> At 09:34 AM 2/3/03 -0800, Toby Rider wrote: > But then there is the example of Arthur Rubenstein. At the end of his > life he was beginning to lose his technique. He was getting pretty old, > and the fingers just didn't work as fluently as they once did. (Think > of how old people walk.) But yet, at his last concert, despite the > finger-slip-ups, he played one Schubert piece that left everyone in the > audience in tears. Classical musicians can be Real Musicians, too.
Absolutely.. There are really great musicians in every genre, and hollow ones in every genre as well. David Greenberg is an example of a highly-trained classical musician that has tons of "soul". I'm just using the adjective "soul", because I can't think of anything better to call it. How does he do that? I think it has to do with the fact that he used the tried and true method of listening over and over to old recordings and trying to emulate the sounds on them. I found in my own playing that once I started to depend on my ears as a guide to my fingers, good things started to happen. > Traditional musicians can sound dead-wooden as well, but luckily they > tend to be fewer and farther between. Does anyone have theories on why > this seems to be so? I think it has to do with teaching methods. The first 4 years of my training on the fiddle was with a classical violin teacher. It was *very* regimented, and not much fun at all. I played lots of exercises. I'm really surprised that I even stuck with it. He eventually yelled at me and threw me out for good when he found out that I was playing traditional music. In addition, there's still an attitude floating around in some art music circles, that if you don't start playing when you're 5-years-old, that your music will never be worth squat. That's an elitist attitude that doesn't encourage people to focus on what music should really be about, which is finding and developing a voice to express the things that are burning you up on the inside. Some art musicians have put technique above expression in their order of priorities. Which allows them to develop the chops to play some very difficult pieces, but it doesn't necessarily develop them as "musicians", because as we all know, some of the very best, most tasty music is actually technically quite simple. Alot of traditional musicians, especially blue and jazz musicians, are very in-touch with the idea of using their instruments to speak. I think this has something to do with it. Toby -- Toby Rider ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) "He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That puts it not unto the touch To win or lose it all." - James Graham, Marquis of Montrose Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
