- contents
-
navigation
-
abstract
When I look back at my artistic path in music and at what made me take the decision to study it and become a professional musician, I distinguish one very important aspect of my personality. It is the habit of seeking to understand the meaning ("why"?) and the purpose of what I play. This formulation may sound very abstract, but now I can look back at my musical education, I think it is quite relevant and has many times been determinant in the enjoyment or excitement I had as well as in the choices I have made about music. The fact that I am quite "right minded" might have something to do with it: I often need to get a lot of knowledge and understanding prior to feel confident expressing myself (in a presentation or on a musical work as well as speaking a language). In music, this mainly translates into interpretation. How to build one's own interpretation (in its most extended meaning) is something I am very interested to investigate in, along with analysing how the different sources may combine towards the finding of one's own interpretation: score, performance practice, culture, "musical parameters" (pitch, time/rhythm, dynamics, phrasing...), or concept-philosophy of the piece. In my opinion, this last point is the most interesting because it is the one that may make a difference between the typical abstract contemporary music performance and a performance that "speaks" and a real communication of the feelings the composer wanted to communicate. Give only abstract sound or communicate a story, it is indeed a big difference, although this "human factor" is often neglected by music students playing contemporary music. It is also something very important for me as many of my best remembrances of musical experiences happened working closely to the composer's concept, either learning directly from him or with someone who knows well the composer or his/her style. I can say that on these occasions I satisfied my thirst of understanding the essence of the work I'm playing, although there still is most of the time some space to express one's own point of view.
- Julien Moussiegt - A historical approach to contemporary music interpretation - 2017
- Meta
- Comments
- Terms