I'm about to start teaching a brand new course wot I have invented, called 'Approaches to Performance'. It's for 1st year undergrads. The idea is to get them thinking flexibly and open-mindedly about what they're doing when they perform, and obviously I have plenty of ideas (although the detailed structure will have to be worked out in the next couple of weeks) - lots of practical demonstration, ensemble playing, projection, improvisation techniques of various kinds, some reading matter on performance practices etc. etc.  But I'd be interested to hear what all you performers* out there (and others too) might consider important to include in such a course, for wet-behind-the-ears 18-year-olds.

Comments very welcome.

*And not just musicians, but the thesps too... (or even those of you who are both) 

Thanks, auto. The White pieces have long been part of the armoury, but for composition more than performance... Interesting.

Can I suggest Para 6 of Cardew's "The Great Learning"?

How about liasing with a local primary to put on a schools'concert? Getting them to teach the kids to sing/play along with them? Playing in the open air or in awkward/acoustically unsuitable spaces,to challenge ensemble skills, might be useful too?Making some of the worktime-limited to hone rehearsal concentration? A 'Portsmouth Sinfonia' exercise where they swop instruments? A Brit or US army martial display thing (having to think about playing whiledoing something else)and/or similarly some form of instrumental street theatre?
Group Improvising to a silent movie?

marty-babes and I had a chat about this at the last meet up.  I'll relay my random thought here, in case anyone gets inspired by them and chooses to elaborate.

[Mart- I guess you've started, but any contributions are still welcome for future lessons?]

Anyway, here's a few things I think about with performance:

In a one-off consultation lesson when I was young, someone once got me to play a passage 'loud'.  Then he got me to do it 'strongly, and like a declaration', and to consider the difference.  Then he tried all sorts of different things: "a loud declamatory trumpet miles away"; "a mouse"; "angrily", etc.  The final learning was that I had to try all these things (and make up more) and then choose what I felt was right for what the composer wanted.

Another thing (which I don't remember where I learnt), is about music making a story.  I get really annoyed in Chamber groups when colleagues just concentrate on "that's forte" or "we need to do more of a rit there".  I don't understand how you can judge unless you know what each phrase is about.  And you cannot just fling together any phrase-meanings - you need to make sure the whole piece makes cohesive
sense.  The only way I know of doing this is to think of a story for the work.

I guess there are some exceptions to the above - the composer may not want a story.  And that brings to mind another bug bear.  You stay within what the composer wrote.  Don't add things or take them away where (s)he didn't indicate anything (unless you know (s)he was less than meticulous about notation, and even then who are you to judge what (s)he meant?).  Interpret within the boundaries of the urtext.

Anyway, perhaps with that in mind it would not be a bad thing to have a few lessons on very well known works.  How would you approach Eine Kleine? Bach?

Oh and gosh!  Bach brings to mind all the many different schools and traditions of playing.  How would someone from the Belgian Violin School in 1900 approach Bach?  Someone from Southern Germany in 1950?

Can the students play around with these ideas?  If they are going to try them, they may even have to listen to a lot of different recordings in the library....

Tommo

I always advise clarinettists to imagine a pillar of sound going from the soles of their feet, up their trunk, through the clarinet itself and then going to the back of the hall. I've noticed that students are often visualising the air moving from their throats to the reed. The first stage involves them visualising the air from their diaphragm to the end of the clarinet, but moving further engages their entire body but also forces them to visualise where they're projecting their sound.

Some observations on the above.

It doesn't seem a particularly fruitful instruction does it? I tend to suggest that "each player" should prepare something which they find interesting to do + bear in mind that a potential audience might find it interesting to witness. The players might need to discuss what a "sound" is and what is the meaning of "different in some way". As participants would be performing simultaneously, there is no need for each person's material to be soloistic and it's best if it's not particularly loud (they can start at different times, having worked out approximately the length of the material). But they should definitely be encouraged to come up with something imaginative. One of the least interesting things to do would be to play every note on a piano (say) six times. A few years ago, one of my students decided to say the alphabet 20 times. Not apparently a very interesting idea. Except that after every repetition of the alphabet he put a gobstopper in his mouth. The audience (I'd divided the class into performers and audience) didn't take too long to work out what he was doing and stared at him with increasing amusement - and fascinated horror - as the performance progressed. And of course he had ensured that all his sounds would be "different in some way". And the performance was delivered absolutely seriously.

Some members may not consider that this has much to do with music (I do). But they would no doubt agree that is has something to do with "performance".

HH, thanks - that (the integration of singers into all this) is one of my concerns too. Not that I don't think they CAN be integrated - of course they can - but they themselves don't always believe it. The key there is 'breathing', I think; but there is also the 'telling a story'/ narrative angle, which I find very helpful. Auto's gobstopping student is doing this of course. It's the story of incremental degradation of the alphabet (or whatever sound object you choose) by increasing vocal disability. Brilliant!