Mark D Lew wrote:
On Feb 9, 2006, at 10:51 AM, Chuck Israels wrote:
I have fellow faculty members who exhibit this characteristic - one
who insists upon performing a transcription of a Bill Evans
composition/improvisation (Turn Out the Stars) with which I am
intimately familiar. His rendition is unintelligible (rhythmically)
because he is so subjective about timing that he does not experience
his random and incoherent rubatos. When he asks me for help, I am
stymied and cannot explain that there is some objective rhythmic
discipline that holds meaning in this (and a lot of other) music. It
seems as if I am trying to describe color to a color blind person.
This rhythm discussion reminds me of some of my experiences coaching
opera singers in recitative. On the one hand, when they sing it
strictly by the metronome, it sounds cold and lifeless and it doesn't
communicate the text. But then when I tell them to stop being so
literal to the page and go with the natural flow of the text, they lose
all sense of the beat and it just sounds like mush. Then when I
complain that they've lost the rhythm, they give me a baffled look as if
to say, "but you just told me not to worry about singing it in time".
Some singers get recitative and some don't. For the ones who don't,
it's really hard to teach.
have them listen to Isaac Hayes recordings and then tell them to take
his style and apply it to opera.
I would think that for those who don't get recitative, their dramatic
skills would be sorely lacking also. After all, that's a major part of
recitative.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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