The Recording-When To Use It

February 11, 2009

I've been talking about this topic with my wife recently and the pros and cons of a recording in terms of preparing music for performance. Of course, there are millions of recordings of just about anything and they all serve various purposes, the most common of course is for listening pleasure.

So, when to use it? Recordings are an ideal source of listening pleasure but then can also be used as a learning tool. How it should be used as a learning tool should be carefully thought out. I am a firm believer that a recording should be used for stylistic examples and interpretations in preparing for performance.

I find, in the college setting, that a good portion of my students are still learning and exploring much of the repertoire that we perform. We are gearing up for our next performance (March 1 at the Indianapolis Artsgarden!--shameless plug) entitled "Big Music Downtown" and are performing Mussorgsky's famous Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by John Boyd from Indiana State. Since this is my first time conducting the complete work I have been studying this piece for a while now and became a little worried when I encountered No. 6 Two Jews, One Rich, The Other Poor. I knew that there would be a few raised eyebrows when they saw the amount of 32nd notes, especially with a pick up of a 64th note.

Let's use recordings in the classroom for examples of other interpretations and styles and not as a tool to help them "learn the music". Sure, it's fine to play a recording of the piece once at the beginning, but don't constantly reference it to demonstrate how they should be.

Let's do our best to cultivate the process of discovery in music and not be so quick to give them the answers. Maybe that concert won't be as stellar as you hoped, but I bet they really learned something and I know that your next performance will be that much better.