Spontaneity Required

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_7mcGqsKP8&  This is a video of  Ola Gjeilo improvising over the top of one of his compositions.  He posted it on Facebook and it really got me thinking about the living nature of musical performance.  We so often think of a composer’s work as being finished when we get it printed form.  They trouble over the notes and put neither more nor less into the work than it needs to be.  It is up to us to bring this performance to life from a printed score.

But Mr. Gjeilo  has me thinking hard about that paradigm.   Improvising over the piece gave me the idea that the music may never be totally done–or maybe better yet, that the music is a spring-board for more creative wandering and discovery.

I think I want to always believe that musical performance is alive with in the moment creativity.  That we are perhaps always discovering the 50 great ways any phrase could go.   But to have the composer himself say this to us in a performance was truly stunning.  It encourages me to keep exploring the innumerable shades of phrase.  How to get from note 1 to note 2 and how does that affect note 3?  How does note 3 reflect back to note 1 and 2.  It is an astounding web of time and weight and articulation that creates meaning.  Even the composer is not done thinking of how any one work can be presented to mean something to the audience.

In any case, watching that performance and noticing not only how beautiful it is, but what it actually is can be food for thought for interpreters of music.

 

Control or…gaining it so we can give it away

This is something I think all conductors think about.

When I teach conductors, I never really like to use the word control.  It seem restrictive in connotation.  (guide, express, show, demonstrate, embody?)  However, I am always hoping that young conductors (and experienced ones too) can discover how to realize the expectations of their musical voice and also respect the ensemble. But even as I write those words, in a simple way, they must be able to control all aspects of the music, if only for the simple need of fixing what is wrong, but more importantly so that the gesture is deeply communicative and makes its point without excess.

Young conductors often are reluctant to lead, or even more importantly to insist upon getting what they ask for.  I remember thinking I was not worthy of them following me, or that who was I to say how it goes? There are so many ways music can be beautiful.  It was almost frightening to think of choosing one way.  I sure had to get over that idea.  My initial performances lacked clarity of idea and intent.

I think I had to learn how to first trust and then insist on what my musical voice wanted to express.  But then, just as you learn how to control, manipulate, cajole! as many aspects as you can in the performance of music, of course you must learn what to let go. What to give over to the ensemble.  BUT, you still need to know how to control everything…just in case you need to come to the rescue.

Every artist, and the artist in every person yearns for their own musical expression to be heard.  I agree with many who say it helps us to validate our very selves.  The secret corners don’t always want to be secret.  But, I also believe that a group of people need a careful and caring leader.  They truly want there to be high expectations and insistence upon their full realization in performance.

I am fascinated at the point in conducting where we must give over the singing to the choir.  Let them own it.  When this happens it is magic.  Some famous conductors are famous for this very act of giving over or at the very least, making the creation of the music more a co-creation.  These conductors know something of the yearnings of all the musicians before them.  They know our creative minds and our deep seated need to be a part of the act of artistic creation and to take their control in crafting it.

To me, this is the incredible paradox of being human.  We are hard-wired to be social.  We cannot help our need for each other.  We love the talk at the water cooler, we need to all watch certain television shows so that we are in the stream of popular culture, we want to hear what others think and how they live.  But we live our lives alone.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the authors of the women’s suffrage movement talks of the “Solitude of Self-hood”.  We alone experience our lives.  Even when we share it, we are living alone with ourselves. It sounds melancholy to me and very beautiful too.  We are constantly in the balance between our need for connection and our requirement to be ourselves.

Music and conducting is the embodiment of this.  Connections with composer, between performers, and with audience and the solitude of making the sound and being responsible for it, or being responsible for the group of performers before you and the generosity required of co-creation.

We must always be balancing.and that balance is particular to each conductor.

So, when do we know to give over, and what parts to give over?

Some conductors build this into the rehearsal by involving singers in the shaping of phrases or diction choices.  Which is better, A or B?  Why did Berlioz put a crescendo here?  What are the words telling us to do with the line?  Getting them involved in the problem solving especially in any level of educational choir can work very well.

Some conductors only give it over after the piece is rehearsed and they are performing.  Some nearly never give the performers a sense of involvement but prefer to emphasize that their contribution is to become expert at following gesture or training.

