It's been a gig a day since November, and now it's over it's inevitably prompting some reflections. Like how do you balance the ideal of "artistry" with the imperative of earning a living? December's the month in which that question gets asked most pressingly; there's a shit-load of gigs to get through, but some of them will rate alongside the best you do all year in terms of quality, audience turnout and disposition. When I first began professional singing work, I was mildly dismayed by the heigh-ho, heigh-ho attitude towards music-making I heard expressed by seasoned pros. Never, I vowed, would I join the Dwarves. But heck, half-way through December, my larynx feeling like a banger's clutch and the crows-claws multiplying around my eyes from the effort of beaming constantly at all those Christmas audiences - and with another fifteen engagements still to go - you could have issued me with my shovel, Hans-Christensen. Here's a true saying: you're not inhuman if you're not radiating Yule at your tenth Nine Lessons and Carols; you'd be inhuman if you were. And as much as your first instinct when you join this guild is to really give it something every time so as to make every outing special, there's only so many times you can gargoyle Sing Choirs of Angels, etc, without running yourself into the ground. Relax: the audience will be pre-disposed to experiencing something magical, and will to a great extent self-induce their wonder. Your job is perhaps not so much to create their experience as to not eff around with their pre-conceptions. They're expecting a certain sound - give it to them. After all, musicians belong, originally, to the servant classes. To a great extent, we're there to supply what our audiences want, to confirm what they know. And if we don't satisfy that, by being either inadequate, or, in the opposite direction, superadequate, they're not going to be happy. And we've failed.
Does this apply the rest of the year round? I think so. I think we're there - not all of the time, but a lot of the time - to do what people expect us to do. When a musician earns the chestnutty plaudit in a review, "So-and-so responded alertly to every nuance of the score/ was live to every possibility inherent in the role of the so-and-so", this actually means that the performance in question corresponded in most of the important details to one which the reviewer already knows and of which they are fond. Because it's impossible that the performer actually responded to every nuance, because we're all aware of the fact of subjective interpretation and know that multiple takes are possible on any number of moments in a score or role. So if I move on now to talking about how I'm looking forward to certain performances next year, I need to specify that my excitement and anticipation as a lot to do with the idea of not doing anything new and individual, but with that of stepping up to the mark and satisfying expectations. Example: evangelising the St John Passion. Now I do think I have personal qualities to bring to bear to this musical task, in particular my fluency in and feel for German. But a great deal of the pleasure of evangelising a Bach Passion is due to the fact that you know you're doing something that a lot of other people have done, and done well. And you're looking forward to creating your own moments, highlighting things that seem important to you - but some of that anticipation, again, is down to the idea that you are thereby setting yourself in (junior) contrast to others. And, because you know that your audience will be aware of the tradition to which you're adding yourself, there's pleasure in the idea that you'll be able to show yourselves worthy of the task to them. Kind of like when I became goalie for my primary school football team and was able to drop-kick the ball out into play just as far as Jake Barley who'd been goalie before me and whose Sputnik-like launches had always made me think as I craned my neck to catch their parabola: shit, I'm going to have to kick it like that next year. And a lot of the relief and pleasure I experienced when I did kick it like that next year was down to the fact that I knew the people watching me would be relieved and pleased that I could do what the other guy had done. So I beg your pardons for saying something that might seem uncreative but I think my considered starting thought for this blog is that a lot of the joy of artistic creativity has to do with maintaining a standard and/or a tradition just as much as it has to do with breaking the mould. On which note, I'm well chuffed to be holding an advance Christmas present in the form of a pre-release copy of the new CD by Stile Antico which is coming out shortly after Christmas. It's of music by John Sheppard and it's totally up there with the Tallis Scholars and the Sixteen.
Does this apply the rest of the year round? I think so. I think we're there - not all of the time, but a lot of the time - to do what people expect us to do. When a musician earns the chestnutty plaudit in a review, "So-and-so responded alertly to every nuance of the score/ was live to every possibility inherent in the role of the so-and-so", this actually means that the performance in question corresponded in most of the important details to one which the reviewer already knows and of which they are fond. Because it's impossible that the performer actually responded to every nuance, because we're all aware of the fact of subjective interpretation and know that multiple takes are possible on any number of moments in a score or role. So if I move on now to talking about how I'm looking forward to certain performances next year, I need to specify that my excitement and anticipation as a lot to do with the idea of not doing anything new and individual, but with that of stepping up to the mark and satisfying expectations. Example: evangelising the St John Passion. Now I do think I have personal qualities to bring to bear to this musical task, in particular my fluency in and feel for German. But a great deal of the pleasure of evangelising a Bach Passion is due to the fact that you know you're doing something that a lot of other people have done, and done well. And you're looking forward to creating your own moments, highlighting things that seem important to you - but some of that anticipation, again, is down to the idea that you are thereby setting yourself in (junior) contrast to others. And, because you know that your audience will be aware of the tradition to which you're adding yourself, there's pleasure in the idea that you'll be able to show yourselves worthy of the task to them. Kind of like when I became goalie for my primary school football team and was able to drop-kick the ball out into play just as far as Jake Barley who'd been goalie before me and whose Sputnik-like launches had always made me think as I craned my neck to catch their parabola: shit, I'm going to have to kick it like that next year. And a lot of the relief and pleasure I experienced when I did kick it like that next year was down to the fact that I knew the people watching me would be relieved and pleased that I could do what the other guy had done. So I beg your pardons for saying something that might seem uncreative but I think my considered starting thought for this blog is that a lot of the joy of artistic creativity has to do with maintaining a standard and/or a tradition just as much as it has to do with breaking the mould. On which note, I'm well chuffed to be holding an advance Christmas present in the form of a pre-release copy of the new CD by Stile Antico which is coming out shortly after Christmas. It's of music by John Sheppard and it's totally up there with the Tallis Scholars and the Sixteen.
