Last Thursday
evening, two students on two consecutive lessons, brought up the questions; what
is music, what should one be thinking about when they are sightreading music,
and what is the difference between playing a piece of music from memory and
sightreading a piece of music? I found this interesting because, for me, these
topics are all connected.
In the first
lesson, the student, a very talented natural musician, asked me, “What should I
be thinking about when I’m sightreading a piece of music?” I answered by saying
that the answer would be different depended on the level of the musician’s
sightreading, the difficulty of the piece, and whether the musician was reading
it for the first time or after working on it for a while.
When one
learns a language, they begin by learning the alphabet—the letters. At this
level attention is focused on the letters. When the letters are learned, they
are combined to form words. Now the attention is on the words. Words are then
combined to form sentences and sentences express ideas, thoughts, feelings, and
images. At this level, attention is now focused on the story—the message—the
teaching—and is not at all focused the reading experience. The actual reading
experience has gone from opaque to transparent.
It is the
same with reading music. First one learns to identify the notes. A note, an
abbreviation for notation, indicate a sound, its pitch, and its duration. At
this level the attention is focused on the notes. Once the notes are learned,
they are combined to form motives, phrases, and melodies. At this level, the
attention is focused on the music and is not at all focused on the reading
experience.
The purpose
of reading music is to access music. For many forms of music, it is the most expedient,
though not the only, way to access pieces of music, technical exercises, and
musical studies. Reading music takes the burden off the need to memorize. But
what does it mean to access music? Here too, there is no one answer, because
what one can access from music notation is dependent on one’s musical knowledge,
understanding, and experience.
It's like
the fortune teller and her crystal ball. There is nothing in the ball at all,
but what she “sees” in the ball is a projection of her own thoughts, feelings,
intuitions, etc. Focusing on the ball allows her to bring out that which is
already within her. The ball can reveal to her nothing that she does not
already know.
The notation
of a piece of music is much the same. It contains both explicit and implicit
information, but this information can only be accessed to the degree of musical
understanding of the person reading the music.
Think of an
architectural “blueprint.” The blueprint is not a representation of the
finished product, instead, it is a set of codified instructions regarding how
to build the finished product. But this blueprint, in the hands of someone who
cannot read it or understand, would be useless. Regarding music, a beginner
might only see notes (indicating pitches) and duration (indicating how long the
notes are to be held).
But a more
advanced musician will “see” and “hear” so much more, like key, phrases,
cadences, harmonic progressions, etc.
And what
does a more advanced musician think about when they are reading a piece of
music? Again, that will depend on the reason the musician is reading the music.
In a performance, a musician is not really thinking about the music as
much as she is hearing the music emerging from her in real time. She is
like the conductor of an orchestra guiding the musicians through her vision of
the piece. She is not thinking about the mechanics of the process, she is
trusting the musicians to be able to manifest her vision; she is not thinking
about what the chord is, or the type of cadence; she is guiding and hearing the
music in real time—in the present.
It is much
the same with a musician performing a piece of music. Her mind is the conductor,
her body and her instrument are her orchestra, and she, as conductor, guides
her orchestra through her vision of the piece. Whether she has the score in
front of her or not, at this level it matters not, she could read or not read
at her pleasure. The goal of reading is to bring the music that is outside,
inside.
And finally,
regarding the question, “What is music?” I think, in the final analysis, though
my answer may not be satisfying to everyone, music is whatever you think it is…
©copyright Michael Kovitz, 2023
