Classical music so easily becomes boring when the signs are either ignored or entirely misinterpreted. Take the bar-line, for example.
It is common knowledge that bar-lines indicate downbeats. But not in the hands of an uncommon composer, pick one: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms....the list is too long for a single post.
The bar-line-downbeat is often counterindicated by a slur over the bar-line, indicating a weak beat where the downbeat was supposed to be.
Another, less readily understood counterindication is the sforzato on the strong beat. If the first beat were really a downbeat the sfz would be redundant. So what is it doing there?
Yesterday I was puzzling out for the millionth time the on-beat sforzati in the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata: these bars are so boring when all the beats in left and right hand line up and then are accented on top of that. But if the left hand is parsed in three's despite the obvious four-note grouping of the sixteenths then the sforzati become positively mesmerizing, which is what the sign indicates. They also become incredibly difficult.
Difficult is never boring.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Improvisatory Sight-Reading
I get a particular kick out of teaching people to read music so that they enjoy the process every step of the way. This means showing them how to get into an entire piece without necessarily getting all the notes right. This requires an experimental attitude from both teacher and student. (That is usually the really hard part!)
Today's experiment involved finding the most common tone within the first four bars, then playing that note, in rhythm, whenever it occurred, with either hand. That was right away amusing.
Next, deviations from that tone, first by thirds (i.e., the triads in which it figures), next by step or half-step deviations from it. Voila, the piece.
Within 45 minutes the student, who is far from a facile reader, was enjoying the sense of the whole thing.
I asked what was the hardest part of the task: Tolerating wrong notes.
I was in my 20's when an astute teacher required me to play wrong notes on purpose during lessons--by far the hardest thing I had ever been asked to do, harder even than playing three voices of a four-part Bach organ fugue with hands and feet while singing the fourth voice, selected on the spot by the teacher.
Today's experiment involved finding the most common tone within the first four bars, then playing that note, in rhythm, whenever it occurred, with either hand. That was right away amusing.
Next, deviations from that tone, first by thirds (i.e., the triads in which it figures), next by step or half-step deviations from it. Voila, the piece.
Within 45 minutes the student, who is far from a facile reader, was enjoying the sense of the whole thing.
I asked what was the hardest part of the task: Tolerating wrong notes.
I was in my 20's when an astute teacher required me to play wrong notes on purpose during lessons--by far the hardest thing I had ever been asked to do, harder even than playing three voices of a four-part Bach organ fugue with hands and feet while singing the fourth voice, selected on the spot by the teacher.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Piano Public and Private
Strange assumptions get made about people and pianos. One concerns the piano as a by definition public instrument. This means that people who play the piano must keep a steady beat (whatever that is), and furnish reliable accompaniments to whatever other source of sound happens to be around, whether a bunch of people singing folk songs or virtuoso string players.
But this quality of the piano is developed at the expense of the private piano, the instrument that a child is alone with, either colossally bored by or wondrously enamored of.
In my experience as a teacher the private pianist easily morphs into the public pianist because the ear responses are awakened. When other musicians come into the picture adjustments are made because it is the natural thing to do. It is far from lopsided or authoritarian in either direction.
People have been known to express astonishment when I tell them that rhythm should not be the first element of music that pianists learn. But I firmly believe that the different registers of the instrument, and different resonant combinations throw off different internal rhythms that make it virtually impossible for sound-sensitive children to separate out the element of time and treat it objectively.
I compare the phenomenon to the heart monitor next to the hospital bed. The heart beat murmurs away with the seconds clearly marked off. Then a bell rings and the murmur becomes a tsunami of violent crests and troughs. Impossible that all that action takes place within the same time unit as the murmur.
But this quality of the piano is developed at the expense of the private piano, the instrument that a child is alone with, either colossally bored by or wondrously enamored of.
In my experience as a teacher the private pianist easily morphs into the public pianist because the ear responses are awakened. When other musicians come into the picture adjustments are made because it is the natural thing to do. It is far from lopsided or authoritarian in either direction.
People have been known to express astonishment when I tell them that rhythm should not be the first element of music that pianists learn. But I firmly believe that the different registers of the instrument, and different resonant combinations throw off different internal rhythms that make it virtually impossible for sound-sensitive children to separate out the element of time and treat it objectively.
