- Part of 'A topology of musical encounter' (summary) -
It seems to be a dualistic law that the positive needs the negative – connection on one pole automatically implies disconnection on the other. The mediation of musical collaboration starts with attraction, and it automatically leads us to bring those together who form opposites. The innovation lies in bringing those musicians together who do not already belong to the same cultural collective, and therefore they naturally differ on essential points. Secondly, a careful investigation of these positive and negative forces in the collective need anticipation, and require guidance to avoid unawareness of limitations in opinions and skills. When an opposition exceeds personal limitations, the energy of the musical collective decharges and the connection breaks.
Compare the play of musical encounter to a well organized public discussion. The participants will be invited on the basis of a common topic. This topic is the collective shared space, the dimension in which the collective exists. This doesn’t imply in any way the participants have to agree. It is usually considered most interesting and productive to invite clearly opposing opinions around the same topic, or bring people together that deal with the same issues in a different surrounding. For mediating a promising musical collective we need to look several steps ahead, not only establish a connection between musicians as the central topic, but as well study the musical attitudes behind the topic, gaining awareness of challenging opposition that could lead to confrontation. We embrace these differences and possible confrontations, they provide a creative space to collectively bring the unknown and wonderfully surprising connections to the surface.
There are limitations to be taken into consideration for an opposition not to become a conflict. It is supposed, based on political and religious tensions in our physical surrounding, that the most careful measurement is required for the confrontation of cultural morals. We want to avoid by any means to create an uneasy situation for a musician, trapped in a moral dilemma in respect to one’s cultural standard, or even insulted by ignorance of this morality during the working process with others. I remember being highly prudential when approaching Nachson Rodrigues Pereira for collaboration. He is the twenty-one years young frontsinger of Saturday-services in the historical Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.
“The service has been described from action to action, and from week to week throughout the year in hundreds of pages with strict prescription of the texts and melodies that are used, in some are very minor possibilities of variation, but practically this is fixed for eternity. For the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 a few prayers have been added, but the rest has been fixed in times before the Medieval period. Changes in the music or the text can only happen by authority of highly knowledgeable Rabins, concerning actuality of the events in the prayers, and need a long and careful procedure. This happens only by high exception, and still it can never oppose anything stated in the Old Testament. In Holland some melodic changes in the service were made the last time in 1920. Outside of the service there is on the contrary no objection to any new interpretation or exposure of the texts and melodies. We only take into account that outside of the Synagogue a different construction to express the word God is used, and therefore we avoid a certain melodic curve that is attached to this text.
- in conversation with Nachson Rodrigues Pereira
A surprising and liberal attitude, in relation to one of the most strictly defined cultural frameworks existent in world history. The reality is that in music many of these moral limitations are only present very remotely. It will prove in many cases that limitations in the coming together of sounds form a more realistic problem and require the most attentive mediation.
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