The Ear as the Basis for Reading Music

The analytical shortcuts to efficient sight-reading include chord identification, metric fingering patterns, strong downbeats to organize the sound.

Any one of these has the power to obscure if not destroy the music being read.  I know, because I read that way for decades until a wise teacher informed me that I was missing the point and made me unlearn that senseless way of sight-reading.

Chord identification:  Mozart's G Major Piano Sonata does not open with a G major upbeat, but with a delicious B minor ambiguity.  Similarly, many Schubert Waltzes, simple in terms of chord progressions, become miracles of black and white key doublings when the sound takes precedence over what looks like the harmonic function of the chords.

Metric fingering patterns: A run of six consecutive rising sixteenth notes is just that no matter where it starts or stops in relation to quarter note beats.  How much music is rendered positively static when the fingering is based on clarifying the quarter note beat at all costs, as in Mozart's C Major Sonata, K. 545.

Strong downbeats: Clearly among the deadliest of devices they obscure hemiolas and other metric witticisms and make a mockery of ...  the list is long, and where to start it? .....

Confidence and The Ear

The other evening I attended a performance of stylistically widely-ranging works by various contemporary composers, some young-ish, others no longer with us.  The playing was impressive.

I go to concerts the way some people go to the movies: I want to be overwhelmed, moved, charmed -- in other words, I want to experience something vividly outside of myself.  This means I want to enjoy rather than feel obliged to think.

Enjoying a concert in this way is like enjoying a good meal: something will invariably stand out as special, like the minted rice that accompanied last week's curried chicken dish at a favorite Indian restaurant.  Oddly, what stood out was a short work for two trumpets and French horn by Elliot Carter, written when he was 94.  Convincingly exuberant, terse, witty--it had a lot going for it.

Mainly I left feeling sad that most of the music seemed directed to a small community of like-minded composers/players/listeners.  Insular.

I recall the days when I felt obliged to have reactions to concerts; I no longer do.  I just know what it feels like to have a good time and am grateful whenever I do.

Risking Imperfection

Thinking about some magnificent virtuoso organ playing heard last weekend I am struck by its fearlessness.  Why not take risks except for fear that someone will disapprove.  What more disapproving environment than church?  Well, try the music school or the concert hall.

That wasn't the only fearless music making I heard last weekend: Saturday evening Phil Schaap was celebrating (on WKCR) the Luis Russell orchestra recorded in 1929 and 1930, just at the time Louis Armstrong had begun hiring them as "his" band.  These recordings predate the invention of magnetic tape, so it is recorded the way they played it and man! do they play.   These sessions can be heard on-line: http://www.philschaapjazz.com/index.php?l=page_view&p=radio.  If the link doesn't get you there scroll down the home page to the link to radio archives.  

Dissonance and Consonance

By teaching a blind, autistic child for the past 13 years I have learned not to take any sound for granted.  His musical ear was spotted by an attentive physical therapist at the Lighthouse school and so he landed on my doorstep.  I had no idea how to teach him especially as, unlike many blind children, he does not use his fingertips to orient himself.

I did intuit that one day he would feel the terrible isolation of his situation and a depth of emotion I couldn't begin to name.  So we set off on a path of learning to deal with a wide range of sound, which included dissonance.

He could without the slightest difficulty pick out a conventional harmonization by ear, indeed, he transformed every slightly "off" interval into a familiar sound.  His increasing fascination with dissonance means that he does not repeat himself when he plays because the sound is always a challenge.

Now in his early 20's, he is having to learn the deep sadness of ending a particularly dissonant piece with three conventional chords BUT they have to be fingered in such a way that they cry--so small feat for him, as he tends to use his fingers like sticks--a habit that would take hours and hours of daily therapy to correct.  This is so difficult that he has to make a huge effort to interfere with his memory of "chords as usual" in order to produce these highly specific sounds.

His struggle has taught me a great deal.

Christopher Houlihan: Brilliant Organist

Today I had the pleasure of hearing some of the finest organ playing I have heard in decades.  It was playful, inventive, lyrical, virtuosic, engaging to the max.  I was stunned at how much I enjoyed it and even more stunned to discover that two of the works he played were by Durufle, whose music usually leaves me chilled--another case of how the performer can bring the music to life!

If you have the chance, go hear him.

Our Stupid Poebel

Last night I played Mozart's variations on Unser dummer Poebel meint.  I asked a dear friend in the audience, as she had grown up in Mannheim, to translate this title.  What a good thing I did!  I had always assumed Poebel to be someone's name. My translation would have been: Our Stupid Poebel is of the Opinion.  Turns out Poebel stands for the guy in the street, no not quite, the Lumpenprole.

How politically incorrect can you get.  Then I remember The Good Soldier Schweik, one of the great Poebels of all time: If you haven't read it get on it.  You never do or did know what exactly might be behind the fellow's expressed opinion or behavior.

There is a lot to think about politically.

Musically there is also a lot to think about.  I have never heard anyone play these variations.  I can feel them turning into one of my big numbers.  They are surely Mozart at his fullest virtuosic maturity: How do I know what to do with them?  Years and years of listening to grasp the idiomatic humor of musical devices that, in themselves, as notated, are entirely static.

Schumann: Album for the Young

I cannot sufficiently praise the brilliance of this collection.  Starting with the very first piece Schumann touches the essence of piano playing while giving distilled paradigms of composition in various genres: lyric, ironic, completely serious, teasing, it is all there.

The longer I live, the more I teach, the greater my respect for these jewels.  Too bad we think we outgrow them just because they were required when we were 9 years old.