Re: [Hornlist] Players & Musicians

[Jonathan West]

> The problem seems to me to be whether students are being taught to be
> players or musicians. I'm sure that we have all heard players who hit the
> right notes, but are uninspiring (sometimes even boring) to hear. I had
> class with a piano professor who was very fond of encouraging us to play
> expressively saying, "…that's why they call it 'music' and not 'notes.'" As
> tired as I got of hearing that, it has stuck with me and is one I've even
> used when I teach my middle school and high school students.

I suspect that a surprisingly large number of orchestral musicians
(even at a professional level) regard their work as a craft rather
than an art.

By that, I mean that they regard their task as beginning and ending
with the mastery of their particular instrument and playing the notes
in whatever fashion the conductor requires of them. They aren't much
concerned with musicianship and interpretation, they leave that to the
conductor.

Playing to a professional standard requires huge amounts of work to
achieve that mastery of the instrument, so it is inevitable that much
teaching work is directed towards technical matters, and there is
always a danger that musicianship and interpretation is forgotten.

The difference between good professional musicians and great ones is
not in the mastery of the technical aspects of the instrument, but in
the fact that they have (and think deeply about) the musicianship as
well.

Regards
Jonathan West
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[Hornlist] Players & Musicians

[William Foss]

Sorry about the double post-- I just wanted to get as many ideas about this
topic as I can. I look forward to hearing input, and hopefully very little
heated disagreement. Also, I really enjoyed meeting a lot of you in person
this past week; it was nice to put some faces with the names.

It seemed to me that a theme that was present throughout the conference
(especially the "Pedagogical Pearls" and "Meet the Masters" sessions) was
the state of music education. The information that I took is that today, a
large portion of the teaching community is very focused on getting students
through an audition—so much so that we lose individual musicianship. On
Tuesday, Dr. Hill stressed the need for teachers to focus on teaching each
student. "We are not teaching horn, we are teaching individuals" (or
something to that effect).

I remember that during the "Meet the Masters" session Mr. Cerminaro said
something to the effect of (and I am paraphrasing, I don't remember exactly
what it was that he said), "All of us on this stage are great musicians
first and great horn players second."  I thought that that was a very good
point. They spent some of the time talking about students who do not
understand the historical and musical contexts for the music that they play.

The problem seems to me to be whether students are being taught to be
players or musicians. I'm sure that we have all heard players who hit the
right notes, but are uninspiring (sometimes even boring) to hear. I had
class with a piano professor who was very fond of encouraging us to play
expressively saying, "…that's why they call it 'music' and not 'notes.'" As
tired as I got of hearing that, it has stuck with me and is one I've even
used when I teach my middle school and high school students.

I wonder how long this trend will continue. Certainly the system will stop
short of educating students who are technically proficient but fail to play
musically.

I am curious as to what everyone's thoughts are on this, and is this as
severe a problem outside the US?



Thanks

William Foss
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