Bernard Chasan wrote:

>>But there is a puritanical strand in all of this- how much better to play
>>music than just to LISTEN to music!!!

The interpretation of "puritanical" vs "useful" or even "advantageous" is
interesting!

>From one who is All Ears when it comes to music, I have to say I am seldom
happier than when able to make it but I am driven to do this mainly after
being inspired by professionals or extremely musical amateurs.

They are different experiences and it's the playing that I can count on to
do something like "release endorphins" as actually playing this or that can
make me extremely happy (note that I'm not very judgmental with myself or
this would not happen).

Most of all, it's making music with other people and hearing the existence
of released and sounded notes in the air, in a sort of 3- dimensional sense
that is very different from just listening to an imagined sound-stage of
people playing the piece and you realize that no matter how often you play
this recording they will play it in exactly the same way (though that can
be wonderful too).

Since it's process that's unpredictable and comes from yourself as well as
friends, we can imagine that playing is just powerful in a certain way
that's different.

Same when I sang in symphony chorus.  I was ecstatic not to be heard but
loved being part of what was making this beautiful sound or experience and
that came from a lot of work, as it turned out.

Steve Schwartz responded:

>There's no question that I know works I've performed far better than works
>I haven't.  There's also no question that the concentrated repetition of
>rehearsal has given me access to works I initially loathed.  I assume that
>others have had this experience in this way.  Is it necessary? Who knows?

I do know that with a few pieces (Sessions' "When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloomed" being one of them), it was necessary because most of us
loathed it during earliest rehearsals.  Only extensive rehearsals made the
once-hideous and tediously time-sig-changing lines "tunes" we would find
ourselves singing in the halls.  I never came to love it as a whole but at
least I appreciated it more and did very much like segments of it.  It was
such a depressing piece that several couples broke up with their mates
during the months we practiced this (along with other material for the
season but that piece did bring us down).

>Will it hurt you to try? Probably not.  I don't say that performers are
>better than listeners, but the experience of getting up a work for
>performance differs from the experience of just listening.  You can get
>insight both ways, but why block either road?

Good point.

I've had acquaintances dismiss works out of hand saying they were
valueless, but they couldn't begin to play them (they don't read music
at all).  From my own playing, I found these cavalierly-dismissed works
complex, intriguing and not at all the low-forms these people liked to
think they were.  I do get upset when people who can't play make extremely
negative value judgments on composers or conductors or performers.  I've
said before because I've seen it in forums -- the harshest judges tend to
be people who don't play but who are also the type who mainly listen and
judge.  Listen and *enjoy* where one can -- that's a different kind of
listener, but there's a dangerous kind who uses the "skills" of "hearing"
classical music to thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

>I guess I can illustrate this best with two composers - Brahms and
>Sessions.  Brahms I disliked.  I performed him and continued to dislike
>him.  On the other hand, I couldn't avoid listening to him.  Eventually,
>it clicked.  Sessions, outside of his early work, put me off initially.
>It sounded crabbed and turgid.

Oh, my - I didn't read your entire note before responding.  And just got to
this as I was both reading and replying.  Amazing that we picked the same
composer there.

>I doubt I would have cracked it just by listening since I had no incentive
>to buy the recordings and since I've never bought a ticket to a concert
>where Sessions was performed (or, incidentally, had the opportunity to buy
>a ticket).  However, I did have to rehearse some Sessions.  It was that
>process that cracked open the music.

Definitely the same for a great number of us who already had a rather
open approach to newer works but just didn't like the one we had to sing.
Portions of it became beautiful to us.  Portions of it remained mainly a
downer!

>>Yes, and how much better to grow our own food.  And make our own clothing
>>!!!  But that is not the world in which we live.
>
>How much better to have books read to us and interpreted for us, rather
>than to do the work ourselves.  We can take this analogy as far as you
>wish.  The question is, as always, where does it become unreasonable?

Also, playing through some of Mozart's more interesting changes (as in the
Symphony #40 as well as many other works -- vs the soothing easy-listening
radio-stations prefer to choose), you can 'feel' the changes more than when
you are just listening.  There are listeners whose appreciation by just
listening is very intense and the experience must be very similar, but I
have no doubt that if the same people also decided to learn how to play
some of this, they'd be even that much more appreciative.  That sense of
discovery where you yourself are involved in the creation (even if it be
somewhat hideous relative to one's ideals) is just hard to beat, though
I think it's equalled by the intensity of those who listen openly.

Andrys in Berkeley
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