Rocking the boat vs being too passive

A common but to me unnatural situation in opera houses is what the Germans call 'Nachdirigate' - conductors taking over a piece midway through a run of performances after the busier or more expensive big-name conductor leaves to go and do something else. It's actually a very good thing for young conductors (or repetiteurs wanting to get into doing more conducting) because it increases the opportunities available to the less experienced of us who aren't yet getting offered our own productions, so I'm not complaining. But the trouble with it is that conductors in this situation do not generally get to rehearse with the orchestra and will have limited (if any) time to rehearse with the singers, so they can't really come in and do everything differently from the person they're taking over from. Some people would argue they shouldn't do anything differently - same tempos, same beat patterns, same fermatas. Most people would say there's some room to make it your own but few people, I think, would suggest you can be as free in this situation as you could with your own production.

Suppose you're the conductor taking a musical rehearsal (accompanied by piano) with singers who have done 6 performances of a piece and you're taking over for the last two. Well, first of all, you're lucky to be working in a house that affords you this luxury. But are you, really? What is the rehearsal for? The singers know what they're doing, they have done it enough to have got used to doing the piece a certain way, they have sung it into their voices at your colleague's tempos and while they should be professional enough to cope with small deviations, they will be unlikely to give performances as assured as usual if they are too focused on having to change everything. Remember that anything you change is going to be new for the orchestra as well and they may also be hard to coax into anything very different.

So how far are you going to try to pull the singers in a different direction? Do you give them a whole load of new ideas about how to sing the role, on the basis that they may need an injection of fresh thought to get back to the level of inspiration they felt before they got into a routine? Or do you take the view that if it ain't broke don't fix it?

There are arguments both ways but I think one thing is clear: you should only say something if you have something to say. I think if you have something new to offer and have a sound musical or dramatic reason for persuading a singer to change their interpretation, there's no reason not to throw it out. They will say if they find it too difficult to change at this stage (or don't agree). But it's a big mistake to start trying to change things for the sake of putting your own stamp on something. That's just as true with something you're conducting from the beginning as with a takeover situation: meddling for the sake of it is never a good idea. One sometimes sees that conductors feel they have to say something or people will feel they're being passive; if they don't specify, they seem to worry, they will seem not to care on way or the other.

The trouble is that there is some truth in this. Really strong musicians with a very clear sense of how the music should go probably won't agree with every aspect of someone else's interpretation. They probably will see things differently and will not feel comfortable doing it a way that doesn't fit their conception. Musicians who are not quite as brilliant - or perhaps not quite as experienced - may have figured out that the conductors who impress the most are the ones who come in and instantly know what they want to change, but they may not (yet) have figured out enough about the music they're conducting to know what needs changing. So they fiddle about so as to look more assured than they really are. It might even be a good career strategy; it would be easy to say that everyone sees straight through it but actually I'm not sure that's even always true. But of course it's not a very honest way to make music.

Listening to music

I only get anything out of music - hearing, playing, coaching or conducting - if I know it really well. This is sometimes a problem at concerts with a programme of new music, or just repertoire I don't know. I try hard to concentrate and of course I can enjoy it on a certain level, but if I can't engage with it from a perspective of familiarity, I find it very hard not to switch off some of the time. If I know the music well, on the other hand, I concentrate extremely closely.

I often envy people who are not like this, either because their powers of concentration are better or because they appreciate music in a more direct way that doesn't depend so much on having a sense of overview before being able to enjoy the detail. (Obviously this also depends on the type of music. I guess I'm principally talking about 'classical' concert music, of any period, though I often find with jazz it's a similar problem if I don't have any prior knowledge of the material/artists.) And I have often felt annoyed with myself and thought, what on earth is wrong with you, you have the unbelievable good luck to be in an auditorium listening to these great artists interpret great music for you and you are sitting there thinking about who you forgot to email and do we need to buy bread. But it's no good. If I want to get more out of it the only answer is to prepare beforehand by listening to recordings, and if possible looking at/playing through a score. Once I'm in there I find it really hard.

