A Forced Riposte
I've ranted before, so I'll rant again. There are many things in life that can hack you off. I've previously written about those "pull to open tabs" on packets of bacon, and people who expect you to be a professional clairvoyant. That is naming but two.
In my professional life I come across people with various connections to music. A five-year-old going for her first violin, a ninety-year-old trying to trace a recording remembered from his youth, an I-don't-know-how-old wanting harp strings, or an I-know-precisely-how-old-you-are-but-would-get-battered-if-you-realised-that-I-knew lady wanting obscure Slovak sheet music.
Within all these disparate groups lies an insidious minority - those prone to judgementalism.
There are many half-decent musicians out there who privately both look down upon and scorn those who merely listen to music. Even more sadly, they tend to mock those who do play but are, and will ever be, nothing more than merely adequate. In my opinion whether on piano someone masters Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or the Mozart Sonatas does not matter. If the performer has a feeling of achievement, joy and satisfaction, then they truly HAVE succeeded - and everyone who truly cares about them will have enjoyed the performance and will share in their joy.
Those who look down on others have a logic trait that is their undoing though. They would never criticise someone's knowledge of wine just because that person didn't own a vineyard - nor would they comment adversely on that person's taste for granite work-surfaces just because they had never been a quarryman.
In short, these people are idiots. (see plate)
Music is a two way thing. Performing and listening - creating and consuming - working and relaxing, or relaxing and working. The Bible states that it is "better to give than to receive," and I fully accept that in a doctrinal, moral and ethical advice to society kind of way. But within the "creating and consuming" world of arts, I'd put "giving and receiving" pretty much neck-and-neck in the beauty of the race.
I will never forget my sense of pride (and my tears) when a pupil of mine, who I first introduced to string instruments, called me to say he'd received his first professional pay cheque. You don't get a feeling like that often!
I have never known a really fine musician to have the nasty "down-looking" trait. It tends just to exist in those who over-estimate themselves in many ways. But they are ill-advised to underestimate the many, many 'listeners' because, as history has always shown, if you don't understand your audience, it is you who will be nothing. I get sad that these people choose to share their views with me just because they think I've seen it all. Well, I have seen it all, and the "all" is beautiful.
In my professional life I come across people with various connections to music. A five-year-old going for her first violin, a ninety-year-old trying to trace a recording remembered from his youth, an I-don't-know-how-old wanting harp strings, or an I-know-precisely-how-old-you-are-but-would-get-battered-if-you-realised-that-I-knew lady wanting obscure Slovak sheet music.
Within all these disparate groups lies an insidious minority - those prone to judgementalism.
There are many half-decent musicians out there who privately both look down upon and scorn those who merely listen to music. Even more sadly, they tend to mock those who do play but are, and will ever be, nothing more than merely adequate. In my opinion whether on piano someone masters Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or the Mozart Sonatas does not matter. If the performer has a feeling of achievement, joy and satisfaction, then they truly HAVE succeeded - and everyone who truly cares about them will have enjoyed the performance and will share in their joy.
Those who look down on others have a logic trait that is their undoing though. They would never criticise someone's knowledge of wine just because that person didn't own a vineyard - nor would they comment adversely on that person's taste for granite work-surfaces just because they had never been a quarryman.
In short, these people are idiots. (see plate)
Music is a two way thing. Performing and listening - creating and consuming - working and relaxing, or relaxing and working. The Bible states that it is "better to give than to receive," and I fully accept that in a doctrinal, moral and ethical advice to society kind of way. But within the "creating and consuming" world of arts, I'd put "giving and receiving" pretty much neck-and-neck in the beauty of the race.
I will never forget my sense of pride (and my tears) when a pupil of mine, who I first introduced to string instruments, called me to say he'd received his first professional pay cheque. You don't get a feeling like that often!
I have never known a really fine musician to have the nasty "down-looking" trait. It tends just to exist in those who over-estimate themselves in many ways. But they are ill-advised to underestimate the many, many 'listeners' because, as history has always shown, if you don't understand your audience, it is you who will be nothing. I get sad that these people choose to share their views with me just because they think I've seen it all. Well, I have seen it all, and the "all" is beautiful.
posted by fwyalchen at 7:08 PM
1 Comments:
There is so much in your post here. As a trained musician who loves performing, I totally agree with you it is a bad thing to understimate audiences, or those who "merely" listen. Music to me is about emotion, it is about the unsaid, it is something about "communion", something spiritual takes place. This applies at every level. How many of us can be moved by hearing someone sing a simple song, sung by a friend, trained or not. I have been to high level concerts which left me cold, but small events where I have cried. If we are communicating something without words, something indescribable, that is in a spiritual realm (and I don't mean religious), that is one of the special gifts we have to give and receive, as humans. I have done quite a bit of conducting and performing in my day, and the most stressful time I had was with a group of people who thought they were superior to the audience, that the audience wouldn't know if the standard was low.... I SO dislike that kind of superiority complex. We say music is a gift - it is a gift of spirit and of love. The best musicians (amateur or professional) know that, and the audience ALWAYS knows.
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