InnenAnsichten- in english

Explore first and foremost your knowledge, not your conscience
May 23, 2023
psychology of division Sebastian Herrmann in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 12.05.23.

It is not the search for truth that drives people, but the need to belong.
 
A finding from cognitive psychology that has far-reaching consequences. Our present is full of complex topics and highly charged debates - I give most of them a wide berth. I don't feel competent. It overwhelms me, makes me tired, beats me down, or doesn't touch me vital. 
 
The crises of the present seem to be getting more and more urgent and apocalyptic. Proportionally to this, the bad conscience grows that I am not dealing with it in sufficient depth. Like many people, I am concerned first of all with my own life, even survival, with my marginal existence, of which I am the center.
 
Being me is a burden. Responsibility is a burden, having to make decisions is a daily burden, I save my opinions now and then. Let others have them. The aggravation and polarization of political debates bores me and triggers a tiredly twitching defensive reflex that drives me further into the ivory tower.
 
I'd rather make beautiful music, I'd rather write, write poetry, I'd rather choose the lesser evil than the greater evil in everyday life. Is that cowardly? Clear answer: YesandNO.
 
At the intersection of world politics (Ukraine war) and my professional existence a confusing terrain is opening up. 
Without really choosing it, I auditioned for utopia choir, Teodor Currentzis' festival ensemble for the Salzburg Festival. (Whether I really want to, I'll decide when I'm in, I thought to myself at the time). Now I'm in, the decision has actually already been made, but I'm dithering.
 
Many things raise disturbing questions: who are we actually dealing with? Which side are "they" on? Which side am I on? Is it legitimate to take part in this project "only" for the sake of making music and money and to ignore everything else? Do I have to be on one side?
 
The fronts seem to be clear. Those who are with the good guys don't take bad money of unclear provenance and don't perform with a controversial conductor who is persistently silent about Putin and Putin's war.
 
The reality, as always, is much more complicated. There are Russian musicians whom Putin's war has driven into exile and for whom an appearance at the Salzburg Festival might ensure their survival for a short time. There are Russian musicians who have spoken out pro-Putin on social media and who have been suspended from concerts because of it.
 
It may be suggested that Currentzis' silence and the fact that he continues to work in Russia and take money from the state bank speaks eloquently of his sympathy and support for the war and the Russian president. It may also be that Currentzis is protecting his musicians by not taking a stand and thus ensuring that they can continue to work despite everything. Perhaps both are true, perhaps neither. 
 
While this usually affects us more theoretically than practically-pecuniary, we have time to explore our conscience. Herrmann says: explore your knowledge first and foremost, not your conscience. Facts usually serve to provide argumentative support for a decision that has already been made. Selective facts, that is.

The funnel of our perception is narrowing before we even realize that it does, that we do not have the whole picture on the screen. To free ourselves from this distortion is difficult and only partially successful. Does that relieve us of the duty to reflect upon it?
 
The only certainty is that there is much about utopia that we do not know. It remains to be seen whether it is only a construct that actually contains anima aeterna, with all the distortions that entails.
It is also certain that it is cheap to show attitude when it actually costs you nothing. And worse: to demand it from others who risk their existence for it. First and foremost, every musician wants to make music, even under an authoritarian regime. Is that reprehensible?
 
Whether music is allowed to be with itself in the midst of all these tensions is uncertain. Would that be morally good and right? I do not know.

What I do wish is that in august the good and the bad, the big-headed and the petit-bourgeois, the chic and the aficionados, the Austrians and the Piefkes, the Russians, the Ukrainians and all other colleagues from all corners of the world can sit in the C minor Mass, make music, sing, listen, and meet in this space, in this bracket, in the shattering depth of Mozart's music.
 
Before it continues outside St. Peter's with the tensions of the present.

post production - 26.4.2023

One day after our recording in Blaibach, I was congratulated on the result by a lady who wanted to take a friendly share with the question: did the CD turn out beautifully? I had to smile..and a little later sighed deeply.
That's it, I thought: pull the finished recording with the memory card out of the camera like a Polaroid or the famous rabbit out of the hat: voilà! Magic!
 
The post-production, i.e. the processing of the audio and video material, takes place in many individual steps: the sound engineer makes a first version, the rough cut. To do this, he chooses the best/most beautiful version of each piece from the multiple versions and puts it together from several shorter snippets of sound. I listen to it, give back my correction wishes and from this, after a further dialogue, the final version is created.
 
It's puzzle work and an art in itself. What do we decide for? For many cuts, a thoroughly perfect but possibly sterile result? Or for a lively version with minor weaving flaws? The truth lies somewhere in the middle and always on the way, emerging in the working process.
 
The material seems to lead a certain life of its own. At the first hearing, the comparison takes place in my head: what did I have in mind? What did I want to achieve? And how does it actually sound?
 
When I have processed this little reality shock, I can increasingly engage with what is and how it is on the second and third listens. How it can perhaps be brought out more beautifully. A "Gestalt" appears. There is something mysterious about this, because for all its technical control and artistry, the music emerges in a different place. A far more instinctive, unconscious place than we often like. 
 
