Playing our Parts

So I just discovered this online site where you can read full scripts of movies. I never knew such a thing existed, but there they are, hundreds of scripts. It's fascinating to read the script of a movie that you've seen before, and to compare the bare framework the actors had to work with with the rounded characters they created.

Music is like that, too. The composer writes, say, four eighth notes in a row, but doesn't mark which beat is strong and which weak. We let our past experience and our intuition tell us how it should be played. And of course every composer is different, so the more music you experience, the more you can say, "Ah, Dvorak! I've played Dvorak before. These should be played like this," and be fairly certain that you are honoring his intentions.

If only he was there with you, giving you little pointers! I remember once at summer music camp we were reading a new work, and the young composer was actually there himself. We poor violas were struggling with a part that showed his understandably limited knowledge of the viola. We took the bold step of complaining to the maestro himself, and he surprised us all by saying, "Oh! Okay, I'll change it." We are rarely so fortunate. We usually have to interpret the part that is in front of us without the composer looking over our shoulder.

Like life. We follow our scripts and play our parts, but really we are making most of it up as we go along. And since no-one can tell us how our parts should be played, we just hope for the best
and play on!

Ron B