Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding

Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding by JOHN RINK

Review by: ANTHONY GRITTEN
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1 (September 2005), pp. 97-100
Published by: University of California Press
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Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding 97

Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding is an introduction to the psychology of the performing

Edited by JOHN RINK musician. Its subject is not the listener but the per-
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 former, whose central concerns are those of expression
and bodily movement. The first of these concerns bears
Reviewed by ANTHONY GRITTEN
a complex relation to four performance skills that
Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK
Clarke considers crucial to the necessary “transparency
between conception and action” (p. 64): timing, coordi-
nation, reading music, and memorization.
Opening part II, Chapter 5, Janet Ritterman’s “On
Teaching Performance,” strolls leisurely through the
is a textbook survey of history of musical pedagogy, charting some of the

M
USICAL PERFORMANCE
scholarship on music performance. Its four attitudes towards teaching that teachers, institutions,
parts progress from context to consumption: schools, and nations have adopted during the last 250
“Conceptions and Preconceptions,” “Learning to years. This chapter and chapter 1 provide a speedy
Perform,” “Making Music,” and “Interpreting introduction to the historical-cultural contexts of
Performance.” Across this division, sixteen chapters performance.
summarize a variety of work in folk-psychology and Chapter 6, “Developing the Ability to Perform,” is the
cognitive science. first of Jane Davidson’s two chapters. Davidson isolates
Chapter 1, “Performing through History” by the environmental factors affecting the development of
clarinetist Colin Lawson, presents an overview of the talent (frequency of exposure to music, freedom to
changing contexts of performance during the rise of explore music, intensity of engagement, hours of prac-
Western classical music. Weaving together a narrative tice, an adult role model) and identifies four types
from remarks about such disparate subjects as ritual, of motivation (extrinsic, social, achievement, intrinsic)
printing, freelance musicians, digital media, and outreach, and five skill sets (structure, notation and reading,
Lawson writes with clarity, noting the various connecting aural, technical and motor, expressive, presentation)
threads that have hung between the practice of perform- presupposed by the concept of musical ability. This pro-
ing musical works and the wider framework of society. vides a valuable counterpoint to the other authors’ bias
Chapter 2, “Historical Performance and the Modern toward the mechanisms of accomplished professional
Performer” by Peter Walls, argues that there is a princi- performance, setting their chapters into a broad devel-
ple involved in the performance of works from earlier opmental context. She concludes her survey with the
periods. This turns on the performer’s imperative to sensible note that “to develop performing skills [for
provide herself with a thick contextualization of the Western classical music] requires a pull against the
score with which she begins. Authenticity, Walls argues, dominant cultural trend” (p. 99).
may be a loaded term, but its sentiment is appropriate to Chapter 7, Stefan Reid’s short chapter “Preparing for
the performer’s balancing act “between an historic past Performance,” is divided into two sections: “How Much
and an aesthetic present” (p. 24). Is Enough?” and “How Musicians Practise.” Efficient
Chapter 3 is on a charged subject. “Analysis and (or?) and effective strategies for practicing focus on manage-
Performance,” by John Rink (it might have been able issues arising from the music, and they should be
“Performance and (or?) Analysis” if the writer had been geared toward three stages of skill acquisition (cogni-
a professional performer), is on the familiar theme of tive, associative, autonomous). Some forms of practice
“informed intuition.” Rink’s intention is to articulate subdivide actions into smaller components, while
“the dynamic between intuitive and conscious thought others enact a single operation upon the actions (e.g.,
that potentially characterizes the act of analysis in rela- slowing the tempo). All forms of practice, Reid
tion to performance” (p. 35). His case study is Chopin’s confirms, rely on conscious mental involvement and
Nocturne Op. 27 no. 1, on behalf of which he showcases continuous monitoring of goal-directed tasks.
tempo graphs, dynamic graphs, contour maps, rhyth- Chapter 8, “Memorising Music” by the psychologist
mic reductions, and renotations. His goal is a synthesis Aaron Williamon, is a cousin to the editor’s chapter and
and “resonance” (his new term) whereby in the final is concerned with one of the potential consequences of
analysis—literally—the whole becomes more than the the activity Rink advocates. Williamon considers three
sum of its parts. types of memory (aural, visual, kinaesthetic). He notes
Chapter 4, “Understanding the Psychology of that attitudes toward memorization vary from per-
Performance,” the first of Eric Clarke’s two chapters, former to performer, instrument to instrument, musical

