry about miscommunication on my part.