Memory good and bad

Having quit "serious" piano study at 15, not to resume it until 22 (and even then with physical limitations that precluded immersion in the big repertoire) there were many years during which conventional piano instruction involves learning the standard repertoire, including sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert, and works by Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms.  These years imprint the repertoire on the ear and muscle memory in such a way as to make them easy to recall later in life.

Too easy.  When I have revisited the classics I learned before quitting I find it very difficult to approach the works afresh, without the prejudices of premature exposure.

I think it is wrong to have young people play masterworks before they possess the ear to discern content on their own terms.  Going through the motions--playing Beethoven sonatas because, like Himalayas, they are there to be climbed--does great disservice to the works and to the student.

Music in the Name

Inspired by the wealth of attention being paid to Charles Dickens during 2012, the 200th anniversary of his death, I have been enjoying revisiting his novels, currently  David Copperfield.

It is striking how musical Dickens was in his naming of the characters: sound, association, image, tonality, all conjured up by Miss Murdstone, Mr. Creaker, Uriah Heep, Betsy Trotwell.
.

Anderszewski plays Bach

Not since the days of Artur Rubinstein have I enjoyed an evening in and around Carnegie Hall as I did on December 6 when Piotr Anderszewski played an all-Bach program.  What made it so special was that total strangers conversed about the playing, about his artistry, about the music, the conversation not restricted to the hall but extending also to fellow riders on the uptown bus.

Anderszewski stands out among pianists because of his commitment to his own joy, his growing depth.  I need not agree with him on all points musical, but that is enough to make me a firm fan.  His standards are the highest in every department; he puts himself on the line, fearlessly.

This enables him to exceed all limits: He plays faster, slower, louder and, most notably, softer than almost anyone around.  The place was all ears even into the remarkable silences.

A great artist.

Boom! The Theory Canon Goes Off Again!

The young composer  recounts his musical background: How he quit piano lessons as a young child because of mandatory enrollment in the theory curriculum.  His playing and his subsequent persistence in following his ear indicate auditory sensitivity of the highest order--the only order there is, actually, because it is his own, matched only by its own intensity and integrity. 

The theory canon persists because it makes music easier to teach.  The mere existence of the piano makes it obsolete and irrelevant. 

How many children quit piano (as I also did) because the sound does not match either the notation or the simplified concepts of tonal theory?

Pre-chewed Peas

The late great humorist Milt Gross wrote an unforgettable version of the Ferry Tail from Keeng Midas in a splended collection called Nize Baby, available, I believe, in a Dover reprint.  This priceless compendium of grim tales includes a scene in which the hungry King Midas is unable to eat his peas: every time he tries to chew them they turn to solid gold and break his teeth.  So he has his vassal stand opposite him with the peas in a peashooter, wot he should swallow de pees witout chewing de pees.  Or something to that effect - I can imitate the dialect but the spelling is difficult.  Like music, these words are meant to be heard.

This peashooting is the perfect model of dutiful piano playing: we should play the music without its touching us.

Whose Ear Do We Aim to Please?

First of all, the question is idiotic.  We cannot possibly succeed in satisfying someone else's ear.  Don't even try.

Yet this is the basis of all master-oriented pedagogy.  We are led to believe that the previous generation of greats had it from the horse's mouth and that we, poor dears (especially us non-Europeans), couldn't possibly measure up, so hold your tongue and imitate, imitate, imitate.  (Tom Lehrer had a great song about this false learning model vis a vis mathematics; his punchline was "plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize.")

I recently heard a student dutifully trying to imitate an authoritarian teacher.  Not only was the playing unattractive, it bore no resemblance to the student's natural musicality, which is genuine and charming.  The student complained of memory trouble.  Small wonder.

Why does anyone buy into a system that demands such a putdown of the self?  Is it because of a foreign accent?

Hearing First

Long ago I read Artur Schnabel's command: "Hear first; then play!"  That I puzzled over this indicates the degree of complexity involved in the notion of hearing first.  Hear what?  How can you hear before there is sound?  What do we hear first?

It is an especially interesting notion when piano playing is involved.  We pianists, no matter where we are or addressing what instrument, hear first our own piano.  Every other instrument is an affront.  (Though I cannot prove this scientifically, I am convinced that this accounts for most of the stage fright that besets players of all ages.  I know it used to upset me terribly to "have to" play my well-prepared lesson on my teacher's first-class Steinway, a piano infinitely superior to my own dinky rented upright.)

Getting used to a new level of pianistic glow and a much expanded range of touch response I am aware of how much anticipatory hearing goes on every time I sit down to play.

Memory plays a large role in advance hearing.  Can we re-direct our advance hearing to avoid entrapment in the "previously heard," which is not at all the same as "hearing first"?

Tonal Refraction provides a means of doing just that, by connecting awareness of the multi-faceted life of tone in our deepest emotional memory to the present nano-moment in which present vitality finds a new connection between the physicality of playing and our inner ongoing life of sound.

www.tonalrefraction.net

.