It raises the question: what does it even mean, 'to concentrate on music'? What in fact is concentration at all, and is it really meaningful to use the same word for what we try to do in a concert and what we try to do when we drive a car or sit an exam? If any psychologists or philosophers of language are out there I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

This relates to another topic I have a lot to say about, the process of learning music, how I approach it and what it really means to 'know' music. But that will have to wait for another time.

Why people get on our nerves

I meant to write a longer post now but instead I've been doing some blog maintenance, adding some other pages that I read and putting in a couple more networking gadgets to help my legion of avid followers keep track.

Just one quick thought - nothing particularly to do with music but a general social observation. Why is it that some people get on our nerves? I've been idly wondering about this in the context of one or two people I find a bit annoying and I'm pretty sure what it is is that when I talk to them I constantly feel like they demand a particular reaction from me. Either they tell jokes I don't think are that funny and I feel I have to laugh, or they tell me they like something they think I also like with such exaggerated enthusiasm that I feel I have to agree, or they try to engage me in heated conversation about a topic I don't really care about... It's so tiring, and boring, to have to manufacture reactions. People who don't require you to do that are so much more pleasant to talk to.

Related point inspired by another recent encounter: it takes an especially social comfortable person to feel comfortable talking to a socially ill-at-ease person. When people seem very withdrawn and don't want to make small talk the temptation many of us feel is to try to draw them out, engage them... and pretty quickly one is doing exactly what I've described above as annoying behaviour. Why can't we leave them alone? Perhaps because all but the most exceptionally graceful people are discomfited by the way socially awkward behaviour in others draws their attention to their own social dis-ease.

Why is a thermos flask like the DRS?

I used to get in a terrible stress in the morning if something distracted me at breakfast time and I had to rush out of the house without having had time to drink my tea in peace. Having to start my day without a cup of tea was always sure to put me in a bad mood, convinced that no good could come of the day.

This has all changed since I acquired a thermos flask. No more outpourings of grief; I simply decant from mug to flask in one smooth movement and sip contentedly in the U-Bahn.

The key difference this makes is not so much about the tea itself, of course. It is that is removes an obsessive mental block that made me believe I wasn’t able to start the day without my tea. I mean, I do still believe this – this is therapy, not cure – but I no longer have the rush-inflicted bad mood, nor the excuse that if anything goes wrong with the day, it was scarcely to be imagined it could have turned out much better in such inauspicious circumstances.

Mulling this over as I sat in my rehearsal, filled with the kind of ruminative insight that only sharp tannins and caffeine can inspire, it reminded me of something I’d been thinking about the video review systems that have come into cricket, tennis and other sports in recent years. It isn’t really that getting a couple more decisions right is that crucial to the outcome or fairness of the game. Think back to Frank Lampard’s goal that never was against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. I was furious at the time, but did England actually play better, deserve to win and only lose because of that moment? Hardly. Somehow it always feels like with one more decision going your way everything could have been different – it would have given the team new confidence, they could have turned things around... All possible. But most games are won by the better side.

No, what makes a bad decision hurt is that from the moment it happens, the players on the receiving end of it are cursed with the belief that it isn’t all their fault. Believing you’re being unfairly treated is much more demoralising than knowing you need to do better. If you’re playing badly and something goes against you then you start to question whether it’s even worth the effort to play better – why take wickets if they’re going to be disallowed anyway? And all the energy you should be focusing on improving your performance is wasted on resentment. This energy is what is freed up by decision review systems.

It’s a bit like how you can look for your keys in a drawer for ten minutes and not find them if you believe your housemate may have moved them, but if he tells you he hasn’t touched them and he just saw them in the drawer earlier you find them in ten seconds. Having a scapegoat for your misfortunes is the biggest impediment to performing at your peak.

