The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters

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For thousands of years, the qin was considered the supreme example of Chinese instruments, and a symbol of the literati (to play the qin was one of the “Four Gentlemanly Accomplishments of the Literati Lifestyle”) (2). Tao Yuanming’s poem alludes to the instrument’s greatest appeal - its relationship to personal and spiritual development. The qin was said to “restrain evil thoughts”; in literature, it was used by sages to manifest supernatural powers. (3) I could easily go on and on about what Mr Wigglesworth has to say about such things as surtitles at the opera, observing other conductors in rehearsal, the various challenges of conducting opera versus concerts, coping with singers versus instrumentalists and the zillion other things about what a conductor faces, decides, likes, dislikes, accomplishes, succeeds, fails and on and on. Arguably the most important aspect of music is sound. The Oxford English Dictionary defines music as “the art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony… etc.” When people think of music, they may think of short, melodically pleasing pieces that comforted them in their childhood. They may think of grating, overplayed earworms that they constantly hear on the radio. They may even consider avant-garde, purposefully unmelodic experimentation as musical compositions. The authors therefore conclude that our enjoyment of music is more complex than just a kneejerk reaction to sound. It is a constant processing that happens even when there is nothing to hear but the whirr of our brains’ prediction engine.

DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (p. 117) He added: "I am pleased to say that Cage's publishers have finally been persuaded their case was, to say the least, optimistic. Carpenter, John T., Oka, Midori – The Poetry of Nature: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018 (p. 85) Rosemary Brown Psyches Again!, a 1982 Enharmonic Records LP by David DeBoor Canfield. (Side one contains parodies of works supposedly taken down by British psychic Rosemary Brown from deceased composers. Side two is silent and contains an Introduction by Marcel Marceau and a "discussion" by Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms on the musical merits of Rosemary's Brown's efforts.)What does a conductor do? It may be a favourite joke among the musicians in an orchestra, but Wigglesworth wants to find a more thoughtful answer. Avoiding jargon, he analyses what he has discovered during 30 years in the job.’ Financial Times, Books of the Year The latter technique is called musical imagery and has been studied in detail previously. Marion and DiLiberto wanted to look specifically at how brain activity during audible music varied from that produced by imagined music and whether the predictions our brain makes about a heard melody are preserved when there is no melody to hear. There is really no comment to make about this quote other than how terrific it is to see in print one of the real challenges of performing.

In a pair of new studies, researchers have shown how our brains continue to activate in response to music, even when listening to gaps between notes and when imagining music without sound. 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)

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Batt has now agreed to pay an undisclosed six-figure sum to the John Cage Trust by way of an out-of-court settlement. Closing out today’s list of silent musical compositions is another politically charged release. Clearly, someone had a beef against President Ronald Reagan, much like John Denver’s beef with Richard Nixon. The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan was not a song but a completely silent album released by Stiff Records. He knows what a conductor is and does and has eloquently penned with contagious honesty what this wonderful profession is all about.

It is with great joy and admirationthat I confess that this is the first book on conducting that I have read since the introduction to the Handbook of Conducting by Hermann Scherchen published in 1933 that not only finally bears resemblance to who and what a conductor actually is but puts into very readable and eloquent English prose exactly who and/or what a conductor is and/or isn’t. Beneath the surface lies a fascinating and unusual profession. The conductor's job spec includes refining colour, manipulating sound and balance, interpretation and philosophy. They think deeply about music, culture, history and performance practice and they need to inspire 70 or so - sometimes rebellious - musicians. But how does that all come together to create a distinctive performance?

Whiting, Steven Moore (1999). Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall. New York: Oxford University Press. p.81n. ISBN 9780191584527.

Samuel was attempting a different means of writing one of his humorous critiques on musical society, mainly in Florence. All the techniques used are well developed and extremely diversified for a piece having no pitch and with a skill that only Erik Satie could match at that time. He highlights and questions every compositional cliché that was in vogue during the period among traditional Italian composers and the growth of modernist avant-garde arts, using humor as a mechanism of critique". [3] You’ll often see H bars used to indicate that the musician shouldn’t play for multiple bars which is known as multirests.

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