Thursday, May 16, 2013

Malaysians! Indonesians! Brazilians! Introduce Yourselves

Today came another surprise:  Indonesia, Malaysia. and Brazil topped even Russia in the distribution of readers of this blog.  Welcome to all of you.

Now please tell me who you are:
  • what brings you to the blog
  • what you get from reading it
  • how it relates to your own musical activities
  • what your musical activities are
Leave a comment; drop me an email.  I would like to get acquainted.

Clementi C Major Sonatina

As previously noted in this blog I am teaching a young adult to read music: I have been teaching this improvisingly gifted young man since he was seven.  Reading never came easily to him so I did not push it, sure that if I had he would stop study.

Now he is mature enough to go along with the complexity of the enterprise.  After several months working on Clementi Preludes (which I highly recommend on many levels) we are tackling the sonatinas, beginning with the C Major, Op. 36, No. 1.

Yesterday we enjoyed together one of the most stimulating lessons I have ever taught:  We read it together, one note at a time, imagining what the next tone would be and then coping with Clementi's agreement or disagreement with our better judgment.  It was a lot of fun, and deeply insightful into the working of Clementi's superlative genius.  (How unfortunate that Mozart said a nasty thing about him in a letter to his father!)

In the process I learned a great deal about the piece and about the limitations of approaching music as if the point of learning it was purely technical.