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Thursday, June 17 - 9:30 Gary Mortenson, Reporter “Don’t make things so important.” “Don’t try to play a great solo.” With statements like this Bobby Shew talked about many philosophical aspects of why and how we make music. Throughout his presentation he gave the audience one gem after another of his wisdom, wit, and knowledge. The best learning comes through storytelling, and this presentation was certainly filled with his experiences over a lifetime of playing and teaching. As a teacher Shew likes to ask questions of his students. Questions like: “Why are you playing trumpet?” “Where do you want to go with your playing?” “What is your motivation?” These questions seem simple enough but most young players don’t confront such basic and important concerns until much later in their development as people and as musicians. Bobby Shew loves to study language and the origin of words. As an example he talked about the origin of the word “amateur” and used the meaning of the word (one who loves to) to make the audience pause and think about what it is to embrace art from an aesthetic standpoint. He went on to say that you can “impress” one with your playing, or you can “touch” someone with your music. An aspiring musician can work to create phenomenal technique and play a million notes, but not touch anyone musically. He later went on to say that you need as much technique as is required to visualize and to create what you have to say, but that need not be excessive. To illustrate this he mentioned that he does not spend huge amounts of time practicing Charlier, or double and triple tonguing in the Arban. These things are not required in the language of his musical ideas. “Don’t waste time working on things that don’t apply to what you want to do.” One of the most valuable philosophical insights presented during this master class were his feelings on the profound difference between pursuing excellence versus perfection. The pursuit of excellence is worthy, noble, healthy, and inspiring. At the other end of the spectrum, perfection can be neurotic, disabling, and lead to a downward spiral that is scary to even contemplate. It is fair to say that Bobby Shew found a way to reach everyone in attendance and to accomplish something worthy at a meeting like this…he allowed us to come away better human beings for having shared a short time with his ideas. |
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