Thompson's Thoughts: Imitation

Imitation they say, is the truest form of flattery - or something like that.

I’m not convinced. For sure, in some areas it’s true. I’m thinking of the natural world, where birds like the Mynah and our own Starling are superb mimics.

In my own field of interest – music – there is in my opinion little space for imitation that can’t be filled by interpretation.

Songs and instrumental pieces (with the exception of scored classical pieces) cannot be easily replicated to provide afacsimileof the original. It may not even be desirable to so do.

No, music performance is more about feeling. No amount of technical proficiency on the part of the cover artist can replace the original sense of the performing composer communicating with the listener on a deeper level.

My friend Larry, having listened to and watched with me a young guitarist performing a complex Bruce Mathiske piece, remarked that the lad played all the notes in their correct order but they seemed somehow unconnected.

That is “feel” - and you can’t imitate that.

It also goes someway to explaining why great players make playing their own intricate creations look so easy: they don’t have to think about it in quite the same way as the covering artist does.

They are playing a thing of their own making; it is familiar to them and may indeed transport them, in the moment of performance, back to the time in which it was composed.

That perhaps is one of music’s greatest powers: its ability to transport the listener and represent the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of the scene in which a piece of music first took on its significance for him.

But only an original can do this: a cover version cannot.

Music may possibly be imitated, copied; memory may not.

While an imitation may tantalise and remind, any promise of real similarity of experience is short-lived.

Perhaps in that sense, imitation merely flatters to deceive.

Roy Thompson.