On the subject of theoretical explanations blocking the perception of sound itself: All of my teaching of children can be categorized as experimental in the same sense that child-rearing is experimental, especially in this era of constant change. As the ground shifts under our feet we have to be flexible.

One of my prize students has been improvising since he was seven; he is now a senior in college. I have not taught him anything about theory though I draw his attention again and again to overtones. His improvisations have become increasingly organized in a way that I can comprehend using my own tendency to resort to music theory to account for what I hear.

Perhaps it is out of a Faustian bargain that we seek to prolong the moment of perception rather than allow it to be fleeting.

He does not listen to music that even remotely resembles his improvisation and will most likely not turn out to be a composer. I have always found passages in the words of the masters that use overtones in a manner consistent with his ear, so he knows that potentially relevant music does exist. He is a visual artist whose strength, as he is repeatedly told, is color.

When Robert Levin, looking sternly at his masterclass audience at the Manhattan School last spring, asked: "Do you know what is missing in Classical music?" He literally roared the answer: "HUMOR!!!"

I believe we have lost the sense of how funny notes can be. Okay, B-flat is not in itself funny. But...it is possible to imagine it as a source of hilarity. Why not? If you play a passage that does not sport one single black key and suddenly, out of nowhere, B-flat! Isn't that reason enough to break out in peals of laughter?

If not, why not? Have we become so conditioned to theoretical explanations for sounds that we no longer hear them?

The recital turned out to be one of the most moving I have ever played. From the very first note everyone in the room was rapt. As one listener later put it, she knew every note I played so it was as if she were reliving the experience of playing it.

Many pianists perform for this community but always run-throughs of programs intended for other audiences in other venues. This was a first: A program tailor-made for this audience. They really felt the difference.

It was a clear case of the interpersonal element of music performance that is so often lacking in formal recitals.

I experienced it once in a piano recital by Leon Fleischer back in the 1950's--more correctly, after the recital, when he played Fuer Elise as an encore following a program of some of the most difficult repertoire (Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales). After two seconds of tittering the audience in Severance Hall (Cleveland) became totally attentive. I never forgot it.

There may be some irregularity in the next few days as I am off on another coast. (Hmm..off / on)

Among the coming day's activities is a recital I will play of pieces "everyone" played who took piano lessons 50 years ago. Someone remarked to me that they must just roll right off your fingers, as if without thought. Well, no.

To give you a sample of what awaits me: Rediscoveries of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor (the one that causes a piano to self-destruct under the inimitable touch of Chico Marx); The Minute Waltz; the famous Dvorak Humoresque(with popular lyrics about a train...incidentally, my all-time best-selling track on MP3 downloads); and, most astonishing of all, the Mozart Sonata in C, K. 545--you know the one.

It is a most revealing adventure: like getting a whole new life. Which among those is the most frightening? the Mozart, of course.

Since my last post two extraordinary events took place here: on Saturday my young students showed their stuff and yesterday a serious adult just recovering from traumatic hand surgery performed in public for the first time after fearing she might never play again: two totally dissimilar events linked by the power of strong individuality.

The kids all do quite different things with music; for each of them it is a territory more or less sacred within their families. They express this in completely different ways, which they have figured out -- and have made me figure out as well. For the adult pianist, too, playing has involved staking out a territory so powerfully that she has left her family and her country to start a whole new life in New York based on music.

Each of these people commanded attention by sheer inner power, very audible in their music.

Equally extraordinary was the attention paid to their unique offerings by everyone in the room.

There are things that distinguish dance from soccer: Everyone appreciates athleticism--no one more than I. So why go to watch people move around unless they are competing with someone or at least trying to score a goal?

Music is rather like that. I consider it a thought form as well as an art form. Once established as a thought form an individual is free to do with it whatever they desire: incorporate it into a visual or literary imagination, perhaps, or sight-read all of everything. If someone wants to work on technique, whether composition or performance it is a private choice until a public commitment is made--i.e., the decision to do it for money or for a job or for some other contractual arrangement.

Until then, why not treat it as a form of thought like any other? Well, maybe not quite like any other!

How can Boulez be a pre-cursor to Schumann?

It is a question of the bias of listening. If we listened --just listened -- we wouldn't need to care about whether a piece of music is tonal, atonal, post-tonal, or pre-tonal. We would simply respond to what we hear; the sounds would have or not have meaning. The experience might be likened to my reading Finnegan's Wake, an experience I enjoyed thoroughly last year and am currently repeating, in fact; but please don't ask me to explain it.

We shouldn't have to know anything at all in order to listen.