Richard Jernigan -> RE: flemenco guitarist vs Classical guitarist (Mar. 30 2012 16:46:31)
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ORIGINAL: romerito Richard, what are your thoughts now concerning previous discussions about Segovia and Chapdelaine. With Williams anecdotal evidence, do you still believe Chapdelaine was cruisin for a lecture? I'm either not getting my point across, or I'm not understanding yours, or both. Perhaps an analogy will help to clarify. Or maybe it will further muddy the waters. I worked a fair amount in France on a US/French government technology sharing program. It was as much diplomacy as it was engineering. The people on both sides were selected not only for their technical expertise but also for their social skills. I enjoyed the job immensely. One of the conclusions i drew was that the French are generally quite courteous. And their manners differ in many ways from Americans. For example, just down the street from our usual hotel was a small grocery shop. There was always a display of delicious looking fruit on the outside, just beside the door. I got into the habit, whenever I took someone new to Paris, of warning them not to pick up, or even touch the fruit as they admired it. In France one tells the shopkeeper, "I would like three of those apples, please." The shopkeeper selects three apples, weighs them, packages them and collects the price. If you don't like one of the apples, you may not reject it, but you may glance at it significantly and ask for one more. You are entitled to expect the additional one to be a good one. The shopkeeper may even glance at you as he selects it, to gauge your approval. I warned newcomers not to touch the fruit, because in the USA you pick over the produce at the supermarket, feeling it and even picking it up to smell it to check for ripeness. This behavior would be guaranteed to infuriate a French shopkeeper, and to dismay any French onlooker, but in America it is the norm. I could multiply examples of Americans unintentionally annoying French people to the point that the French people not only displayed their annoyance by body language, but actually said something about it. For the French are not only studiously polite, they assume everyone else knows the rules. The rules are as ingrained as their language. Any continued breaking of the rules is likely to be seen either as intentional rudeness or as a lack of decent training. By the same token, it is a cliche in America that French people are rude and supercilious. In fact, it's just different manners. The Americans aren't being intentionally rude, and the French aren't being sniffy just for the hell of it. My take on the Segovia/Chapdelaine incident is that Segovia, having internalized the manners of the maestro style master class, mistook Chapdelaine's questioning as intentional disrespect. In my interpretation Chapdelaine didn't mean to antagonize Segovia, and Segovia was misinterpreting Chapdelaine's intent, due the the manners he had internalized long before. In Williams' case, he was taught more by his father and later by his teachers at the Royal Academy than he was taught by Segovia. It must have been at first puzzling, and later distressing for Williams to see Segovia ignoring serious technical problems, and to see him teaching interpretation only by example, not through analysis. It must have been puzzling to Segovia to see William's nonconformity to the maestro/disciple model which Segovia had observed, but never experienced himself as disciple. For years every student had treated Segovia with the unconditional respect and courtesy a cadet offers a general in the military. That was how things were done in the first part of the 20th century. I add that my father was a general, and I grew up seeing military courtesy at close range. Within the family it was not observed. Due to the different manners for different occasions, most of us military kids became aware of manners as observers as well as participants. I worked most of my career as an engineer on military projects. Toward the end of my working career I told one particularly offensive general that high rank was one of the severest tests of character, and he failed. This wasn't suicidal bravery on my part. The general was in no position to harm me. Rumor has it that there was much more to the Segovia/Williams situation than Williams talks about, but as far as I know it's just rumor, so I won't go any further. I'll just say that if the rumors were true, it placed Williams in a very difficult situation. Note that Williams says, despite the tension between them, Segovia was almost always generous and sweet tempered. Michael Lorimer and Eliot Fisk say the same, only without the tension. Nobody's perfect. Segovia could be bad tempered and arrogant. John Duarte in his little book says that Segovia had lots of amusing anecdotes, but he never heard one where Segovia was the butt of the joke. Once Segovia complained to Duarte about all the bad guitarists he had to listen to everywhere he went. Duarte pointed out that these were the core of Segovia's fan base. "You are right, John," Segovia replied. "Without all the sinners there would be no need for the pope." I've seen Williams behave in a master class in a way that disappointed me. I've sat through whole performances by him that I thought were terrible, despite his flawless technique. I've also heard him play magnificently, and I've seen him give the warmest encouragement to a really outstanding young player. I don't know Chapdelaine. RNJ
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