Re: Much Ado About Humming - Glenn Gould's Imaginary Orchestra

[Sean Malone <spm29386@oregon.uoregon.edu>]

> Good afternoon, all
>
> I've just been reading Sean's post and I find it fascinating.
>
> I didnt realise that  the humming is so clear  that it
> can be transcribed it and analysed it in this way.


I have extensive audio editing equipment, and I equalize the recordings to
bring out the humming so it is clearer to hear.

>
> Mind you, I did realise that Gould did not always hum exactly what he was
> playing. I have always thought however that his singing and gestures
> demonstrate such a deep and total absorption in the music
> that the existance of an audience becomes an irrelevance, and even the
> mundane reality of the world around him pales into insignificance; the true
> world he creates and lives in being quite simply , music.Maybe this is part
> of the reason he objected to public performance: it's an intense and
> personal world, a private world, but  yet... it is one that he allows us to
> experience too, via his chosen channel of recordings, when he felt in
> control.
>
> So, although of course we all have our own opinions, I personally never
> really inderstand why some people find his manner of playing irritating or
> even embarrassing to watch, or regard his vocalisation andgesturing as a
> laughable oddity, of no consequence.
>
> But one question does intrigue me: If his movements and humming were so
> structured, was he consciously aware of the patterns
> and relationship to the music of his actions, or were they completely
> instinctive, born of  his  total awarness and comprehension of the piece he
> was playing? Sean's description makes it sound as though , for example,
> each  type of gesture was deliberate,  a calculated way of  expressing a
> different
> aspect of his interaction with the music. (Maybe this is not what Sean
> implied, and if so, I am sorry for my misinterpretation)

A bit of a misinterpretation. I don't feel that any of it is deliberate,
however what interests me most is that Gould was necessarily aware of what
he was doing. With my research, I'm trying to delineate between that which
he was aware of, and that which he was not - in other words, what they might
represent. We can't know everything that we are doing all the time, so it's
the dividing line that intrigues me.

>
> My impression is that however intricate his relationship with the music
> was,
> Gould did not make any conscious decisions concerning the 'meaning' of his
> actions.  He might not have been aware of the patterns and rationale


He did offer some hypotheses though.

> underlying his mannerisms.This I think is backed up by the letter which I
> have quoted elsewhere, written in reply to a fan who queried the reasons
> for  his 'conducting' as he played; he said he really could not explain why
> he did what he did. He appeared to suggest he  _would_  explain it, if only
> he knew the answer! Surely this suggests that what he did was not exactly a
> conscious process.
> I think Gould would have been puzzled by the interest that his manner of
> playing has generated in his listeners. But perhaps he felt that if he
> tried
> to analyse his behaviour too deeply, he  would lose something, maybe the
> imtimate relationship to the music itself. This would be akin to his
> response when invited to investigate why his music
> was therapeutic to some people;  although he found this idea very
> complimentary, he refused the onvitation, evidently worrying that if he
> became too introspective and analytical, he might lose the ability to
> create this effect with his playing.

It's the famous comment he made about the centipede....when asked which of
its legs it moved first, having to think about it was unable to move at all.
Gould responded in kind when asked about his humming and conducting.


>
> Thank you, Sean, for such an interesting post. The email certainly wasnt
> "too long" as you suggested. I hope this one isnt, either.
>
> Kate


Thanks Kate, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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