Re: GG: Tabasco, Noise, etc.

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Tim Conway wrote:

[much good stuff excised]
> And as far as Bruce's statement is concerned, yes, he's right -- but who 
> cares? There may be, let's say, a thousand 'sounds', each slightly 
> different, that one can record by placing one's mics in different 
> positions in the studio or hall. As far as pianists are concerned, 
> though, isn't the only sound they want to record the one that they hear 
> when they play? A pianist cannot play for the front-row listener because 
> he isn't there: he's at the piano. The only sound that matters is the one 
> that goes into the pianists ears, so we can forget about the other 999 
> (or 9 million) hypothetical sounds. So all those sounds are, to use an 
> Australian expression, a furphy. The fact that there are many of them 
> doesn't matter. Any one of them will do, although of course the best one 
> is the one the pianist hears.

No, because the pianist's (and harpsichordist's) seat is a particularly
*bad* place for the sound, especially if the music rack is up and blocking
some of the sound.  Every individual instrument is of course different as
to where its sound is naturally best balanced.  But keyboard instruments
with lids are designed to project their best sound via the soundboard,
lid, etc. away from the instrument, and not in the direction of the player
(with the exception of virginals and clavichords, where the player is
seated directly in the middle of the open lid).  Keyboard players are (or
should be!) trained to understand the difference between what they hear at
the seat and what the instrument is projecting naturally in its own best
direction.  Often the difference is startling, and some players who
haven't spent enough time listening do not even recognize the sound of
their own instrument and playing from anywhere except the seat.  (Now,
it's probably true that as far as *some* pianists are concerned, the only
sound they want to record is the one that they hear when they play. 
Perhaps this is especially so in the case of concerto balance.  These
pianists aren't allowing their instruments to speak to best advantage,
though. Pianos aren't built that way.)

For best results, a player *must* alter his or her playing (balances,
tempos, phrasing, tone, etc.) according to the size, shape, and acoustics
of the space, playing to some selected optimal spot away from the
instrument where the instrument itself speaks most naturally, and hoping
that the experience doesn't degrade too drastically for the listeners at
other spots.  It's difficult both to pick an appropriate spot and to
project to it: one needs a large repertoire of possibilities which can be
deployed as needed, and plenty of experience as to what works in various
types of situations.  That's part of learning to perform music (or to act
or to give speeches, or any other activity involving rhetoric). Projection
often includes doing things which feel like terribly crass distortions of
the music from the seat perspective, but which merely sound natural and
"just enough" from the optimal spot.  (For example, for organ: in a live
room the player must often shorten all the notes almost to the point of
choppiness heard at the bench, if the articulation is to sound normal
where the listeners are.)  It's an art of artifice. 

The easiest way to test all this in an unknown performance space is to
have a friend play similar music while you walk around, hearing the
differences of sonic perspective and comparing them with the sound at the
bench.  Some rooms have a narrow range of difference, with sound
distributed well to most places.  Some rooms have a best sound near the
instruments; others are best away from them.  Some rooms have especially
prominent standing waves and "dead spot" nodes, where there's not much the
performer can do about it (it's a freaky experience to walk into and out
of those while listening to music).  Some rooms have spots of false echo. 
Some rooms have spots where everything sounds artifically amplified.  It
can be a surprising experiment for performers who have spent most of their
time in tiny practice rooms.  Frustrating, too, because then one has to
choose what if anything to do with the knowledge of the room.  What is one
to do with the variables of any given audience, room, and how one feels at
the moment?

The GG literature makes it clear that GG was tired of trying to reconcile
playing to many different points in a hall simultaneously (in addition to
the "gladiatorial" stuff).  See especially his comments about the
"hairpins" due to his concert experiences with the Bach fifth partita.  To
him, concerts could never present his playing in the best light because
every listener there was hearing a different concert by virtue of
placement: whom should he try to satisfy?  It can't be controlled.  But in
a recording he could play to the mikes, focusing his effort to project his
performance to that one ideal point.  This is obviously an attractive
situation. 

As an aside: with regard to GG's partitas and other Bach, I'm probably
stating a minority opinion here, but I *like* the "hairpins" in #5 and
miss that level of involvement in pieces that GG didn't play so often in
concert.  His need to project to a hall made him do musically interesting
things: moments which drew attention by being less rational, less
mechanical.  Some of those "exaggerations" are (in my opinion) an
essential part of music-making.  When GG stopped playing concerts, he
reined in those elements, and I think his playing lost an important
dimension.  His early recordings have a natural-sounding performance
surface: phrases breathe well, dynamics rise and fall with the musical
direction, articulation is integrated into the overall expression and
doesn't call undue attention to itself.  His later ones (after mid-1960's) 
are more analytical and intellectualized, with his choices seemingly
juxtaposed by imposed ideas and experimentation, rather than arising from
a natural approach to the music.  Whatever happened to his wonderful
intuitive musical instincts, the right-brained stuff?  Why did he have to
squelch it?!

(...)
> [ASIDE: While we're on this subject (although this should perhaps be a 
> separate thread), a number of people, not just John, have mentioned jazz 
> recordings. Miles Davis's name has come up more than once. I know little 
> about Miles Davis because I classify him mentally and emotionally under 
> 'modern jazz', a genre I cannot come to terms with. For years the only 
> people I knew who liked modern jazz -- or at least professed to -- were 
> those with tin ears: men and women who were unable to sing three 
> consecutive notes in key, or recognise their own national anthem, or who 
> thought Waltzing Matilda was a waltz. Play them conventional music and 
> they would be unmoved, but put on Mr Davis and his brethren, or anybody 
> playing in different keys with some band members in 5/16 and the rest in 
> 7/4, and these men and women would start singing along and bopping and 
> clicking their fingers. I assumed they did this because they knew they 
> couldn't go wrong no matter what notes they sang or beat they chose. They 
> would similarly spring alive when listening to the most discordant of 
> modern serious music, opera in particular. Now, it appears, John and 
> Bradley and many other worthies on this list, all of whom have 
> considerable musical ability and conventional musical taste most of the 
> time, are jazz afficionados to a man, so my theory is shot down in 
> flames. Blast. End of aside.]

Hee hee!

I'm not really a Miles Davis fan; the only album of his I have is "Kind of
Blue," and I bought that because the pianist is Bill Evans.  And I got
into Evans' artistry because of f_minor and GG's admiration for Evans.

Just noticed something this afternoon.  The last track of "Kind of Blue," 
entitled "Flamenco Sketches," begins exactly the same way as Evans' own
"Peace Piece" from several years earlier.  Same key, melody, harmonic
pattern, mood (but with a bass playing the bass).  Then Evans' solo later
in this piece explores ideas from "Peace Piece," taking them farther or
venturing off in different directions...this piece's harmony *does*
change, while "Peace Piece"'s doesn't...it remains as constant as Chopin's
"Berceuse."  "Peace Piece" itself (from "Everybody Digs...") is an
elaboration of a passage in a Bernstein song; Evans was trying ideas for
an introduction, and it became a whole piece.  And then compare that with
how Evans and Tony Bennett do that song together....  And with how
Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Evans transcriptions....  And with how Bernstein
plays Gershwin....  And with how Previn plays jazz, either solo or
accompanying....  And with how Previn's and Bernstein's compositions are
influenced by jazz and theatre....  Fascinating, fascinating. 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/ 

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music 
and cats." - Albert Schweitzer