Would love to know your ideas on this.

Relevancy

Art is relevant.

We humans crave it.  Its all around us.  Things that keep my mind working and wandering are ideas about how we maintain our relevancy.  Is art music dead?  Has American Idol and Whichever Country has Talent done something?

I recently got to see the Chicago Symphony at Millenium Park.  The news estimated 20K people attended and more were turned away, including my parents!  I don’t think classical music is dead at all.  There will always be people who want to hear towering works of musical art.  Of course that takes support which is another subject to blog about.

Still, because I am teaching a course in Music Appreciation, this idea of what makes people gravitate to classical music is very much on my mind.  Is it beauty?  this is part of it, but the beauty must mean something to them as humans.  As performers, we can embody that or we can turn off the audience entirely and teach them that classical music is an archive rather than something that relates to what it is to be human.

This week I showed a short video of a man playing a vielle on YouTube. He was intensely involved in his playing.  Anyone even paying a little attention could tell he loved every minute of the Medieval branle he was playing…a tambourine around one ankle…he made everyone rivet their attention.   I think the branle itself was fantastic and the hollow angularity of its construction appeals to 21st century listeners.  HE, however, made the whole thing work.

It was evident that he spent time in preparation and in practice and in the practiced art of performance.  Not just getting the notes, but making a real show of it, not showy, but in his confidence and the courage of his convictions.

He meant it.   Or he knew enough about performing…what I like to call “Remembering to Remember”… he recalled the feeling of feeling it so that the audience can buy into the performance as authentic and honest.   Either way,  I want performance to be viscerally connective to the listener as well as intellectually.

ok. stepping off my soapbox.

Learning Responsibility

For about 3 years, perhaps more I have been thinking about the learner and responsibility.

Teachers are responsible for teaching and guiding learning.  I also think that we teach the learners to take ownership of their learning…not just the facts and skills, but the actual act and process of learning.  Only then can they fly on their own wings when they leave us, as they are supposed to do.  They come to school in order to go! (I have to say that to myself at every Commencement ceremony)

We teach so many things in addition to the content area.  One of the values I need to remind myself of as music educator is the idea that not only do I have a responsibility to the learner to offer the very best of the past and the current practices in our field of choral music, but that we also need to teach students to be responsible for learning.   I suppose this could be rephrased as consequence based learning.

There is no shortage of writing on the internet about the ineffectiveness of  “esteem building” techniques that do not include expectation of achievement.   Expectation by all accounts  is essential in creating this…but the nature or “flavor” of that expectation is what occupies my thinking.  The article “How Not to Talk to your Kids” in the New York Magazine gives advice and research that suggests that expectation and reality-based praise is most effective and truly prepares young people for life ahead.  “Five Reasons  to stop saying:  Good Job” is another such article.  There are many others articles and papers by respected scholars available readily.  Key words Entitlement, Achievement, Education, Expectation will get you more information than you have time to read!

These readings have sparked ideas about *how* I go about teaching my students responsibility.  Am I teaching them to work for praise or work for excellence.  I am reminded of one time asking some gifted high school singers why they sing.  More than one said that they sing because they are good at it…that they wanted to prove to adults that teenagers can be good.  That is certainly an extrinsic reason.  I was bothered by it, perhaps because it ignored the music itself.  Of course, it can be good to work for excellence, that is the very thing I am writing about here.  But additionally, is there a higher ethic that belongs to the art?

I am not suggesting that the conductor ignore the need for students to feel safe emotionally so that they can approach the vulnerability music requires of  us.  An atmosphere that is built upon specific praise for work accomplished might indeed encourage that vulnerability more effectively because students know very well when we lie to them about how they are doing.  Those lies break trust.

On top of those multiple tasks is the philosophical issue of how we in Music Education lead, push, cajole, encourage, expect and insist that our students to become responsible for learning.  In the end, we can present them with all of it, but they must take it for themselves.  We humans cannot skip steps in the skill building or in the inspirational aspects of music.   If a step is skipped, the next level of skill will be impossible to achieve, this is the consequence for any kind of “get rich quick” attitude in music.  If we do the music for them, we are selfishly keeping the knowledge and skill to ourselves instead of empowering them with the abilities we worked so hard to achieve.