German secrecy: information and entitlement

One of the most frequent cuases of frustration in Germany is the unavailability of basic and critical information. Street names are a closely guarded secret. They are occasionally indicated at quiet junctions between residential streets, provided neither street is wide enough for any vehicle wider than a bicycle. At roundabouts and crossroads they are strictly prohibited, presumably to avoid the risk that a confused driver would inconvenience other road users by slowing down to try to read one. This is always necessary in the rare cases where a sign does exist, because the writing on them is far too small to be read by anyone moving faster than a pedestrian with time on his hands. They are also cleverly angled away from the road so as to minimise the area from which the sign can be read.

Similar trials await anyone hoping to unlock the secrets of the U-Bahn (subway). The generous amounts of public money collected from our salaries will run to one sign per platform, which is not lit at night on outdoor platforms and is carefully positioned so that with the right training your driver can stop the train with the sign exactly at the join between carriages, avoiding any excessive risk that passengers will get close enough to the sign to use it up. This is an important German concept that is sometimes difficult for foreigners to grasp. A landlady of mine once tried to add a clause to our contract saying I would compensate her for using up her chairs. 'But I won't be doing anything to them,' I said, convinced I had misunderstood, 'just sitting on them from time to time.' 'That's how they get used up!' she retorted. It is a given that all objects get 'ausgebraucht' and I am sure it is the fear of this that makes the authorities so fearful of allowing their signs to be read too often.

I could go on and explain the electronic signs on the trains that are supposed to get round the problem described above by displaying the name of the next stop for precisely four seconds after you pull out of the previous station before they revert to showing the terminus station, or the motorway junctions that studiously avoid all mention of direction for fear of confusing anyone without a compass and instead help you orientate yourself by offering two alternative directions based on towns at least 150km away which you have never heard of and are not going anywhere near. But I think you begin to get the idea.

The interesting thing about all of this is that nobody complains. Apart from a few expats who huddle together in dark corners to reminisce wistfully about well-signed public transit, the theme is entirely undiscussed. Why is this?

I think it has to do with the fundamentally different attitude towards customer service. My point of comparison is the UK, where it is more or less routine to treat everything a customer says as not only correct but kind of inspired. Walk into a stationer's shop and ask if they sell organic radicchio and the answer will probably be 'I'm afraid not, there's a greengrocer's three doors up, maybe try there?', said with a sort of awkward mea culpa smile. In Germany, on the other hand, you walk into a stationer's shop and ask for the wrong kind of ink cartridges and the assisant looks at you as if you've said something off-key about her mother. This kind of contempt is rarely expressed vocally; it's not worth using up the air. Any question that can be truthfully answered with a monosyllabic 'Nein' will be; elaborations concerning the likelihood of fresh stock next week, the presence of alternative vendors in the area or general regret at not having been able to help you solve your problem are not to be expected. It is important to note that no German would regard any of this as rude. I did once express my frustration at this unwillingness to go beyond the call of duty and volunteer information to a German friend; she looked at me with incomprehension and asked if I'd asked for more information than I'd got. Well, no, I replied lamely, they didn't seem to really want to help, I didn't want to bother them any further, so I thought I'd better just keep trying... Still less can German friends comprehend the train platform problem. 'Just ask someone!', they exclaim. Well, yes, of course one can do that, one does if one has to, but it's hard for people to understand the gulf of desirability for an Englishman in being able to find information without having to initiate contact with a stranger and having to bother someone to get it.

What it makes me realise, though, is that there is a certain sense of entitlement in British culture. I think this is a phenomenon in other parts of the Anglophone world as well. We largely believe that if there is information we need, it must be someone's job to provide it. Go near the Tate Britain in London and the signs to whatever exhibition is currently on begin two miles away. Once you get within 400 metres you'll see a row of 20 enormous flags advertising it so you know you've arrived, and on every side of the building there will be signs directing you to the entrance. Nobody thinks any of this is strange. Trying to find an exhibition at a similar establishment in Germany is a quite different experience. There will be a transparent board in the window, like the menu outside a restaurant, and inside that will be an A4 sheet advertising the exhibition. You won't see this unless you've already found it, of course, but if you ask anyone directions they'll cheerfully wave in the general direction and assure you that there's a sign outside, you can't miss it.

