The Emotion of Music

This Tuesday and Wednesday I watched American Idol, after quite a long hiatus (as I last saw it in January). Brooke White's performance of "Let It Be" was beautiful, but perhaps not in the immediately obvious ways. When she started singing the song, I immediately commented that her note on "trouble" was out of pitch, and as the song progressed I noticed that the song was a bit musically sloppy in that she was a bit hoarse or off on a few notes. However what I realized soon after and understand now is that a heartfelt performance, one that does show these musical flaws and physical signs of emotion, is the best kind of performance. I downloaded the iTunes single of the song and it's very different. The voice is not emotionally strained as in the live performance, and it really makes a big difference. Sure, both have musical merits and if you go by "the books" the single is more perfected than the live. But that's just it: it shouldn't be perfect. The song should be imperfect, and in this way that emotion makes it so. We are human after all, and it's imperfection that's beautiful. I'll take my music with emotion, and its effects.



On similar note (forgive the pun), I saw Young Frankenstein, the musical, yesterday, and it was wonderful. It's all the terrific humor of the original film with witty music performed with emotion. :D
http://www.youngfrankensteinthemusical.com/

-Poseidon