The prunus is full-leafed. Fine. How long should I stare at it?
The weather changes. Whoo-hoo! By ignoring "good" weather one is less inclined to whinge about rain, etc.
The Malverns (low hills nearby) remain. And will continue to do so.
Unlike the great majority I don't yearn to be outdoors. For those who regard this as peculiar let me explain: the trick is to turn "indoors" into a virtue. I can write, sing and think without assistance from meteorology and these activities exert a powerful magnetism. Brother Sir Hugh asks how such magnetism may be applied.
Faulkner, receiving the Nobel Prize, put it well:
"... to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before."
Not that I'd make such grandiose claims for myself. More simply then: to make something new and, if possible, original.
This requires elaboration. Prose and thought are potential vehicles for originality but how does singing qualify? First, as one progresses, the exhilaration increases and this is a huge benefit. And of course all performances, unless they are recorded, are original, even if that is cheating somewhat.
What I'm talking about are "informed" performances. The ones that incorporate all the corrections and insights picked up at the last lesson. A singer, practising alone, must always avoid repeating the former flawed performance and aim for the improved version. And here’s the point. I’m usually singing acknowledged masterpieces. An improved version should take me closer to what the composer had in mind, even if perfection is unattainable. I am not of course creating a masterpiece only creating a step that takes me nearer to that distant concept. And that step is original.
Is this sophistry? Outdoorists, keen to be grazing on the tussocks, might say yes.
So be it.
Will we ever know what the composer had in mind? Maybe. I'm not sure though. We bring to the music and lyrics a version of the original as yet to be born anew.
ReplyDeleterobin andrea: The score is pretty detailed and gives us a fair idea of what the composer had in mind. Beyond that is a much vaguer area called "interpretation" and this is up to the singer. Thus there may be many, widely differing performances of the same song, all of them following the score and all - if we are honest - perfectly acceptable. The composer may not agree with some or all of these interpretations but he/she too must be honest about this. The score must be open to interpretation otherwise songs would be better performed by singing robots. Music affects different people different ways and this includes the people who perform it. Provided the interpretation is "honest" (a concept which is almost impossible to define) it should be approached with an open mind.
ReplyDeleteThis extends to popular music too. A singer who covers an earlier version of a song and who seeks only to duplicate that performance is not really a singer at all, just an imitator. I assume most covers set out with the hope of bringing something else to the party.