Despite the way all this sounds, I don't really mean this in the tradition of the diplomat sent to the colonies to observe the behaviour of the natives and send back reports of their primitive ways. No doubt Germans in the UK find the onslaught of unrequested information patronising and bothersome - and Germans observing the reticence of British expats when it comes to asking for information they need must find us hilarious. A sense of entitlement is actually not a very good thing at all and it's a cultural difference that runs much deeper than the daily frustrations of the subway system. Believing it's someone else's responsibility to solve your problems makes you a lot less likely to solve them. I just wish I didn't keep getting off the train at the wrong stop.

Rehearsing

What are we doing when we rehearse - be it in an orchestra, for a play, for a presentation?

Hard to answer just like that, because different kinds of rehearsals have different goals. A rehearsal wedding dinner is a different kind of rehearsal from the weekly meet-up of a village choral society.

We can divide rehearsals into two basic categories: the kind geared to making something better, and the kind geared to seeing if anything is going to go wrong. Because our primary understanding of the concept of 'rehearsing' is to do with working at something to make it better, we use more specific names to differentiate the second kind - dry run, trial-run, walk-through, run-through, crash test.

So let's leave aside this category of late-stage rehearsal (where we are simply trying to answer the question: can we get through it without a train wreck, and if not, why not?) and just consider the first kind.

I suggest that almost everything we do in these rehearsals is summarised by one basic principle: moving the unconscious to the conscious. We are simply trying to become aware of all the things we are doing without being aware of them, and getting rid of all except the ones we would choose to do.

This leaves out the early processes of learning a piece (to take the musical/theatre example which is my main concern). When you're learning, in fact, it's the opposite process: you're doing something consciously (reading music) and trying to make it subconscious so you can free your mind up for something else (communicating with the audience, acting a scene, conducting an orchestra).

But when it moves to the realm of the subconscious, and even before, it isn't just the product of what we've been practising. It's also all the ticks and habits we've accumulated over years of not paying attention to every detail of what we're doing. Most of the time when a director or conductor identifies something somebody is doing that is holding the performance back, it isn't something they meant to do, it's something they didn't know they were doing.

Perhaps the space in between identifying all these things and adding something more is where good leaders (directors, conductors, sports coaches) become great. But you can't have the 1% inspiration without the 99% perspiration, which is where many talented but inexperienced young conductors have problems: if you can't fix the basic things it's no good having brilliant ideas. Hence the frustration experienced by many young talented leaders when they see older colleagues they regard as hacks getting a better result: 'I am way more musical than that guy', they fume, 'why doesn't the orchestra respond to me?' Unless you have such a brilliant orchestra to conduct that there are no problems to fix - which most young conductors at the start of their careers don't - you've got to allocate time to fixing problems, which takes away time from explaining your earth-shattering interpretative ideas. There's always a temptation to spend too much time on the exciting part.

Why this will never become a proper blog

It's not a great start, is it - from a first post on the 8th August to a second on the 11th September. It's not that I haven't had things in that time I wanted to blog about. I've thought almost every day of something I'd like to share with cyberspace (is 'sharing' still the right word if nobody reads it?) but finding the time to sit down and write about it... that's another thing entirely. I've actually started carrying a notebook around and making entries in it when things occur to me, a sort of journal of things that occur to me. The idea was supposed to be I would jot something down when I'm sitting on the underground and have some world-rocking realisation, then come home and transfer it on to the blog. Except it doesn't quite work, because while I have a 15-minute commute 4 times a day, which is just perfect for scribbling an idea down, that only works because it's dead time I can't use for anything else. Actually devoting time to blogging that I could use for other stuff - I'm not sure if that will ever happen. Which makes me, basically, not very well adapted for having a blog. So there probably isn't going to be much to see here. I still hope I might get it together to share some of the observations burning a hole in my notepad. But right now I'm going to bed.