Conformity at the Beginning

Conformity is an issue for some of us the moment we are born when it turns out that we do not meet our parent's expectations of the facts of our existence. 

As a young child, aware of the extent of my non-conformity, I was overjoyed to discover hints of a kindred spirit who had lived 200 years previously, Mozart.  It was literally a hands-on discovery, as some of the sounds in his music completely engulfed me as I played them.  These sounds were in no way independent of me,but were as if intrinsic to my being.  I knew that I was not alone.

This is not to presume kinship with Mozart, not at all, but to assert the power of specific sounds to evoke human recognition beyond the everyday.

I play music of the Classical period because its freshness never ceases to amaze me.  But I wonder sometimes what the neighbors make of it.  They have young children; do they assume that my involvement with music should be a model for everyone?  Do they think that because I play this repertoire I require of my students that they do the same?

In fact, for most children, arriving at fascination with the 18th century comes naturally as they ease into self-confidence at the instrument.  The music is truly great and will speak for itself if not forced upon the child.

Community is Viable, Classical or Otherwise

We all crave community, even the most outrageously individualistic among us.  My teaching is based on the assumption that we are all highly individual, our children even more so.  Their givens are for us adults, parents and teachers alike, to nurture and support.

Community is nowhere more evident than in a space in which people are listening together, whether it be Carnegie Hall or Barbes in Brooklyn.  In my teaching I foster an environment in which dissimilarity is assumed.  Parents, siblings, students, and the teacher all become better listeners when the particulars of each student take precedence over uniformity of expectation or result.  In this setting students--all students--surpass themselves.

In this setting I have learned to expand my own definitions of meaningful music-making.

Classical Musician:Is This a Viable Identity?

Not so long ago, having still not recovered from the trauma of hand surgery, I hesitated to have business cards printed on which I would be identified as "Pianist."   Now that I am back to playing, and with greater wonderment than ever, I realize that I am a pianist.  But what does that mean to anyone else?

I am interested in music composed for the piano when it was a new invention, i.e., principally music of the late 18th through 19th centuries, for the piano underwent multiple inventions as notes were added, improvements made in its mechanical design, and the tuning changed.  Of what relevance is that in this era of easy-come-flip-the-dial "music?"

Even though my students know what it feels like to listen as they play -- a now-eminent pianist once remarked on hearing a tape of one child that he "could hear her listening"  -- quite a compliment! -- and even though they listen to one another with the most focused attentiveness, they are ill-at-ease when it comes to listening to me play a recital. 

Surely the reasons for this are extremely complex and I cannot pretend to understand what is happening from their point of view, nor do I expect them to articulate as much.

Because I prefer to think of myself as a listener among listeners I am very much enjoying playing in my home on my piano for small groups of people whose conversation about the music is increasingly revelatory about the viability of my life focus.  

Active Listening with Infants

Do you want to build a strong musical bond within your family?  There are effective ways to achieve this even if you are not yourself "musical."  Some of my most rewarding students are unmusical; as I have learned to listen objectively that term has lost its meaning.

Forging musical ties is a matter of activating listening.  This requires a daily commitment to mutual enjoyment beginning with what I think of as structured noise and moving from there through games that stimulate improvisatory as well as communicative skills.

If you or anyone you know is a candidate for this kind of familial music-grounding do get in touch.

Magic

I never tire of magic.  Light, color, vibrations--the elements of perception that most enliven my day and my dreams.

Can it be written down?  Poets attempt it; some succeed.  Composers attempt it; some succeed.

It is extremely difficult to teach children to read music for magic as content.  But it can be done.  It takes a while, partly because it is so surprising as the child begins to catch on (I was going to say "to grasp it" but stopped in time).

As one of my more interesting students learned to read music, she would be overwhelmed at the rich experience of sound that arose with every note she played.  It clearly felt out of proportion to the dots on the page.

For several weeks each lesson began with her affirming: " I know how to read music!"  As a teenager her reading surpassed in both comprehension and beauty my own reading as a young professional.  Proficiency and artistry are two different things.

Singularity

Andrew Solomon, author of the piece on prodigies about which I recently commented, studies children who are not like their parents by virtue of physical or psychological factors that challenge preconceived notions of normal family life.  In an interview with Terry Gross on NPR he reveals that his interest is far more than academic.

That is what makes it compelling.

I once articulated that everything I know about music is based on disability which makes clear that the biggest flaw in our educational approach to music is that we generalize about the workings of singular minds. In making no distinction between the difficulty of raising children with physical challenges and those with prodigious gifts Solomon puts his finger on the critical factor: singularity.

As I no longer teach within the music school environment I am free to focus on building a community in which singularity is assumed, respected, fostered, enjoyed.  The community includes a blind, autistic child (now young man) and children who are prodigiously talented, though not necessarily in what the world calls "piano."   Without exception children treated this way are drawn to singularly meaningful music, sometimes to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; more frequently to Bartok's profoundly lyrical folk song settings.

A Computer Animator Meets the Scale

This morning a young adult student in preparation for sight-reading Clementi's F-sharp Minor Prelude (in the splendid collection Preludes and Exercises) was ambling through the F-sharp minor scale.  This young man has not been force-fed scales of any kind, and has a most accurate and astonishingly sensitive ear.  As he played the upward moving scale he went beyond one octave, then began to respond to its inner tensions by altering tones.  He did this entirely without plan unaware that his meanderings indicated profound auditory involvement in the mysteries of that scale, made even more poignant by the black/key - white/key half steps.

He makes his living as a computer animator so is well aware of the power of formula and of its opposite.