Kevin Choi

Topics in Music and Society - Spring 2015

Paper 1
Stream of Consciousness from a Performer's Standpoint

For our rehearsal, we were all dressed in black: black dress shirts, pants, and shoes. The
hall was an amazing place with nicely aligned chairs and great acoustics. I especially liked how
the hall was not too grand but not too stifling at the same time, as classical guitars without
amplification are very easily subjected to different concert hall settings. Of course, we were all
excited; it was our first concert at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, which happened last
year.
During the rehearsal, we tried to take pictures of the empty hall, stunned by the
experience. Immediately, though, the staff member who was checking our acoustics in the
audience seat stopped us, which not only let me down, but also reminded me of how stringent
those places under the name of classical music can be, relative to other genres in music, such as
jazz or pop. I could understand how it would be problem if a random member in the audience
surreptitiously takes pictures and distributes them without permission, but at the time, I simply
wanted to keep a photo of my own as a humble memento.
Soon, anyhow, the hall was crowded by people dressed in black, and it was our turn to
perform. Excited and nervous at the same time, we walked onto the stage, immediately bowed,
and sat down, waiting for silence. In fact, it is this time between the initial applause and the first
note on the score that is always interesting to me as a performer, because I have to indulge in the
silence, waiting for everyone to be done with clapping, coughing, and making random shuffling

noises. This is exactly what we did. We waited. We were not expected to say a single word to
introduce ourselves or the music, but expected to sit our butts down and start playing.
Then how did we grab music out of utter silence? Before starting his phrase, Javier, the
other guitarist in the trio, signaled us by breathing in the last beat, as this is the rule every
classical musician is accustomed to (unlike jazz musicians, for instance, who count off by 1snap-2-snap-1-2-3-4 or its variants). In fact, we had actually practiced the breathing and the entry
to music many times in order not to screw up in the actual performance. Like so, the
performance itself was quite premeditated. On the sheet music, we had been marking where to
play soft and where to play loud, not to mention tempo changes, timbre changes, breath marks,
and fermatas, where Javier would breathe in the last beat again.
Because this type of premeditated performance is typical in the world of classical music,
I often think it is interesting how classical music can often be full of emotions, i.e. how
premeditation before the performance and spontaneous emotions during the performance can be
compatible. Indeed, most classical music performances are premeditated, but they are not truly
mechanical. While one might argue that they are in fact mechanical, they are definitely
emotional at the same time.
Personally, for instance, while playing some solemn, grave phrases in a minor key, I
would subconsciously make faces by frowning or lifting my eyebrows, exposing my wrinkles to
the public. If I were to analyze why I make faces, though, I would perhaps say that 25% of the
reason is to feel the spontaneous emotions on the spot, 50% is to feel the premeditated emotions
(as I regurgitate to myself, I know it's sad here, etc.), and 25% is to convey those emotions to
the audience, whether spontaneous or premeditated. It is a rather complex mechanism. The trick

for a performer, it seems, is to act as if all the emotions that are conveyed are actually
spontaneous, because people love spontaneous emotions rather than those that are faked.
Consider movies and plays, for example. Actors act as if they are the characters in the
film, trying hard to be genuine and spontaneous. If it is a play about love, we might be greatly
moved by the actors playing Romeo and Juliet even when, objectively speaking, it might as well
be two people trying to make money and not violate their contracts with their agencies.
In this sense, musicians are required to act on the stage, too, trying to emulate the
emotions as if they are spontaneous, which they actually might be in an improvisational context
of jazz, but rarely in classical music unless a musician comes up with an unorthodox
interpretation on the spot. This might even connect back to the concept of lying and projecting
false images to develop what we call "culture," as we have discussed in the case of some monkey
species. In the context of classical music, as a result, people may be fascinated by superior
technique, but what is really appreciated in the end is musicianship, which may essentially be
defined as the ability to move people with original interpretations.
That said, I have always considered the term "interpretation" in classical music amusing,
primarily because the current culture of classical music does not allow much freedom to interpret.
We "interpret" music and "play" music but then are expected to take the composer's notes on the
music (e.g. dynamics, tempo, and chord tones) as absolute instructions as if it is hypocritical to
violate what the score has. Because this is the case nowadays, one side of me might even argue
that playing as robotically as possible will let you get into Julliard. Of course, I don't mean that
there is absolutely no room to "interpret" a piece of music, but I often think that the room is not
big enough for non-musicians to make any distinction between different interpretations at all.

In the end, the three of us pulled it off pretty well, and many people told us after the
concert that they liked how we played. Indeed, it is always rewarding - and in a way very lucky to be complimented by random people through the bond that music provides. Nonetheless, I still
wonder, every time I get a chance to perform, why the culture of classical music with respect to
its performance is as it is today. I know there is a group of people asking the question, is the
current culture is too stringent for listeners in a live experience? Then I would ask from a
performer's standpoint, is it too stringent for performers also? How would the world of classical
music as we know it change if performers decided to use the score as a loose guide? Can we
actually "play with" classical music, not just "play" it as our verb tense has it?