This was the response of my young adult student describing how she plays at our class/family get-togethers in which all the students play something of their own choosing. She attains, without fail, a high level of artistry even at her level of limited technical advancement.
What astonishes me is that she knows how good it is.
She is the student who will not play for relatives no matter how they beg her. She plays for herself, she tells them.
What is the difference between an audience of class/family and an audience of her relatives? The relatives listen for an abstract result of her piano lessons, while the class listens to her.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Ramin Arjomand: A Singular Contemporary Pianist-Improviser
Last night I heard an evening of improvisation by a young pianist whose description of his work might easily be mistaken for mine. We have in common many concerns, among them, the vital link between language and music, and between vocal and instrumental composition. Add to that our shared passion for improvisatory as opposed to "formal" composition. We are, it would seem, closely related artistically speaking.
Yet we are also miles apart. First of all, he has dazzling technique of a kind of which I cannot even begin to dream: such speed, agility, range of motion both spatially and dynamically, octaves, trills, tremolos--stamina and to spare. It felt as though I was listening to a reincarnation of Liszt in this 80 minute improvisation. (He says that people describe his work as a cross between Scriabin and Cecil Taylor.)
I came away exhausted but engaged. He had succeeded in doing some things to which I aspire in my playing and in my programming, most specifically, leading attention to the specific resonance of all-white keys, then altering that resonance by the addition of one black key at a time. He accomplished all this within an essentially non-tonal framework.
The main thing that separates us is that, being young, he lives in a louder world than I do. In order to get the audience to hear what he wants them to hear he engulfs them in quantities of sound that feel like "too much" to me. I prefer to go the opposite route to achieve that result.
Go hear him if you get a chance: Ramin Arjomand.
Yet we are also miles apart. First of all, he has dazzling technique of a kind of which I cannot even begin to dream: such speed, agility, range of motion both spatially and dynamically, octaves, trills, tremolos--stamina and to spare. It felt as though I was listening to a reincarnation of Liszt in this 80 minute improvisation. (He says that people describe his work as a cross between Scriabin and Cecil Taylor.)
I came away exhausted but engaged. He had succeeded in doing some things to which I aspire in my playing and in my programming, most specifically, leading attention to the specific resonance of all-white keys, then altering that resonance by the addition of one black key at a time. He accomplished all this within an essentially non-tonal framework.
The main thing that separates us is that, being young, he lives in a louder world than I do. In order to get the audience to hear what he wants them to hear he engulfs them in quantities of sound that feel like "too much" to me. I prefer to go the opposite route to achieve that result.
Go hear him if you get a chance: Ramin Arjomand.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
The Family of Music
As a young child I felt isolated with my music; it was not a fascination I shared with anyone--anyone living, that is. For certain sounds of Mozart, which I stumbled on at about twelve, seemed to connect me to him in a most familial way, for want of a better term. Though he had lived 200 years earlier the sounds he had composed made me feel connected.
I contrast this experience to that of my own children who grew up in a household in which music was the main occupation--to the extent that every babysitter I hired had to play an instrument and practice while on the job so that the children would learn that "everyone" played music.
The results of their experience differ, of course. But one of them is an entirely contemporary musical soul; she loves but does not crave attachment to music of the past. She composes and performs music that speaks to her most present reality. The other is an avid amateur horn player whose love of the orchestra takes him however far back in time the orchestra goes.
All three of us connect viscerally to one another's music. What a blessing.
I contrast this experience to that of my own children who grew up in a household in which music was the main occupation--to the extent that every babysitter I hired had to play an instrument and practice while on the job so that the children would learn that "everyone" played music.
The results of their experience differ, of course. But one of them is an entirely contemporary musical soul; she loves but does not crave attachment to music of the past. She composes and performs music that speaks to her most present reality. The other is an avid amateur horn player whose love of the orchestra takes him however far back in time the orchestra goes.
All three of us connect viscerally to one another's music. What a blessing.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Touching the Sounds We Hear In Our Heads
That's how Rubinstein described piano playing: We do not touch keys, but rather the sounds we hear in our heads.
Just how important that is cannot be overemphasized, and it is important from day one of instruction. Once a child learns to hit the keys it is truly difficult to awaken a sense of touch.
