I could probably start a lot of posts with, "Glenn Gould got me thinking..." It doesn't necessarily come just after watching an interview either. Occasionally I'll have an experience and it will occur to me during my thought process that Gould had an opinion on it, and that just opens it up for more discussion (in my head).
I'll start with Gould. In an interview with Humphrey Burton in 1964 he declared that the concert hall was dead. As he saw it, by 1999, people would either no longer be attending concerts, or attendance would decrease dramatically. Some of his reasons included: increased ticket prices/decreased interest, better home listening environment and irrelevance to modern and future listeners. This third point in particular interests me today. Burton, an avid concert-goer, insisted that listening to music on a stereo system at home took away from the concert experience and created a rather unnatural one instead. Besides, he said, classical composers such as Beethoven wrote his music with the idea that it would be played in a concert hall. Gould countered that while that was true, Beethoven would not have imagined his pieces being played at Carnegie Hall, or Royal Festival Hall or indeed anywhere else but perhaps one or two places he knew well. Therefore, it was Gould's conclusion that we were already creating unnatural experiences by playing these pieces outside of their intended performances places.
I thought about this more today after I had spent some time composing at the university. It had crossed my mind before, but never had it struck me so hard as it did today. My tool for composing is the piano. I can compose some on paper or by messing around in a notation programme, but if I really want to accomplish anything I have to spend a significant amount of time in front of a keyboard. I don't know if this is considered a problem, or if it's merely an "occupational hazard" so to speak, but my dilemma is thus:
1) Generally when I compose at the piano for the piano, I'm composing for myself. That is, I'm not a technical virtuoso, and I tend to favour certain styles of playing, therefore I will tend to write things I can play, or I know I would be able to play. This is not 100% accurate, but in a way it is the basis of my composition for piano.
2) In line with the first point, when I hear my music being played in my head, I'm playing it. However, I am not a performer, and I know I will probably not play most of these pieces. Does it make sense to write music for me? Would it make sense to write music for someone else if I knew they wouldn't be playing it?
3) I have used more than a dozen pianos and keyboards to compose. Beyond my mindset on that particular day, the instrument I'm using and the room I'm in have an incredibly strong effect on my music that cannot be downplayed or disregarded. At McGill I have used a couple of older Steinways that shaped certain sections of the pieces I've been working on lately in ways that the Yamahas haven't, and vice versa. The touch of the keys and the action might make me inclined to write a passage more staccato, or with more pedal. If areas of the piano or certain keys are out of tune that can also sway my feelings on chord voicings, or I might just avoid those strings altogether. A weak bass might keep me in the middle register, and out-of-tune upper strings might push be towards the lower end.
So what might have started as a chord progression on a Kawai in a basement apartment in St. John's is now being transformed in ways I couldn't have imagined on unfamiliar pianos in Montreal. My music is going through changes daily because someone broke the C#6 string, and Eb2 is out of tune, and the Steinway I normally use is already taken. And I'm composing music for performers who don't exist. I think Gould had a certain point about how we listen to music. He also predicted that listeners would have such control over music in their homes it would be a lesser experience to go to a concert hall. We are all changing the way music is being created and perceived. Like Gould, I think that is one thing that attracts me to recording. We can create the 'perfect' circumstances for the music to be performed. It's not just about archiving these pieces, and it's not just about playing them. It's about creating a particular atmosphere with the music. Recording in the right studio with the right instruments, and performing the proper editing and mixing/mastering is now as much a part of composition as writing the notes.
However, right now I'm listening to Sibelius' 3rd symphony and becoming increasingly distracted by it. Until the next time!