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98 A. Gritten

style to musical style (for example, pianists tend to earth and—somewhat against the optimistic grain of
emphasize the importance of having a clear conception the book—blunt regarding the empirical affects of per-
of musical structure), and that many judgments and formance on performers’ bodies: “If, despite all these
decisions are “drawn from long-term memory, acquired precautions, the costs still outweigh the benefits, then
over many years of training” (p. 122). perhaps public performance is not for you” (p. 178).
Part III starts with Chapter 9, written by a seasoned Part IV opens with Chapter 13, “Listening to
professional pianist. Peter Hill’s “From Score to Sound” Performance” (Clarke’s other chapter). This chapter
is one of the most relaxed chapters in the volume. His should be read alongside Chapter 14. Clarke’s approach
approach resonates with Rink’s and Reid’s chapters, all is part of a project to construct music as an ecological
three conceiving pre-performance study in Modernist practice: Here musical performance affords various
fashion as a matter of problem-solving. To wit: “[T]he ways of engaging with sound. As such, his guiding ques-
first job is to begin by developing our own view of tion is “What do the sounds of performance specify?”
the work. [. . .] Obvious though it may be, we have to be (p. 190), and his answer covers the star status of per-
clear, in outline at least, about what we are trying to do formers, the repeatability, interruptibility and trans-
before looking for the means to achieve it” (p. 133). formability of acousmatic listening (pp. 186-188), the
Hill discusses the dangers of over-practicing (as do interpretative elements of a performance, musical envi-
Goodman and Reid), the relative merits of solutions ronments, and the failures of performance-simulating
impacting on future performing versus those solving machines.
only the present problem, and the continual striving for Chapter 14, “The Legacy of Recordings” by Peter
alignment between one’s inner conception of the work Johnson, begins by admitting that recordings do vio-
and the actual sound produced. lence to live performance. Johnson discusses the ever-
Chapter 10, the second of Davidson’s chapters, increasing size of the recorded archive, the complexity
explores “Communicating with the Body in Perfor- of performance itself, and the influence of the recording
mance.” Her theme is the role of presentation, her claim medium on what we hear. He goes on to consider fea-
being that the body is both problem and solution to the tures of recording that need consideration, including
“huge transition between the isolation of individual distortion, manipulative editing, acoustics, instrumen-
practice and the social interactions experienced on the tal sonority, and performance style. Johnson ends by
concert platform” (p. 144). Indeed, “finding the right asking, “Has music come to be conceived as more
mental and physical intention and allowing that to be abstract, disembodied and ideal as a result of the invisi-
freely communicated through the body seems essential bility of its performers on records, or have recording
in the production of a fluent and meaningful perform- methods merely responded to current ideologies of
ance” (p. 147). In many ways this is the pivotal chapter what music ought to be?” (p. 209).
in the volume, confronting head on the relation consti- Chapter 15, Raymond Monelle’s “The Criticism of
tuting musical engagement: between mind and body, Musical Performance,” offers a view of the history of
inner conception and outer sound (Hill), rehearsing journalistic writing. Monelle unravels the fate of per-
and performing (Reid), structure and expression formance in the hands of writers from those in
(Rink), sound and perception (Clarke), and so on. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung to Heinrich Heine,
Chapter 11, by Elaine Goodman, is the only chapter from Eduard Hanslick and George Bernard Shaw to
in Musical Performance explicitly on “Ensemble Ernest Newman (né William Roberts). He elucidates
Performance.” This is a useful exposé of the issues the major developments in music criticism as it was
confronting performers when they play together. gradually institutionalized, of which the three major
Goodman separates these into four issues: keeping shifts were these: Reviews were increasingly signed; the
time, making and receiving aural and visual signals, power of reviewers to influence performers’ reputations
understanding the role of the individual within the increased; and interpretation became the focus of
group, and the sociology of group dynamics. writing about live performance.
Chapter 12, “The Fear of Performance,” is by the Chapter 16, “Performers on Performance” by
psychologist Elizabeth Valentine. This contains an Jonathan Dunsby, overlaps with Chapter 15. Both
immense amount of information condensed into a are concerned with how to account for performance
small space. An immediately practical chapter, it offstage. Both focus on written testimony, Monelle on
provides a series of concrete suggestions for dealing journalism, Dunsby on performers’ writings. Dunsby’s
with the effects of stress and anxiety, based on a wide focus is nominally on how performers understand
range of research. Valentine’s conclusion is down to themselves, how they think they understand themselves,