Touch is the intimate connection between sound as imagined and sound as actually produced. It makes the difference between tedium and discovery. As a student put it this morning, it is what makes it possible to play on different pianos.
I teach children to read based on touch, not assuming it. They become better readers and they do not have to learn certain refined instrumental techniques as "add-ons."
Just how important that is cannot be overemphasized, and it is important from day one of instruction. Once a child learns to hit the keys it is truly difficult to awaken a sense of touch.
Touch is the intimate connection between sound as imagined and sound as actually produced. It makes the difference between tedium and discovery. As a student put it this morning, it is what makes it possible to play on different pianos.
I teach children to read based on touch, not assuming it. They become better readers and they do not have to learn certain refined instrumental techniques as "add-ons."
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Pitch Specificity
One of the hazards of our buying into equal-tempered tuning (the artificial system in which all half-steps are equi-distant) is that we stop responding to the particular aspects of particular pitches on particular instruments.
When I am listening to the radio and I hear a string quartet I can tell within seconds whether there is substance in their intonation or whether they are actually trying to sound like a piano. By substance I mean the awareness that certain pitches resonate differently on the strings according to the way the strings are tuned. This, in fact, was the entire point of composition for strings for hundreds of years.
Recently my son came into possession of a natural horn, i.e., the valveless horn for which Mozart composed his many horn concertos. Just imagining how he must have reacted to that sound in order to write such glorious music for it is reason enough to take the instrument seriously.
Turns out that Beethoven wrote one sonata for the instrument plus piano, Op. 17, in 1800. I checked on my Beethoven timeline: Before I knew this work I assumed that Beethoven's flow of fourteen brilliant sonatas involving piano began with Op. 22; I changed my mind this morning when I realized that this Op. 17 was written in 1800.
The piece is written off as "fluff" by people who cannot imagine fascination with pitches so colorful that their function disappears into pure lyricism, just by virtue of the intonation.
When I am listening to the radio and I hear a string quartet I can tell within seconds whether there is substance in their intonation or whether they are actually trying to sound like a piano. By substance I mean the awareness that certain pitches resonate differently on the strings according to the way the strings are tuned. This, in fact, was the entire point of composition for strings for hundreds of years.
Recently my son came into possession of a natural horn, i.e., the valveless horn for which Mozart composed his many horn concertos. Just imagining how he must have reacted to that sound in order to write such glorious music for it is reason enough to take the instrument seriously.
Turns out that Beethoven wrote one sonata for the instrument plus piano, Op. 17, in 1800. I checked on my Beethoven timeline: Before I knew this work I assumed that Beethoven's flow of fourteen brilliant sonatas involving piano began with Op. 22; I changed my mind this morning when I realized that this Op. 17 was written in 1800.
The piece is written off as "fluff" by people who cannot imagine fascination with pitches so colorful that their function disappears into pure lyricism, just by virtue of the intonation.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Singularity: Was it Ever in Fashion?
Given the level of musical conformity that surrounds us it is hard to imagine just how singular the people and the sensibilities were that composed stuff we take for granted as being playable by ten-year-olds.
Schubert's music is a case in point. Last night by chance I heard snippets of an old recording of Rubinstein playing a minuet movement from a Schubert sonata. I had to turn it off not because of the playing, but because it seemed unreal that the sound was so sterile: I know he didn't play like that! Somewhere in between his playing and the commercially released product the sound got cleaned up.
That cleaning up process corresponds to the notated aspects of the musical score which, being discreet in terms of ink and shapes on the page, encourage corresponding attitudes, no matter how inappropriate.
Along with this super-cleanliness goes an assumption of predictability, good behavior. You can have it.
Schubert's music is a case in point. Last night by chance I heard snippets of an old recording of Rubinstein playing a minuet movement from a Schubert sonata. I had to turn it off not because of the playing, but because it seemed unreal that the sound was so sterile: I know he didn't play like that! Somewhere in between his playing and the commercially released product the sound got cleaned up.
That cleaning up process corresponds to the notated aspects of the musical score which, being discreet in terms of ink and shapes on the page, encourage corresponding attitudes, no matter how inappropriate.
Along with this super-cleanliness goes an assumption of predictability, good behavior. You can have it.
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