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One thing I love about GG
fans is that they're bitterly divided into the Hummists versus the
Anti-Hummists. Not long after I joined f_minor, one guy who hated the humming
was actually petitioning CBS/Sony to release an electronically doctored edition
of hum-less GG recordings.
I'm a bigtime Hummist, by the
way.
"But was Gould's singing - and is the humming of pianists in general - an embarrassing encumbrance, even a sign of mental instability, or might it be inseparable from the expressiveness of their playing?" This thing at the end is a quote, but
is it also a question for us?
Maybe I'm a Hummist because I can't
play an instrument (not counting my Theremin, and there's some controversy over
how well I play that, or whether it's even possible to play a Theremin well).
Everyone can express his/her love of music with singing and humming, though;
it's just so natural and spontaneous. Who can resist the temptation of singing
in the shower?
Is there some kind of direct logical
argument, or well-accepted notion of musicianship and mental health,
that suggests that as soon as you can
play a non-mouth instrument well, you should immediately want or agree to cease
singing and humming?
When I listen to GG's piano recordings,
I hear a guy just volcanically erupting with love and passion for this music.
Nobody knows better than he how superbly he's rendering it on the piano -- but
for GG, I don't think that was enough.
It seems clear that not only is he
expressing his intense passion for this music when he hums, but that the humming
"informs" and directs the playing. In particular, his humming
"aims" his fingers and feet, his body and muscles, at special and
subtle emotional moments both of crescendo and synchopation.
We take it for granted that GG nearly
always had his very personal interpretations of pieces of music, and these
moments of "unusual" emphasis and synchopation are rarely, if ever,
absolutely specified in sheet music. They come from the soloist's (or
conductor's) heart and soul. My guess is that humming expressed GG's
interpretative ideas first and most clearly, and his fingers
"listened" and followed.
There usually are music teachers on
this list. What do you tell a child learning a keyboard instrument about
humming? Do you find that most children spontaneously hum? Do you instinctively
discourage it? Why? Do you have strong feelings that humming interferes with
specific objectives of learning the piano?
Students or former students -- do you
remember struggles with your teachers over humming? Did you subsequently
conclude that the teacher was right, and that mastery was improved by
disciplining yourself not to hum?
I take strong exception to that
"sign of mental instability" thing, even if Eyres hides his own
opinion by making a question out of it, which I think was a cowardly thing to
do, a slur he just wanted to sling without having to defend it.
Singing and humming are just so human,
so universal. It's a way ordinary mortals express their hommage and admiration
to great singers, great songs, great instrumentalists, great instrumental music.
Toddlers are constantly creating their own "oeuvre" of personal,
imaginary music, symphonies, themes, which they sing to themselves; it's so
normal a part of childhood development that a parent might wonder about a child
who wasn't composing personal music and humming it.
Elmer
Grand Krigat of the Hummist Kult
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