Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The limits of virtuosity

Of late I've been smitten with both Neko Case and the New Pornographers, a band she's been a member of on and off. One great song is this one. It's slow for 2:30, let it keep rolling.




I initially assumed the female lead must be Neko, but it isn't, it's Kathryn. Neko sings backup. You can see what accents she adds in this live version.





Now, one of the commenters on the live acoustic version notes how great Neko's voice is and that she "blows away everybody else" or something like that. And yes, her voice is great, but she's singing backup, it's not her song, she's part of a delicate harmonic arrangement and what is she doing blowing her teammates away? She's part of an ensemble, for Christ sakes.

And this is the frequent problem with virtuosity. It is not lost on its practitioner. Stephon Marbury was a great point guard, then something happened.

1 comment:

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