Intro
Horn Playing is an inescapably a bodily activity. Several accounts 1 describe horn playing primarily as an athletic activity, a kind of sports.
The characteristics the are emphasised in this view are akin to that of a high-level athlete:
- strength
- agility
- coordination
- speed
- balance
- elasticity
- etc
The Sports metaphor is broad: sports can be recreational and/or competetive. Goals and means differ. We will primarily focus of high-level competetive performance of sports - the kind that music performers often strive for. This focus has a lot in common with the metaphor of Horn Playing as a Profession.
Logics of Sports
The sports analogy carries with it several logics:
- competition
- achievement, outperforming others
- goal setting, the only thing that matters is aiming to the top
- top shape at all times (best når det gjelder)
- determined, deliberate, tough training
- no pain, no gain
- measurability, objective comparison
On the more positive side it also implies
- game or play; immersion
- mastery and goal achievement
- clarity of goals
- challenge
- mastery
Sports psychology has gained increased recognition in music performance in recent years (in addition to the physical aspects). This embeds horn playing even deeper into the logics of sports. Not only the physical strength and ability, but also the cognitive strategies of high-performance sports define this view of horn playing.
- background/foreground
- open/closed skills
- rule based, not rule based
- intentionality
It is common to stop at these logics of sport, when discussing the Sports metaphor. One such example is dance.
Similar fields
Dance community is grapling the issue of being defined as sports as well (Guarino (2015) 2).
It is illustrative that complex phenomena like dance and music struggle to come to terms with what they are. The matter is not made easier by sports thinking of themselves as art (ANY QUOTES OR BOOK TITLES)
Tensions with other views
Consider the contrast between these two quotes:
Music is not sports - Henrik Hellstenius
and
QUOTE from the sports book (Belfrage?)
Viewing horn playing as sports comes into tension with “idealistic” views. By “idealistic” I refer to the views that lean towards idealistic ontology: there is a world of ideas separate from the physical world. It is in this world of ideas that horn playing lives.
Possibilities and limitations of the Sports metaphor
The potential of the sports metaphor is influened how we think of goals of music making. These are influenced by how we arrange the totality
Research on knowledge and expertise
Being a top athlete vs being in shape
Closed skills vs open-skills
In music, we often learn closed skills in order to enable open-skills. But it is not necessarily a linear realationship. Tasks of music making are broad and only partly rule-based (again, depending on the kind of music you make).
Questions the metaphor raises
On Rules
- rules are ample in music, either self-imposed or cultural
- rules are not always explicitly stated