Sunday, December 14, 2014

Too Often It's Just Notes

It should be the case from the very beginning of lessons that children (and adults!) learn to distinguish between notes and music.  You can play a lot of notes without making music and you can play a lot of music without playing "notes."

A lot of notes may be the composer's invitation to let go of inhibition and enjoy the ride, sometimes associated with drunkenness, as in Bach's Hunting Cantata, or in Schumann's Pieces in Folk Style for cello and piano, where the impossibly difficult double stops on the cello are a precise imitation of the kind of maudlin 3rds and 6ths that to this day drunks sing on the continent.....  Let go, people!