Are we asking ourselves daily are we being responsible to our students by expecting them to be responsible to learn?  Do we have the discipline needed for expectation?   Are we clever and thoughtful enough to praise for working toward the goal and the small accomplishments that lead toward exceptional music instead of blanketing students with praise that has not truly been achieved.   I am thinking of how much bravery it takes conducting students to become insistent with the choir to give the elements they ask for.  It is easy to be uncomfortable with insisting because to some it may feel we are imposing our will upon the choir.

Its easy to say : that’s all right…or its pretty good, maybe its good enough?  Maybe that needs to be qualified…that is good enough for today, but we will make it even better next rehearsal.

As a counter argument, we also have to be sensitive enough to know which days to push through harder and which days the student might need some time to absorb or time to gather strength before they are pressed again to be responsible to the expectation of learning.

Teaching is an art.

Would you like to share what works for you in teaching students they are ultimately responsible for learning and therefor the ownership of the music they make.

An idea about straight tone

Perhaps this is more of a question than a declaration.

Pedagogically, straight tone is hard on young singers who are learning to sing freely.  The voice naturally vibrates when being produced in the bel canto style free of excess tension and being powered by a consistent, even, efficient, and vibrant breath flow.  This is a delicate thing to learn to do to be sure.  It is hard for young singers (anyone under 28 or even 30!)  to develop the habit of freedom in the throat, jaw, tongue, neck, shoulder, eyebrow (go on and name everything since the headbone’s connected to the….you get the idea…).

Some choral music requires for performance practice of straight tone or an environment of either limited or no vibrato.   Some conductors prefer this tone constantly (which is a perfectly wonderful timbral choice! ).  While it is possible to sing this style with very little tension…young singers need to develop the habit of total freedom and breath based tone…rather than laryngeal pressure or holding.  hmmmm.   So now the conundrum.

We need to teach proper performance practice, and we need to care for vocal health and development all at the same time!  Possible?

What if we practice in stages–singing that Palestrina motet with the best free tone (i.e. with vibrato) that the singers can imagine…always emphasizing free breath flow, and of course, working out all of the details of diction and articulation and phrasing…all with this habit forming free tone…

THEN.

Toward the end of the rehearsal process, after freedom is established in the context of the piece…ask for the more settled or senza vibrato.  Would the muscle memory of the breathing and freedom stay and influence a “lighter hold” on the laynx to limit the vibrato?  Or would the choir just go back to that throat gripping straight tone? or would they not be able to make the change at all?   I am going to try this next time and report back.  I would love to hear feedback on this idea from anyone who has insights they want to share.

To confess it, when I practice as a chorister for straight tone works, I tend to learn the notes using my solo voice and then add the straight tone later.  It is not a plan of mine, I just noticed that this is my tendency.  Now, I am thinking out loud about whether this idea may work for choirs as a whole.

The Gestural Atmosphere for Art

Is even the conducting gesture actually an outgrowth of one’s ideas and philosophy about the proper atmosphere for art-making?

I am teaching grad students in conducting these days and enjoying the problem of explaining both the things that have become second nature, and those things I continue to work on in my conducting.  My conducting mentors have left some indelible impressions:  I will never forget hearing Maurice Skones say to our class that he was still trying to solve gesture issues and quirks in his technique.  This was one year before he retired.  

There is so much thinking (not a complaint! a joy…)  to all of this music that we do.  So today, I am wondering if the actual gesture reflects a philosophy and helps to create the atmosphere for art. 

The inviting gesture versus the “let -me -do -it -for-you” gesture, I think, says something through body language about how the conductor percieves his or her role and that of the choir. 

The inviting gesture draws the sound from the choir and over the conductor’s head to the audience. I like gesture that elicits a musical response .  It is so easy to physically reach out for the sound as a conductor, but that reaching communicates a lack of trust.  If we have to reach to the group to get the sound, we are not truly trusting their talent and skill and humanity to bring the sound out to the ears of listeners.   So often we fight the need to count for them in the gesture with the subdivision hitch or double pumping the ictus.  It seems sometimes we must do the phrase for them.  It is so easy to “overfunction” as a conductor.

That over-functioning can come from a very beautiful and helpful place inside of us.  But despite its good intentions, it still does nothing for the beauty of the phrase and does nothing to care for the music. 

