Craft vs Art, or Craft that Unleashes Art?

I have found myself in a state of reflection in the past days since my band’s state evaluation performance. Though I have taught groups in the past that were deeper with exceptional players and that could play a greater amount of difficult repertoire, I have never had a group come as close to realizing its potential as this one. I have been doing my best to quantify why. What in the processes and expectations applied by our teaching team are different or better than in prior times? I don’t know that I have come up with a final answer to this yet, but it has led me down the following thought journey. 

Early in my career, I was pretty sure I had this band directing thing all figured out, and retrospectively, I was pretty obnoxious about it. One of the pieces of feedback I encountered more than once, particularly when my band would play for university conductors, was that we were good at the craft of music but had work to do in finding the art. To be frank, I was both offended by and dismissive of that idea and even the verbiage. “What on earth could this ivory tower college person know about what I do to teach these kids to play their instruments?” First, this was an unfair generalization on my part as I have since encountered many university teachers who also possess excellent pedagogical skills. Second, and more importantly, my dismissive stance stunted my musical growth, and even worse, that of my students. Instead of accepting the embedded compliment about the fact that we had the kids playing their instruments well and then honestly examining what was causing the perception that we weren't getting to the art, I allowed my ego to prevent me from perceiving the positive in their comment while striving to crack the code of what the critique meant. Over time, and honestly with age and enough stumbles, I have gotten past that and now actively work to have craft open the door to art, and for the art to inform the approach to the craft.

For those who, as I did, wonder what these words even mean in this context, here is my interpretation:

Craft- The state of the pedagogical demands of each instrument being met at or above grade level by the players, while meeting all requirements of the repertoire being performed. (i.e., all notes and rhythm are accurate, intonation is excellent, articulation is clear and appropriate to the style, ensemble alignment is sound, etc)

Art- The repertoire is being performed in a way that captures all written and implied dynamics, shape, motion, spirit, and…. Is exciting, moving, fun, powerful, or in short, doing what the music was written to do. 

First personal revelation here- one MUST have command of the craft to get to the art! I used to see this as binary, when in reality, the comment I used to receive about achieving craft but not art was acknowledging the importance of craft, not downplaying it. Those people were simply challenging me to have more vision in how that craft could be unleashed. When I started to see this through that lens, it was no longer insulting, but instead, exciting!

This now begs the question, how do we gear our ensemble pedagogy in a way that doesn’t stop short of what will be required for it to transform into something of artistic merit as we approach a finished product, whatever that means to our group? This is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully at least serves as a jumping off point:

• Do not wait until notes and rhythms are learned or “it’s clean” to insist upon dynamics that are obvious, again, both written and implied. A guideline I use with our students is this- a well trained musician who is in the concert hall hearing us without a score in hand should know exactly what we are doing dynamically. With the possible exception of a very young middle school ensemble, this must be a requirement.

• Does your ensemble fundamental menu include easy ways to work on dynamic control, both directions?

• Style must be taught from the first rep of the first measure you teach of a piece, which of course means that our study must be such that we have made those decisions and thought about how we’ll describe and demonstrate that style in advance.

• Of course we must learn technical passages slowly with every possible method to yield a clean presentation, but the tempo must get to something that allows the resemblance of the necessary style sooner than later. Don’t be complacent about this; push the kids to get this done so the other elements of the passage are possible. 

• If lyrical passages that would (and should) be enhanced by tasteful rubato are present, then teach this skill in your fundamental time the same way you would any other skill. This can be as simple as using quarter or eighth notes on concert F, a scale, a remington drill, etc. Then, implement it in the music ASAP. You can still subdivide, bop, or anything else while using rubato. Again, pedagogical methods and artistic methods are not binary.

• When you demonstrate on your instrument or with your voice, do so in a musical, confident, mature fashion. Sing proper intervals with vibrato if that is how you model. 

• Last and maybe most important- go back to your reference recordings often and compare realistically. Is what you are sculpting sounding like the art intended?

I hope these are some items that compel thought, and also hope to hear your ideas on the subject!