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Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding 99

and how they think they should understand themselves. comment, since, unlike some performers, “who for an
His case studies are Glenn Gould, Dietrich Fischer- ulterior artistic purpose may need to have faith in some
Dieskau, and Gunther Schuller, through their writings starting point without going too far into its credibility”
and some gentle musings on the values of performing. (p. 227), these scholars do not allow themselves to rely
As with much of Dunsby’s writing, this chapter offers a on “tradition and intuition alone” (p. xii).
tantalizing glimpse into the workings of an insightful Rhetorics of accountability and transparency are
musical mind, though many threads are left hanging concerned with monitoring practice, and elements
within its poetic artifice. infiltrate Reid’s chapter. Good practice is “a highly
With these summaries in mind, some remarks about structured activity with the explicit goal of improving
Musical Performance as a whole will provide a wider some aspect of performance” (p. 111 n 6), and it
context. Its concern with the performance of musical requires constant conscious monitoring and mental
works is manifest in a belief about the dynamics of per- involvement. Maximizing the effects of practice is espe-
forming circumscribed by the theater of representation. cially important for those performers headed towards
Performance is taken as the communication of musical live, public (especially paid) performance.
information (structural, expressive, bodily) with mini- Another musical activity subsumed by accountability
mal loss, noise, or interruption. Since “Scores set down is memorization. Memorizing music leads to efficient
musical information” (p. 129) and performance “is the and effective performance. As a sign of competence, it is
construction and articulation of musical meaning” central to the ideology whereby the performer seeks
(pp. 68-69), it follows that “the performer has to identify an intimate relation with the music. Williamon admits
the structure, assimilate it and control it well enough in that memorizing music offers only relative freedom,
real time to represent and, ideally, accurately convey it” but believes that time spent memorizing pays off when
(232, 56-57 n 8). Performance is thereby constructed as “memorised performances offer enhanced experiences
transparent within the economy of knowledge, and the for audiences” (p. 118).
information read from it is taken to be “fully available A different tussle with accountability occurs in Rink’s
and used by audience members in their assessment and chapter. Rink values pre-performance analysis because
understanding of performance” (p. 147). Indeed, “The it “might heighten [the performers’] ability to articulate
sounds of a performance have the potential to convey to themselves and others (students, teachers and so on)
a wealth of information to a listener, ranging from what is happening in the music” (p. 41). The “articula-
physical characteristics related to the space in which tion” procedures proposed here (and by Clarke [p. 69])
the performance is taking place and the nature of the cover who is accountable to whom. It is unclear whether
instrument, to less palpable properties such as the this refers to what happens during live performance
performance ideology of the performer” (p. 190). or pre-concert talks, whether it refers to what the per-
Performance represented thus, one might ask, “Who former does, and whether it is a matter for reflection.
owns this information?” If the listener owns a live per- Rink’s assertion that analysis “can prove liberating to
formance (just as she owns a recording), then does the musicians striving for more informed intuition, more
performer have a responsibility to her (as she does to conscious thought and greater powers of verbal articu-
the composer)? If, as Clarke says, “the score stands as a lation” (p. 41) suggests that the reference is intended to
representation of the music which is free of any particu- be all inclusive (though compare Valentine’s experi-
lar performance” (p. 185), then is it, so to speak, hired mental observation that analysis tends not to reduce
out each time it is performed, and does the performer anxiety [p. 177]).
have an obligation to return it in good condition? What is the rationale for these quiet drifts toward
It seems so, judging by the way in which contributors accountability? How does such commendable recti-
take up the editor’s ambition to account for “the tude—necessary within the academy—impact upon per-
experience of music through performance” (p. xii). One formance? Consider this remark (Johnson, 1999, p. 85)
of their central concerns is the word “through” in this quoted by Clarke (p. 190): “The outstanding perform-
maxim: how performance mediates and instances the ance of a fine musical work, is, I suggest, an invitation
musical work. Generally they configure the relation to transcendental listening, in that, paradigmatically,
between “work done” and “work” in terms of the it avoids drawing attention to itself as a performance
accountability of the former to the latter: The performer (whether for positive or negative reasons).” This refers to
is responsible to the listener for the accuracy and the standard performance tradition, an assumption of
value of information exchanging hands. This rhetoric which is that the performer should be a vessel for
is familiar from contemporary life and deserves the music, a bearer of its message. (We may pass over

