The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters

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Antrobus, Raymond – Annotated transcript, Inventions in Sound, Falling Tree Productons for BBC Radio 4, 2021 Yves Klein, Overcoming the Problematics of Art: The Writings of Yves Klein (Spring Publications, 2007) The Silent Musician deepens our understanding of what conductors do and why they matter. Neither an instruction manual for conductors, nor a history of conducting, the book instead explores the role of the conductor in noiselessly shaping the music that we hear. Writing in a clever, insightful, and often evocative style, world-renowned conductor Mark Wigglesworth deftly explores the philosophical underpinnings of conducting—from the conductor’s relationship with musicians and the music, to the public and personal responsibilities conductors face—and examines the subtler components of their silent art, which include precision, charisma, diplomacy, and passion. Ultimately, Wigglesworth shows how conductors—by simultaneously keeping time and allowing time to expand—manage to shape ensemble music into an immersive, transformative experience, without ever making a sound.

In contrast, Oliveros, who by the end of her life was increasingly devoted to Tibetan Buddhist practice, “encouraged a type of meditative attention and awareness that would foster creative and nuanced responsiveness in an improvisatory setting.” (19) She rooted Deep Listening in an embodied practice that encouraged both improvisation and collaboration. When practicing her meditations, one locates sounds and emotions that cross both temporal limits or states of being, by bringing awareness to the body. Openness and shared authorship being a proponent of her work, her influences feel easier to access and discover.A caesura is made of two forward slash marks ( //), and is placed in between measures or notes to indicate a small pause in which the beat of a piece is not counted. DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (139) DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (p. 138) The University of Manchester’s Julian Dodd doesn’t think so, however. Distilling the concept to its most basic definition, he believes that music must involve the organisation of sounds according to instruction planned by a composer and then executed by a performer. Since all the sounds – such as a baby crying or someone coughing – that might occur in a piece like 4’33” are incidental and unplanned by the composer, it cannot meet this essential criteria, Dodd says. Instead, he prefers to consider it a piece of conceptual art.

