Faking It

Here Come the Indians postscript

I forgot to post a link to an article I wrote summarizing, in a humorous vein, the whole Indians-in-pop-music discussion: it appeared in The Guardian on July 6.

Prior to that, Elijah Wald e-mailed me the following instructive comment on the saga of Peter LaFarge. I think he (and Alexie) deserve the last word on the subject.

A lot of interesting and new information there. As I mentioned to you when we spoke about this, the AIM always considered LaFarge a fake Indian, though I had always understood that he was half-Indian. But there was certainly a division between the Indian movement's treatment of him and of Buffy St. Marie, who was widely accepted as a true musical spokesperson. There were a lot of fake or exaggerated Indian claims around the NY scene--Patrick Sky was "Indian" enough to be trotted out at times, for example--which led Phil Ochs to joke that he had recently cut himself shaving and discovered some Indian blood, so was titling his next album "Screw You, White Man." The most intelligent comment I've ever read on this stuff was, not surprisingly, in Sherman Alexie's "Reservation Blues," where a couple of full-blooded rez women confront a couple of white-looking women who strut their Indian heritage with the question, "Have you ever wished that you weren't Indian? Because that's the real test."

- Yuval

Faked Incompetence

Camille Saint-Saens wrote Le carnaval des animaux in 1886, but it wasn’t published until 1922, the year after his death; he felt it would tarnish his reputation as a “serious” composer. He was right: it did. I consider it the best thing he ever wrote, though I do have a soft spot for his Third Symphony too. At any rate, the eleventh movement of the Carnaval is entitled “Pianistes” (the recording posted here features Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire on pianos and a group of nine other players including Gidon Kremer on violin). In the score, Saint-Saens put asterisks by the “1er piano” and “2d piano” indications, and footnoted them as follows: “Les exécutants devront imiter le jeu d’un débutant et sa gaucherie” (or, in English, “The pianists should imitate the hesitant style and awkwardness of a beginner”). In other words, Saint-Saens was asking them to fake incompetence. (In this wonderful recording, the rest of the orchestra follows suit.)

In Shakey, Jimmy McDonough’s brilliant biography of Neil Young, Young asks Nils Lofgren to play piano on the After the Gold Rush sessions. “I can’t play piano,” Lofgren says. Young responds, “Perfect. That’s the sound I was looking for.” This happens over and over again--Young wants incompetence. Real incompetence is, of course, best, but how real is it if he deliberately tries to have his musicians (and himself) be as incompetent? Incompetence makes it sound realer, Young thinks. About Tonight’s the Night, Young comments, “They didn’t even know the song--what could be better?”

Bob Dylan has always done the same thing. He prefers the first take, mistakes and all, to a more polished performance. Again, he’s not necessarily faking his incompetence, but leaving mistakes in on purpose when it’s easy to take them out amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Compare this to Elvis Presley’s method in 1956, doing take after take after take of every song until it was exactly the way he wanted it. The music sounded no less spontaneous and full of energy for all that.

If you have any suggestions for other instances of faked incompetence, please leave a comment below.

Oh, and please excuse the hiatus between this and the last few entries--I’ve been in Florida and Chiapas (Mexico), without access to computers or recorded music. I hope to post something about Chiapanecan music soon.

- Yuval