QUESTION FOR MATTHEW from an actor: How is acting like music? MATTHEWS ANSWER: Playing music and acting are nearly identical, and as a classical/jazz/rock piano player/keyboardist, I wish all actors were musicians. Not only does acting borrow from musics dynamic vocabulary (sotto voce, crescendo, accelerando, beats, notes, point/counterpoint, staccato, subtle forte, etcetera), the two crafts parallel each other exactly... Often times when I start a new workshop, I have the class listen with their eyes closed to a piece of music, say Debussys Claire De Lune, and afterwards we talk about how the music moved them. Then I play the music again, making them follow the sheet music on the screen...and so take away the magic. Take away the mystery. Music isnt magic - it is notes on a page. The musician isnt making choices. The musician isnt making it up as she goes. The music is written by the composer and the musicians job is to learn the notes. That said...once the musician is performing, they are surrendering to the music...becoming the music. A musician who is just remembering notes int a musician at all, just someone remembering notes. The musicians job is to become the notes. Become the Concerto. Let the composer speak through them. And the audience is moved. And each musician is unique. Each with their own experience of life, emotional makeup, and personality. And when surrendering to the music, that special something about that musician shines through...and so the listener can discern whether its Itzhak Perlman or Yehudi Menuhin. To summarize: (1) LEARN THE NOTES, THE DYNAMICS, THE MUSIC in order to (2) SURRENDER TO THE MUSIC IN PERFORMANCE so that (3) THE AUDIENCE IS MOVED And in so doing...YOUR TRUE CAN SELF SHINE THROUGH. And so with acting. We learn the notes, that is the text. In music the base unit is the note...in acting it is the action in the moment. We read, analyze, and deduce the partner-related actions from moment to moment to moment in the script, from realization to decision to realization to decision, finding these actions from the circumstances, objectives, and relationships of the characters to the other characters. And we plot these actions over the three act structure of the scene understanding the counterpoint (internal conflict) in the scene. In other words we (1) LEARN THE NOTES. We memorize the dialogue and scene structure, we emotionally bring ourselves to the characters emotional core truth through our experience and imagination. Then we override our ego/insecurity system...and so hurl ourselves into the scene, (2) SURRENDERING TO THE STORY. And the audience watches us actors become character, playing the scene exactly as written...(3) AND ARE MOVED BY THE STORY. And OUR TRUE ESSENCE SHINES THROUGH in a way we could never have pre-planned. Acting Scenes and Playing Music are really the same. Reading the sheet music while listening to a piece of music is the same as reading along a scene while the actors perform it. The only MAJOR difference is that music is the art of sound. But the art of acting is life. https://youtube/watch?v=AaSpVczZXTA
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 05:37:56 +0000
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