indessed roscivs

Last week’s fiddle concert gave me something else to think about. Which requires more talent: faithfully reproducing a piece of music to exactness—or being able to interpret the music, making it your own, improvising a completely new tune each time you play? Or, perhaps, that is approaching it from the wrong direction. Which is more aesthetically pleasing from a listener’s point of view?

Interestingly enough, if this is the listener’s first exposure to the song, the two are theoretically indistinguishable. The listener has no way of knowing whether the performers have practices intently together for hours on end, getting each part immaculately perfected, or whether they simply have a vague idea of what the others will play and are improvising the details and flourishes as they go.

This was the situation I was in on the evening of the performance. The harmonies were rich and nary a sheet of music was in sight; the performers were three separate groups who were simply joining each other in ensemble that day. Had they practiced for hours before? Did they distribute sheet music and discuss which parts each person would be playing for the particular song? Or did they simply say, “Hey, let’s play such-and-such in the key of G,” ran through the music a few times together, and took that to the stage? Were the violin solos, where one of the trio would saw away madly while the other two took a back seat for a moment, planned down to the measure? Or did they have some system of gestures or signs where each would know it was his turn to play?

As the performers were taking their final bow at the end (after their encore), and people were filing into the aisles, some fake snow started falling from above their heads, apparently taking them by surprise. One of them began to play the melody of “Jingle Bells,” with a gleam in his eye. Another fiddler joined in, and the first began to harmonize. The audience started singing along, and pretty soon all the performers had joined in to the obviously unrehearsed Christmas carol.

Was this performance any different from the previous hour’s music?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 8:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.