Over-functioning can come from the stereotypical controller or perfectionist position too.  I think conductors often get that perception from singers.  Very likely because conductors may indeed tend toward that.

Try as we may, it is the singer who makes the sound.  They perform the rhythm, the pitch, the dynamics.  We can only hope to guide and advise and inspire.  We are the performers who do not make sound in performance.

It sounds so sanguine and calm to say all of that, but it really is not.  This inviting gesture is an invitation to action, to collaborate, to sculpt and shape the energy of the music together.  This is energy and it is trust of the ensemble.  That is quite a trick…daunting.  The vulnerability can be staggering.

So, does the thought of invitation versus doing it for them change the actual gesture we use?  I think it does.  This has huge implications to me… what other thoughts change the gesture?  Do musicians catch the body language of a conductor and the subliminal thoughts they express?  (How daunting is that now?!)

Dream of Gerontius, Christopher Bell and midlife choral lessons

We all want to be lifelong learners as choral conductors, musicians and educators.  I was searching for ways to do that and thought that it might be time to sing for someone else.  Feel what the singer feels, think what the singer thinks and do the ultimate, perform another’s musical choices as a way to challenge my own thinking as a musician and as a conductor.

Today I want to talk about the marvelous Christopher Bell and the Grant Park Symphony Chorus.  I was very honored to be a part of this choir this summer and sing Elgar’s incredible masterpiece Dream of Gerontius. All the time watching Christopher Bell and Carlos Kalmar working together and yet maintaining their own musical autonomy as they both brought great respect to the music, the  musicians, the composer and ultimately to the audience.

Things I learned:

1. You really CAN mix straight tone, shimmering vibrato, warm vibrato to create a tonal palate that is truly expressive of the text, melodic and harmonic structures in the music.

2. You really CAN mix elided consonants, glottal articulations, non-elision, inter-consonantal schwa, final consonant schwa and elimination of all of those things to create a vivid truly articulated line that supports and highlights the text, melodic and harmonic structures in the music.

This seems far too simplistic to say in a list, but sometimes cutting to the chase is the real issue.  The complexity of musical thought demands a very complex articulation palate.

Lots of my choral friends are saying that the Schools of Choral Tone are mixing and becoming unrecognizable.  (What a seminar topic that would be!)  This experience with Grant Park is a full demonstration of this to great effect.

3. Elgar was a genius.  We  knew this because we were told this in school, right? But when performing his works: QED    Elgar is VERY specific about the dynamics illustrating and shaping the lines and dramatic expression of them.  Following his dynamics directives to a T is essential in this work.

Orchestration! of expansive long lines that seems inspired by Wagner and harmonic structures that at times reminded me of Mahler.  Elgar is fully a mature Romantic era master.

5.  Kindness counts.  Bell addresses his group from a perspective of GREAT respect and trust.  These professional singers attend to every detail and can turn articulation and tone on a dime and remember it from one rehearsal to the next…so its pretty easy to respect them…  But I think they are more willing to focus every brain cell on the task when they know the conductor is on their side.  Bell is funny and above all deeply passionate about the music.  This brings up the idea of inspiration…  Don’t we all need a bit of that in our music?  Mr. Bell tailors and weaves that element into every rehearsal.  He seems to know what level that inspiration should take for this particular choir.

Kindess counts…The very kind and earnestly welcoming singers in the membership of Grant Park Symphony Chorus had an immense effect on me.  I am deeply grateful.

6. Leadership.  Singers do not often have a formalized musical leader in each section.  The emerge, they evolve and devolve.  Having to do that again, determine how the leadership of that particular group works, whether to lead or follow or both…makes me think I should spend a bit more time guiding my students in this.

How much do WE as CONDUCTORS help to shape that leadership format? Is it organic?  Does our particular form of leadership put a stamp onto the choir?  of course, there must be influence.

This all seems so simplistic when I read it.  Perhaps it is just good to be reminded and shown another’s real dedication to the fundamental values of our profession.

So, where will this pondering lead?   One of the elements that is required to accomplish ALL of the above is the ability to NOTICE and react to what what is noticed.

Millenium Park, Chicago IL Pritzker Pavilion...designed by Frank Gehry