There is no such thing as truly objective hearing, least of all when I listen to myself sing. The microphone is only a technical vehicle, but the music inside me, in my imagination, lives on and never quite coincides with what comes out of the speakers. It can also never be completely faded out. Where is the distance supposed to be?
 
Nonetheless, at some point I reach the point where I let go. That's how I can stand by it, that's how it's good enough, that's how it's allowed to go out into the world.
 
The very first listening to the raw material is always associated with nervousness and an impulse prayer - the moment of publication even more so. In the 48 hours that follow, my mood changes from pride, joy, satisfaction, relief, happy anticipation to apprehension and back again.
I am afraid of scathing, unspoken criticism, of being misunderstood, of being ignored. The worst thing would be: no one cares. Was there something? 
 
Every result - immovable and irrevocable on a storage medium - is first of all : SoSein. That's how I felt about the piece, that's how I was able to sing it that day. That's how I worked it out, some things we succeeded in, others we didn't.
 
When the song then goes out into the world, it is exposed to other judgements, certain listening habits, likes and dislikes. Keeping all this at a healthy distance and always being able to return to being one's own and singing one's own takes practice. If I can't do that, I won't have the courage for the next utterance, the next song, the next concert.
 
In that sense, all singing and writing is an exercise in SoSein. Sometimes you do it with an audience, under observation and productive tension. Often enough, you do it for yourself, in a quiet chamber. From which I am driven out again after a while. I want to be among people, on stage or at least with other musicians, to be in an ensemble, to enter into dialogue with my pianist again. 
 
Apples are not usually accused of not being pears. But we ourselves-artists or not-are almost constantly in a kind of self-talk in which what we are and how we are is the subject of discussion and judgement.
 
We struggle to come to terms with ourselves, and then there are the others whose approval, affection, even applause we think we need. No one is an island. The energy to overcome my inner resistance, doubts and fears is fed by the joy of making music itself, but also by the fact that my singing gives something to others. 
 
Back in the editing room. The sound track is recorded, corrected, mastered, now comes the picture.  Severin filmed all of the 5 or so runs of "Ariadne", the last run was only for the camera, without microphones.
 
And since I'm not a machine, every run is a bit different. A break is sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, the recitatives rush forward, in a very intimate version the music needs more time. As a result, there are gaps in places: the image, my lip movements and the sound.
 
Severin adjusts it by the millimetre, like a tailor making a garment to measure: here it has to be shortened, there it has to be sewn down, gathered or left out a little. As far as possible in such a way that you don't even notice that there have been cuts and where. In the end, it should look as if it could only have been like that and no other way. 
 
In fact: it can only be like that and no other. Because that is how it has turned out to be.  And not differently. Oh, and if this all comes across as very brooding: I think it has turned out really well! Listen!

The Praise of the TonMeister
18 Apr. 2023

What actually makes a good sound engineer? And what distinguishes a very good one from a good one?
 
First of all, sound engineers sit in the control centre, with their EAR in the heart of the music: in the sound. This requires a lot of overview, technical know-how and equipment.
 
Minimal changes in the placement of the microphones in the room, their height, their orientation, their distance to the musicians have a big impact - it's always about a balance that in the end results in a balanced AND multi-faceted sound. 
 
As a singer, I am even more dependent on this external EAR than any instrumentalist or conductor - I never hear myself as I sound on the outside. So I place the sound in the hands of the sound engineer, trusting and willing to take risks, because I know: he understands what I want, what is important to me, what this music means to me and what I want to express with it.
 
Good sound engineers take care of the technical and tonal aspects, including the correct reproduction of the composition in all its subtleties: Note text, intonation, rhythm, tempo, diction. A very good sound engineer gets more out of me, even more than I would have thought possible.
 
It's a fragile process of correcting, improving, encouraging, praising, challenging and structuring. Something for people with sensitivity. Technically excellent sound engineers can achieve disastrous results if they psychologically and humanly fail to hit the "note" in communication.
 
As a singer, I am under stress, which directly affects my sound production via the nervous system. Too much pressure is counterproductive. If the sound engineer is too careful or too neutral, I remain below my potential. 
 
The time factor plays a huge role: how much do we have planned? what can we realistically achieve in that time? And where do we leave a passage as it is because the 5th repetition is no longer better, but worse?
 
While I am gathering energy for a final take, the sound master has all the previous takes and the neuralgic points in the back of his head - he listens and at the same time has the 5 previous takes in his ear - a gigantic achievement of the brain (if you were to depict the brain of a sound master, you would certainly find a strikingly strong interconnection of the right and left hemispheres of the brain).
 
So if you have found a TonMeister who deserves his name, who is on the same musical wavelength, with whom you can work hard but also laugh and have fun, you will treat him or her with esteem and love: that is a treasure.
 
Andreas Betrram has all the qualities mentioned and many more - THANK YOU, Andi! His contribution to the production of "Der Himmel gehört allen" is equal to all other aspects - the singing, the piano, the picture - and cannot be valued highly enough.
Andreas has created the setting in which the music can unfold, sound and vibrate.