One of the reasons people play metrically and are afraid to loosen the pulse is because they look at the musical notation and all they see are identical looking black and white noteheads.

And they think that when they play, they have to reproduce those black and white symbols strictly.

This is a failure of understanding.

First, the notes on the page is not the music. It’s an attempt by the composer to represent the sonic imagination in his head.

It’s like a blueprint to a house. The blueprint is not the house.

Or it’s like a screenplay to a movie. In order for the movie to come alive, the director has to flesh out all the scenes, actions etc.

The score is dead, it’s just a basic blueprint.

When we play it, we have to breathe life into the dead score, by filling it with our imagination, with many gestures, nuances, and flourishes.

And linear phrasing is one of the ways to bring it to life.

When we play linearly, we’re focusing on the line, on the forward motion in the music, not on each individual note or beat.

Instead of focusing on the notes and beats, we build beautiful lines, we turn each phrase into gestures and sonic events so that they come together to form a beautiful work of art.

So we are past the point of just trying to play the notes ‘faithfully.’

We’re active participants in the creative process—we’re co-creators with the composer.

A piece of music on the written page is just a bunch of black and white symbols.

When we play it, we have a duty to make it come alive, to make it sing and dance, just as a director has a duty to make the movie come alive.

This is what is meant by interpretation.

So the next question is, how do we know how to make it come alive?

The answer is simple. You have to immerse yourself in the style of whatever music you’re trying to play.

You’ll have to know all its conventions, the theory behind it, the forms, you’ll have to know the aesthetics, its philosophical groundings. In other words, you have to breathe and live it.

That’s why learning to play classical music is a life time pursuit, and not just something you pick up one day and decide you know everything about it.

Posted on Friday, March 3rd, 2023 at 11:25 pm under AOV, AOVguitar, creativity. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.