Part of the moment, part of the performance … an audience at London’s Royal Festival Hall in March 2019 listening to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian The composer instructed: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action. The performer should allow any interruptions of the action, the action should fulfill an obligation to others, the same action should not be used in more than one performance, and should not be the performance of a musical composition." [8] Although the personality of the performer is crucial and ultimately what distinguishes great performances, that personality has to be used as a means to an end, an end envisioned fundamentally by the composer. We indicate multirests with an H bar and the number of bars to tacet for written above the bar like this: Multirest tacetAnniversary Of World War III" by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band on Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil (1968) Tracy McMullen describes Oliveros and Cage’s differing engagements with Eastern spirituality in her essay Subject, Object, Improv: John Cage, Pauline Oliveros and Eastern (Western) Philosophy in Music. Cage, she says, had a “preference for the mind and sublime over the body to connect it to his Protestant-informed religiosity”, despite a lifelong engagement with Zen Buddhism. She adds, “Cage took the Zen exhortation of selflessness and placed it in a Kantian, modernist context—one that was eminently authoritarian.” (18) Of all the notions most likely to rile more conservative critics, the idea of composing music with no sound may be the most provocative. But can silence ever make a valuable artistic statement? If not, why are people still willing to pay good money for the chance to rest their ears? This is a dynamic list of songs and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Silence” has no direct translation in Chinese, but the concept of what Adrian Tien calls “non-sound” (7) has been discussed throughout Chinese history, alongside concepts of absence relating to other art forms and disciplines (as well as in other East Asian cultures such as Japan and Korea). In Chinese thought, silent discourse can be found in its three major belief systems – Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In the latter way of thinking, simplicity in music was superior to all other virtues. In the Book of Rites, Confucius speaks of the “Three Withouts” - “music without sound, rites without embodiment, and mourning without garb” - as representing true mastery of each discipline. (8) In a pair of studies published in the Journal of Neuroscience, ENS researchers, including Marion and Dr. Giovanni DiLiberto used electroencephalography (EEG), an electrophysiological technique that measures electrical signals from the brain via electrodes placed on the surface of the scalp, to measure brain signals taken from 21 trained musicians. The musicians were recorded when listening to periods of silence within melodies taken from the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and when imagining Bach’s melodies while sitting in silence. A conductor is one of classical music’s most recognizable figures. Many people who have never actually been to an orchestral concert have an image of what one looks like. But rarely does such a well-known profession attract so many questions: ‘Surely orchestras can play perfectly well without you? Do you really make any difference to the performance?’ After seven months of musical silence, I feel very fortunate to be giving a public concert this week with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The auditorium in Glasgow’s City Halls will be empty, but people can still listen to the performance live thanks to a simultaneous broadcast on Radio 3. Invisible listeners are not ideal, but in the context of this year a live orchestral experience of any sort is much appreciated. A musician’s need to be heard is not just psychological inspiration, needy approbation, or box office compensation. We need audiences because without anyone listening, the music doesn’t exist – merely proverbial trees falling unheard in the distant forest. In his book A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China, the musicologist Kenneth DeWoskin tells the story of Han Dynasty musician called Music Master Chuang, whose transcribes “mysterious music” with his qin resting on his lap: “He may have strummed responsively to the airborne tones as they came to him; more likely, however, his qin resonated responsively to the sounds as they came…It was a kind of hearing aid rather than a performing instrument.”(4)After Paul Hindemith read this, he suggested a work consisting of nothing but pauses and fermatas in 1916. [2] Classical compositions [ edit ] silent; notated in great rhythmic detail, employing bizarre time signatures and intricate rhythmic patterns. [5] So, rests are used for short pauses, usually anywhere from a semiquaver (sixteenth note) to ten measures or so (this changes in different pieces of music – sometimes you’ll see a 64-bar rest symbol), and then anything above that would be a Tacet sign. A healthy mix of authenticity, tradition, and spontaneity is better than being a slave to any one of them. It is just as foolish to think that something is good because it is old as it is to think that because something is new it is better.

He profoundly describes conducting as “a communion of private emotion,” and lyrically states, “… It is your relationship with the music that lies at the heart of your artistic identity. You are a musician first, a conductor second.” Wigglesworth constantly emphasizes the privilege and honor that come with the job of conductor, shedding light on his humbleness and gratitude toward his success in the craft. All-in-all refreshing and full of insurmountable perspective, this book is a must-read for conductors of all ages and levels. It is terrific to read this truth. Often when I ask what someone thinks a conductor’s instrument is, the reply is usually either the orchestra, the baton or some other observation. I often elaborate when talking about this that the concertmaster’s basic view of the conductor is his left kneecap, the trumpet his right eyebrow etc. Consequently, it is essential that the conductor’s body is so trained that whatever bit a player sees gives the same accurate message. The motivation behind Scott’s 1941 concert is unclear; the audience, apparently, found it amusing and giggled throughout the performance. Perhaps the sight of the musicians puffing and banging away on the instruments was designed purely for comic effect, or as an ironic comment on effort and failure, says Julian Dodd, a philosopher of music at the University of Manchester. Il Silenzio: pezzo caratteristico e descrittivo (stile moderno) (1896) by "Samuel", a pseudonym, probably Edgardo Del Valle de Paz [ it]; published in the Year 1. Vol. 1. Nº11. Supplement of the journal La Nuova Musica. This is an incomplete list of albums, which can or may never satisfy any subjective standard for completeness. Revisions and additions are welcome.The wide range of accessibility that Wigglesworth creates makes this book truly unique and incomparable to other books of its kind. It provides a clear view into what it takes to be a conductor and all that this very demanding and multi-faceted role encompasses. Wigglesworth’s statements about the art of conducting and the need for self-reflection apply across the board to people of all professions. “… Despite all the good and bad that comes our way, the most significant criticisms are the ones we give ourselves.”