I compare the phenomenon to the heart monitor next to the hospital bed. The heart beat murmurs away with the seconds clearly marked off. Then a bell rings and the murmur becomes a tsunami of violent crests and troughs. Impossible that all that action takes place within the same time unit as the murmur.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Social Learning and Viktor Zuckerkandl
The definitive study that made my teaching life possible was the two-volume Sound and Symbol by Viktor Zuckerkandl, a Viennese emigre, fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, one of the group of intellectuals who founded The New School for Social Research in New York City, of which Mannes is a division.
It is ironic that his findings place the study of music squarely within the concerns of the socially conscious rather than within the self-serving confines of an ever more narrowly defined world of professionalism, whether academic or commercial.
That irony was made palpable in a welcome conversation with the Director of the Music School at the Lighthouse for the Blind. We were comparing notes about how learning to deal with students with disabilities had radically transformed our own awareness of the elements of music in the most profound manner. What a delight to be able to talk about that freely and openly with a colleague.
It is ironic that his findings place the study of music squarely within the concerns of the socially conscious rather than within the self-serving confines of an ever more narrowly defined world of professionalism, whether academic or commercial.
That irony was made palpable in a welcome conversation with the Director of the Music School at the Lighthouse for the Blind. We were comparing notes about how learning to deal with students with disabilities had radically transformed our own awareness of the elements of music in the most profound manner. What a delight to be able to talk about that freely and openly with a colleague.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Listening for Variation
Preparing Haydn sonatas is a daunting task: so much wit, so much condensed content. We are taught that Beethoven was the master of variation. I am not so sure but that Haydn wins in that category. Just this afternoon I was rehearsing a "simple" 8-bar opening phrase in 2/4. No two measures were alike. How many playings through did it take for me to recognize this? What can I do in performance to make this level of ingenuity palpable to the listener?
I have the same tendency as everyone else, which is to listen with some body part reliably marking time.
I have the same tendency as everyone else, which is to listen with some body part reliably marking time.
Friday, February 8, 2013
More Real than Real
Who knows what makes some kids care more than others about sound?
What sets the standard for quality in a child's experience of sound?
Is there a standard or is it a function of the child's own personal experience of the world around her?
Living a few blocks away from the Deagan Chime Company in Chicago I grew up with the ringing of beautiful chimes every quarter-hour. I notice when bells ring. The sound is more than itself.
When Hans Neumann pointed out the bells in Ravel's Le Gibet I was struck by how hidden they were by the notation of that sound in the same shape and dimension of circle on the page as other sounds that were "just" piano sounds.
Since then I have discovered other instances of bells: in Dvorak's Dumky Trio, for example. I now know how to find them, perhaps because I am always on the lookout for experiences that will transport me back to the source.
What sets the standard for quality in a child's experience of sound?
Is there a standard or is it a function of the child's own personal experience of the world around her?
Living a few blocks away from the Deagan Chime Company in Chicago I grew up with the ringing of beautiful chimes every quarter-hour. I notice when bells ring. The sound is more than itself.
When Hans Neumann pointed out the bells in Ravel's Le Gibet I was struck by how hidden they were by the notation of that sound in the same shape and dimension of circle on the page as other sounds that were "just" piano sounds.
Since then I have discovered other instances of bells: in Dvorak's Dumky Trio, for example. I now know how to find them, perhaps because I am always on the lookout for experiences that will transport me back to the source.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Knowing the Real Thing When You See/Hear/Taste It
One way to characterize the education I received as a young child was to keep the kid from recognizing his or her own perceptual power.
As a teacher I make it my priority that each child know that the integrity of their response is what counts, not mine.
That old fashioned method is resurfacing with a vengeance in this era of testing, testing, testing; competing, competing, competing.
We hold our children back in every way, stifling creativity and discouraging the development of their critical faculties by leading them to believe that right answers are what count.
As a teacher I make it my priority that each child know that the integrity of their response is what counts, not mine.
That old fashioned method is resurfacing with a vengeance in this era of testing, testing, testing; competing, competing, competing.
We hold our children back in every way, stifling creativity and discouraging the development of their critical faculties by leading them to believe that right answers are what count.
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