Geoffrey Thomas

Recently I taught a master class at Colorado University School of Music and worked with pianists and a harpsichordist. They all played well and so we were able to discuss musical issues. When I asked each player what he or she thought the piece was about the answers tended to be vague.  This is no indictment of a group of talented students. There responses were like those you would hear at any good music school

It is curious that musicians can spend enormous amounts of time preparing a piece and never consider the meaning or extra-musical content. I must include myself in the indictment, because I have frequently failed to put meaning into the forefront. We musicians got so caught up with technical aspects that we generally neglect meaning. An actor would, of course, immediately dive into the problem of meaning and would continually wrestle with it throughout the study, rehearsal and performance process. If you are playing the role of Hamlet you will immediately consider what Hamlet is thinking and feeling, what motivates him, why he says these words and not some other, why he takes these actions and not some others.

Musicians need to engage in this process of discovering meaning. The answers are of a different nature and the clues are not as clear as in a literary text, but the exploration is just as essential. It is simply not enough to be satisfied with a ‘correct’ execution of the musical text. The question of why is central. Why did the composer write these particular notes? What was his reason for the notation he chose? What should we communicate? How can we do this? The composer intends meaning. What is that meaning? To discover this is our central task.

New solutions to problems often come in reframing or even inverting the original question. I have been wrestling with the question of establishing the affect for a piece of music. By affect, I mean the external expression of a mood, a state of mind, or a situation. Ideally, the affect or range of affects should quickly become apparent. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find clear answers. The notion of restating the question came to me in reading Cracking Creativity by Michael Michalko. Instead of deriving the meaning from the musical text, I am now trying on affects, like so many hats. This removes the problem of finding the right answer and substitutes a more playful, experimental approach. This approach can be improved with a sensitive listener who reacts to your experiments. Because you are attempting something new, you may not have sufficient awareness to judge the quality of what you are doing.