Ed,
Living in a city where it gets down to 32 F at most several times a year, and hardly ever into the 20s, I have not had the opportunity to experience pure silence very often. In fact, until I was a Senior in High School I don’t think I had ever “heard” true silence.
Several weeks after I arrived at Interlochen in Mid November (1983), the weather turned very cold. Another several weeks and the lake had started to freeze over, and just before I left to return to Arizona (before Christmas) I went down to the lake to listen. I was absolutely shocked. There was NO sound! I sat there for as long as I could before my teeth started chattering to soak in what absolute silence felt like. I will remember that day for the rest of my life! In fact, I haven’t experienced silence like that since 1983!
I submitted a post at the TH several years ago entitled
Don’t Drop the Ashtray!!. It’s very appropriate to include a portion of it here as well.
Quote:
My instructor shared a fantastic story with me at my lesson yesterday. He was in Daniel Barenboim’s office and they were discussing music. Before I tell the story though some preparation is required. Mr. Barenboim is a very fine piano player, but apparently he is envious of string and wind players when it comes to shaping musical phrases. The limitation of the percussive quality of his instrument (i.e. attack and decay) does not allow the flexibility to begin a sound from nothing and has certain restrictions when observing crescendos and decrescendos. With that background, here is the story…
Mr. Barenboim was smoking a cigar in his office and sitting behind his desk with a large glass ashtray off to one side. He said that music begins in silence and then returns to silence. Consider that music is this ashtray. He gently raises the ashtray from the desk with both hands, lifts it into the air slowly, and then returns it to the desk with the same motion. He says music is like the ashtray. It’s heavy and substantial, but at the same time it’s made from glass and will break if it is dropped. You must treat the music with care to display its beauty.
As brass players, the nature of our instruments leads us to produce percussive attacks almost in a default mode quite naturally. To achieve a vocal quality of expression we have to have a vast palate of different ways to begin every note, from a strong percussive approach to a delicate whisper and every variation in-between. To begin the music from silence we must strive to increase our palate of sounds and articulations so that we can truly raise up a beautiful musical product for all to see and then return it to silence with effortlessness. (I guess it’s a mixed metaphor when you think about cigar butts and ashes being the product, but you get the idea).
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The rest of my post talked about the vocal approach to playing and if you’re interested you can click on the link above.
Do I get a prize for including “butts” and silence in the same post????
Great topic! Thanks for starting it!