Musical Identity

Old SchoolOne of the highlights of the BABS Convention in Llandudno last weekend was the masterclass by International bronze quartet medallists, Old School. This is a quartet made up of singers who have been highly successful in previous quartets - I lose count of how many previous medals they have collected between them over the last twenty years. Their current mission is not merely to be successful in contest, however, but to be successful in contest with really traditional barbershop songs and arrangements. And it would be hard to find four voices better suited to remind the world of the sheer sonic pleasure available from this kind of purist approach.

There were two particular things from the masterclass that I put by for later mulling-over:

On Sunday I went back to coach my friends in West London on the songs they will be taking to Llangollen International Eisteddfod in July. It’s amazing how fast four hours can zip by working on three songs! I was pleased to discover that they had really internalised the work we did last month on the blue notes in ‘At Last’ and made that feel their own, which freed us up to explore other aspects of the music.

On the way home, I spent quite a lot of time reflecting on the coaching process, and in particular the way that barbershop’s particular musical practices set up some significant cognitive challenges for singers.

Well, we don’t call it authentic performance any more; now it’s merely historically-informed. But still, classical music still works under a strong ethic to perform music in a way consistent with its original conception. We use concepts such as style and composer’s intentions as means to constrain the expressive and interpretative possibilities a piece can yield.

What is the fascination with producing medleys or theme & variations pieces that trace a tune through a series of historical styles? I’ve seen a couple of barbershop quartets do this, construing ‘music history’ as either popular song styles since the emergence of barbershop in the late 19th century or as the standard grand narrative of classical music periods. Ward Swingle also did a chart called ‘Music History 101’ that starts with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, then launches into a series of pastiches. (Never mind that this tune actually post-dates the first style he arranges it as….) It’s also something that I’ve seen Conservatoire students propose for musicianship projects.

Some of these medleys are done very well (Michigan Jake could be pretty impressive singing anything, in my view, and they always worked with great arrangers), while others are less successful (some of the student projects I’ve witnessed haven’t lived up to their aspirations, alas). But I always find them a bit odd, and I’m trying to work out why.

The posture of the conductor will set the example for the choir. Usually stay erect, with the body expanded. Women directors should stand with their feet only as far apart as is necessary to maintain good balance.

Paul Roe, Choral Music Education

ChoralReef has a fascinating post about gender and conducting, ranging from generic questions of gestural clarity, to different types of leadership style, to the question of ‘girly gestures’. Here it homes right in on the key issue that women face when they become conductors: if we do it the same as guys do, then we’re branded as inappropriately unfeminine, if we do it differently, we’re girly and not to be taken seriously. One of the commenters on the post replies with the opinion that female conductors should ‘leave their gender at the door’. This is just such one of those ‘well, yes, but….’ type suggestions that I wanted to spend a bit of time contemplating it.

My arrangement of Lady Marmalade for the quartet dIVa is coming out of its exclusivity period and into my main catalogue tomorrow, so it seemed like a good moment to talk about some of the challenges this song presented in terms of suitability to performer.

There are two well-known versions of this song, the original from the 1970s and the more recent version from Moulin Rouge . Both tell a story of a man enjoying extraordinarily good sex in a brief encounter with Lady Marmalade, which then haunts his memories back in real life. The original is set in New Orleans, while the movie version is moved to the Moulin Rouge.

Now this song might present some feminists with a problem in the way it positions the female performers in the persona of a woman defined entirely in terms of the sexual services she can perform for men.

It is something of a truism that getting intimate with your audience is a Good Thing. It shows trust and honesty, and will give them a more genuine human experience. But is this a one-dimensional value? Is it the case that more intimate is always inherently better?
Whose little girl?

I ask this because of something that David Wright said on a recent visit over here. He was quoting Val Hicks (and I think that Val:David = David:me in terms of capacity to supply really useful things to think about) on psychic distance. This is the obligation to leave the audience room to use their own imaginations. If you are singing about a little girl, let the audience think about their own little girls. If you mime holding the baby, you are making the little girl your own and taking away the audience’s power to contribute their own meanings. Literal staging can thus be an invasion of the audience’s imaginative space.

This resonated with one of the nonverbal communication theories I examine in Choral Conducting and the Construction of Meaning: the intimacy equilibrium model.

We’ve all been present at performances that made us squirm. We describe them as cringingly bad, as awkward, as embarrassing. Mostly we don’t think about them more than we have to – rather we get irritated at how the memory of them sticks around in our heads like a nasty taste or funny smell. But if we do stop to think about them at all, we usually put our response down to lack of skill on the performers’ part.

But we’ve also all been to performances that weren’t very skilled but that were nonetheless not embarrassing. We might be slightly patronising about them – calling them sweet, or heartfelt, or well-meaning – but we don’t resent the experience. Embarrassing performances are not just about lack of skill.

What I think is going on is based in the structure of empathy between performer and audience.