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100 A. Gritten

performance of non-Classical, non-Western, and non- (pp. 145, 148) in the hope that this will provide security
notated musics, since they are largely absent from when the performer eventually steps on stage.
discussion.) Nevertheless, what is Johnson getting at? In summarizing the contribution of Musical
Presumably the listener hears a performance as divorced, Performance to the discipline of Performance Studies,
or at least separated, from the pragmatic, utilitarian one should note that other themes besides account-
concerns of everyday life, and hence (e)strange(d), self- ability reward reflection. One is the relation between
conscious, and artificial. Yet Johnson also seems to mean musical actions and the representations making them
a bourgeois notion of performance as, like the proverbial possible under the rubric of “the ability to perform”
child, “seen but not heard”: Performance, it is wished, is (p. 89) and the “surplus [. . .] needed to go beyond mere
transparent insofar as it does not childishly advertise execution” (p. 226). Musical scholarship has begun to
itself as anything other than a background to mature acknowledge the intensity and force of musical experi-
listening. Configured thus, performance is accounted ence—the reason it grabs our attention at all. Most
for and returned to the fold. chapters in the volume are aware of this progress and
Even posited as an ideal, there remains the question signal Musical Performance as a topical interjection into
of how the performer lives within a culture in which the discipline. While it could be said to lack focus in
accountability and transparency are not viruses but appealing to all readerships, it is more internally cohe-
values, particularly dominated as culture is by con- sive than its older sister, Rink (1995). Perhaps it will
sumption of that most ideal tangible, the recording. open the eyes of the performers on the cover of the
Johnson himself sketches the beginnings of a strategy paperback, who, playing in trance-like reverie, eyes
for dealing with recordings. Clarke offers the listener shut, seem to be relying “on tradition and intuition
some suggestions. Reid and Rink, directing their advice alone” to get them through—precisely what Musical
at the performer, advocate listening to records (pp. 107, Performance marches resolutely against.
57 n 15, 58 n 25), while Hill cautions against using them
during the early stages of learning (pp. 133, 143 n 5).
Davidson suggests another strategy: noting that the Address correspondence to: Dr Anthony Gritten, Head
performer is viewed (indeed, it is for this reason that of Postgraduate Studies and Research, Royal Northern
music offers to the rhetoric of transparency an easy College of Music, 124 Oxford Road, Manchester
target), she advocates rehearsing in front of others M13 9RD, UK. E - MAIL [email protected]

References

J OHNSON , P. (1999). Performance and the listening experience: R INK , J. (Ed.). (1995). The practice of performance: Studies in
Bach’s “Erbarme dich.” In N. Cook, P. Johnson, & H. Zender musical interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
(Eds.), Theory into practice: Composition, performance and the Press.
listening experience (pp. 55-101). Leuven: Leuven University
Press.

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