Running with Scissors

Martha has an intersting post about a classical music artist that moves beyond the strict classical interpretations of pieces and makes the performances more her own. From Martha’s post:

What’s interesting about Montero, and what most of the ATC piece discussed, was that she improvises. She doesn’t just improvise in the sense of “making up” stuff from scratch — she improvises upon the masters. So she plays Chopin, but she plays it her way. The pieces I heard on ATC sounded familiar, but they were distinctly different. Some of her improvisations, for example, have a distinctly jazzy flavor. Gabriela Montero is ripping, mixing, and feeding me something new in classical music.

I love it that she extends the conversation with her playing. But let’s extend the argument: What about the idea of each of us as artists? I would like to extend this ability to mix/rip/feed to the listener of musical recordings as well.

One of my favorite 80′s albums was “Duke” by the band Genesis. For those of you who are unfamiliar, they were a British band, so the “mix” you would get is a little different than what you would typicaly get on a US recording – basically more midrange, less bass.

I wish I could buy a copy of this recording that had not just 2 stereo tracks for left and right, but all the tracks they recorded – the bass drum, the cymbals, the keyboards, the bass. I want to be able to add more bass and drum to the mix – I want to punch up the keyboards – I want to make the mix my own.

Doesn’t this change the “art” that the band originally created? Of course, but why can’t I have the opportunity to build on the art as I like. In this case, I think it is like picking out the frame for a painting – the basic core is the painting, but I can make it my own with how I display it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Other Stuff.