Soft and loud in music might be compared to transparent and opaque--I think of watercolor vs. oil paint. Mozart specified dynamics very clearly. It's not that a musical idea was to be played softly; it was soft. Soft was part of its essence.

The subject came up today in the Prelude to Schumann's Kleine Fuge in The Album for the Young. The sonorities seem to invite upbeat playing, yet the designation piano indicates that something more subtle is going on. The forte coming later is not prepared by a crescendo, as one might expect, but by a diminuendo! Lots to think about.

Addressing a young musician who was at a loss to feel confident in his playing, I assured him that it was OK: It had taken me at least 30 years after finishing formal training to have the slightest idea of what I was doing at the piano.

Autonomy is a pretty basic element of character and goes hand in hand with self-confidence. Questions: Is it possible to build the two into music training? Once they have been trained out of a person is it possible to get them back?

Do you agree with me that these are good questions -- even important?

This post deserves a title comparable to "Trout Fishing in America." That title, belonging to one of my favorite books, by Richard Brautigam, is already taken, alas, but the scope of what I am thinking about matches it.

The subject is the connection between discipline and going fishing. I just heard a concert by a pipa player, classically trained in China, severely dressed in black head to toe, playing trios together with a Seattle-born bassist and a terrific guitarist, both in sport shirts and soft shoes. Quite a contrast in sight and in style, but an interesting meeting of minds via sensitive listening. The concert followed a chat on the inevitable dilemma awaiting an American adolescent raised in a super-strict musical discipline.

Judging from my own experience I would put money on the notion - in fact, I have staked my livelihood on it - that one's standards for oneself are and have to be the highest standards that exist. Sometimes super-strict discipline imposed from the outside actually undermines the individual's respect for her own standards, ultimately undermining self-esteem.

I learn so much from teaching a severely developmentally disabled, blind person--most especially respect for the number of simultaneous tasks performed by the pianist's hand. I realize that, though many pianists never have to learn these tasks, awareness of them greatly increases the efficiency of getting around the keyboard--even for very advanced players.

For example: a) Tactile orientation by using the black keys as guides.
b) Measuring distances by the difference between closed (fifth) and open (octave) hand position.
c) Measuring leaps of more than one octave by locating an orientation tone within the current position.

I have learned, too, that music is so powerful an organizing force that it releases skills beyond one's conscious control.

"I don't think I hear overtones."

You undoubtedly do hear overtones; it's just that no one ever drew your attention to them so you thought you could play without noticing them.

I have theories about what happens to piano playing as a result:
Many pianists pay no attention to bass parts or to sustained notes.
Some pianists hum aloud to mask those uncontrollable vibrations.
Some experience utter terror when playing a new instrument on which the overtone blend is completely different.

Imagining the piano without overtones is like pretending that lightning has nothing to do with thunder. While it is true that lightning and thunder can be frightening, they are also fascinating. I haven't yet had a child student who was not mesmerized by overtones.

After hearing an extraordinary performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde I have been thinking about one of my favorite topics: drunkenness in music.

What does drunkenness have to do with the piano? To which I can only reply: "Precisely." Though the piano has come to be associated with what one adult called "obedience mode" it was not always thus. Why should any musical instrument from any culture be always and only about good behavior and doing things by the book?

Just yesterday one of my young students caught on to the playful aspects of control over loud and less loud, short and not-so-short in a John Field Theme and Variations. She was beaming with delight at the discovery of her potential to make magic with a piece on which she has been working for months. It's not quite drunk yet but definitely headed in the "right" direction.

Today I draw your attention to those remarkable parents who do not get in the way of their children's joy.

It is easy when listening to one's child perform to imagine what other people are thinking, rather than just listen to what the child is doing.

When the child feels free to share their joy that is exactly what they will do--even though the playing may contain slips and flaws. It is a special category that I have created: "Better than perfect."