Response to Miller: The guitar has great potential for enhanced musical expression through tonic and textural manipulation - just think of what distortion did to the youth! (In case you don't remember, teenagers all gave themselves over to Satan in the 1950s.) But though a guitarist can do the equivalent of "honking and screaming" with vibrato and harmonics through the fingers, most such manipulation is achieved through the use of effect pedals or modulators (wah-wah, distortion, delay, pitch shifters, etc). Does that make this expression less human?
Response to Baily: Baily posits that the morphology – that is, the shape or structure – of an instrument underlies the function, use, and language of an instrument. In my own experiences, I’ve worked a lot with 20th Century music, and in particular, I’ve always been interested in extended techniques (Cage’s prepared pianos, Ligeti’s and Lutosławski’s String Quartets, etc.) which are all about expanding the generic repertoire of a particular instrument, often by modifying its morphology. Perhaps one explanation for the wide variety of music for certain instruments (he mentions violin, accordion and guitar as examples) is their ability to lend themselves to physical alteration.
Response to Miller: Miller's discussion of classical saxophone sound vs. "African American" sound makes me think of the way the voice sounds singing opera vs. pop/jazz style. Miller says, "In R&B, however, a rough, cutting, hoarse sound became almost a trademark" which is kind of true for the voice as well in R&B/Jazz. An easy way to compare the two styles is the two different versions of Summertime: Classical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCw_FjSQuQ Jazz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j6avX7ebkM
Response to Baily: I always wondered why my viola-playing best friend had such an easier time making sense of the notes without the visual confirmation of frets or even seeing where his fingers stopped the strings of the viola. As an amateur guitar player and a trained vocalist I'm wondering if I chose the wrong instrument? Though Baily claims (and I wouldn't disagree with this) that instrumental and vocal musicality are two different arts, I wonder if the more motor-driven playing of an instrument like the viola or dutar would come more easily to a singer than a guitar or rubab would, since the array-oriented instruments rely more heavily on visualization in order to coordinate the higher level of motor function required...
Response to Baily: On page 119 Baily explains, "In contrast, playing the same scale patterns on the dutar requires considerable hand, rather than finger, movements. Changes in the position of the hand are achieved through shoulder and elbow movements. There is a greater demand for visual information to control these movements, whereas finger movements can proceed mainly under kinaesthetic control. Further, finger movements are generally faster and more accurate than hand movements."
I have played the clarinet for...12.5 years now. Obviously while playing the clarinet you cannot see what your fingers are doing, so you cannot rely on visual information (to help control movements) at all. However, because there is near-constant tactile feedback -- most fingers are responsible for 1 to 2 keys most of the time -- it is fairly easy to develop the muscle memory for mapping of finger placements with notes. (So I would say my experience supports Baily's statement.) Learning an instrument in which finger placements are not so obviously and (almost) singularly mapped and that require hand movements as Baily is saying (e.g. guitar, piano) seems like a far tougher challenge to me, coming from my clarinet experience.
Response to Bailey: My experience playing guitar falls in line with Bailey's observations. I find that my melodic expression is very different when I close my eyes and not even think about my fingers running up and down a scale. When I need to pay closer technical attention for arm and hand shifts, in considerably alters what I play. I personally believe that how one relates to an instrument on a physical and biological level strongly influences the style of music one plays. People are inclined to do what feels natural; music and its creation are deeply personal phenomena and players are going to be inclined to play in a style that feels physically and melodically natural.
Response to Miller: The guitar has great potential for enhanced musical expression through tonic and textural manipulation - just think of what distortion did to the youth! (In case you don't remember, teenagers all gave themselves over to Satan in the 1950s.) But though a guitarist can do the equivalent of "honking and screaming" with vibrato and harmonics through the fingers, most such manipulation is achieved through the use of effect pedals or modulators (wah-wah, distortion, delay, pitch shifters, etc). Does that make this expression less human?
ReplyDeleteResponse to Baily: Baily posits that the morphology – that is, the shape or structure – of an instrument underlies the function, use, and language of an instrument. In my own experiences, I’ve worked a lot with 20th Century music, and in particular, I’ve always been interested in extended techniques (Cage’s prepared pianos, Ligeti’s and Lutosławski’s String Quartets, etc.) which are all about expanding the generic repertoire of a particular instrument, often by modifying its morphology. Perhaps one explanation for the wide variety of music for certain instruments (he mentions violin, accordion and guitar as examples) is their ability to lend themselves to physical alteration.
ReplyDeleteResponse to Miller: Miller's discussion of classical saxophone sound vs. "African American" sound makes me think of the way the voice sounds singing opera vs. pop/jazz style. Miller says, "In R&B, however, a rough, cutting, hoarse sound became almost a trademark" which is kind of true for the voice as well in R&B/Jazz. An easy way to compare the two styles is the two different versions of Summertime:
ReplyDeleteClassical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCw_FjSQuQ
Jazz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j6avX7ebkM
Response to Baily: I always wondered why my viola-playing best friend had such an easier time making sense of the notes without the visual confirmation of frets or even seeing where his fingers stopped the strings of the viola. As an amateur guitar player and a trained vocalist I'm wondering if I chose the wrong instrument? Though Baily claims (and I wouldn't disagree with this) that instrumental and vocal musicality are two different arts, I wonder if the more motor-driven playing of an instrument like the viola or dutar would come more easily to a singer than a guitar or rubab would, since the array-oriented instruments rely more heavily on visualization in order to coordinate the higher level of motor function required...
ReplyDeleteResponse to Baily:
ReplyDeleteOn page 119 Baily explains, "In contrast, playing the same scale patterns on the dutar requires considerable hand, rather than finger, movements. Changes in the position of the hand are achieved through shoulder and elbow movements. There is a greater demand for visual information to control these movements, whereas finger movements can proceed mainly under kinaesthetic control. Further, finger movements are generally faster and more accurate than hand movements."
I have played the clarinet for...12.5 years now. Obviously while playing the clarinet you cannot see what your fingers are doing, so you cannot rely on visual information (to help control movements) at all. However, because there is near-constant tactile feedback -- most fingers are responsible for 1 to 2 keys most of the time -- it is fairly easy to develop the muscle memory for mapping of finger placements with notes. (So I would say my experience supports Baily's statement.) Learning an instrument in which finger placements are not so obviously and (almost) singularly mapped and that require hand movements as Baily is saying (e.g. guitar, piano) seems like a far tougher challenge to me, coming from my clarinet experience.
Response to Bailey: My experience playing guitar falls in line with Bailey's observations. I find that my melodic expression is very different when I close my eyes and not even think about my fingers running up and down a scale. When I need to pay closer technical attention for arm and hand shifts, in considerably alters what I play. I personally believe that how one relates to an instrument on a physical and biological level strongly influences the style of music one plays. People are inclined to do what feels natural; music and its creation are deeply personal phenomena and players are going to be inclined to play in a style that feels physically and melodically natural.
ReplyDelete