Front page, NYTimes, Thursday Nov. 7, 2013: Scientists have been studying babies' eyes from earliest infancy to detect signs of impending autism.
Not even on the back page of any paper: By engaging the eyes of a newborn and equating eye contact with any other kind of activity, like singing, the child learns a depth of empathy that scientists can't begin to figure out.
By the time the child is a year old it is already too distracted to initiate this kind of focus. Want your child to be musical? Give me a call the day he or she is born. I'll show you how to do it.
Multi-tasking parent faces will not do.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Music Notation Simplifies ... What, Exactly?
Among my students is an extraordinarily sensitive world-renowned scientist. She was trained according to the British system in Australia, where she grew up. She came to me as an adult wanting, as she put it, to know "where the music part was."
She could recognize it when she heard it but felt entirely removed from it when playing, even though the repertoire she played would be considered quite accomplished -- Mendelssohn Songs Without Words, for example.
The music part is not so easy to define, but in her case it definitely had to do with the fact that the printed page had absolutely nothing to do with listening. It was strictly a matter of a diagram a la Fred Astaire Dancing School: "put this foot here and that foot there" and you are somehow magically going to be dancing.
Well, it doesn't work that way. To this day she has great difficulty imagining sounds as she reads. The disconnect between her fingers and her ear is typical of people whose attention is never drawn to the primacy of the ear in reading / playing the piano.
There are so many people like her : in fact, I would count myself among them, until a discerning teacher required me to change my ways. It took a year of extremely painful reco-ordination, painful in that I had to view as separate activities moving my fingers from aiming for right notes, in other words, I had to break down all the elements of reading so that I could put them back together in the proper order. Imagine how difficult it was to play wrong notes on purpose after years of being led to believe that that was streng verboten (strictly prohibited).
I am going to start an Institute for Subjective Listening next year. If you have trouble reading music or teaching anyone to read, or if you have ever been bored while practicing or teaching, you will be a candidate. Stay tuned.
She could recognize it when she heard it but felt entirely removed from it when playing, even though the repertoire she played would be considered quite accomplished -- Mendelssohn Songs Without Words, for example.
The music part is not so easy to define, but in her case it definitely had to do with the fact that the printed page had absolutely nothing to do with listening. It was strictly a matter of a diagram a la Fred Astaire Dancing School: "put this foot here and that foot there" and you are somehow magically going to be dancing.
Well, it doesn't work that way. To this day she has great difficulty imagining sounds as she reads. The disconnect between her fingers and her ear is typical of people whose attention is never drawn to the primacy of the ear in reading / playing the piano.
There are so many people like her : in fact, I would count myself among them, until a discerning teacher required me to change my ways. It took a year of extremely painful reco-ordination, painful in that I had to view as separate activities moving my fingers from aiming for right notes, in other words, I had to break down all the elements of reading so that I could put them back together in the proper order. Imagine how difficult it was to play wrong notes on purpose after years of being led to believe that that was streng verboten (strictly prohibited).
I am going to start an Institute for Subjective Listening next year. If you have trouble reading music or teaching anyone to read, or if you have ever been bored while practicing or teaching, you will be a candidate. Stay tuned.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
What's in a Note?
It's a good question: Why does so much music instruction require learning music theory when so much great Classical (and other) composition is based on completely different uses of tone and tone systems? I have never understood this.
What I do understand, because my teaching has for many years been based on this principle, is that when the ear is engaged a priori without the interference of theoretical concepts, students comprehend music viscerally--even the most demanding music. They do not have to be told what the music is or what it might be about; they simply get it.
To cite an example: Having learned to identify chords and chord progressions I became quickly bored with slow tempos. There was nothing to listen for, so how was I to wrap my mind around a single sound that lasted for more than a half-second?
To the engaged ear every sound on the piano becomes magical. Every mixture of tones that we might call a chord becomes vibrant, alive, and suggests further movement or development.
This is why my students can play a Mozart Adagio at sight better than I could play one even after practicing.
It is simply wrong-headed to equate piano instruction with eye-based and concept-based notions. At most this produces efficient reading. But what is efficient about a Mozart Adagio?
What I do understand, because my teaching has for many years been based on this principle, is that when the ear is engaged a priori without the interference of theoretical concepts, students comprehend music viscerally--even the most demanding music. They do not have to be told what the music is or what it might be about; they simply get it.
To cite an example: Having learned to identify chords and chord progressions I became quickly bored with slow tempos. There was nothing to listen for, so how was I to wrap my mind around a single sound that lasted for more than a half-second?
To the engaged ear every sound on the piano becomes magical. Every mixture of tones that we might call a chord becomes vibrant, alive, and suggests further movement or development.
This is why my students can play a Mozart Adagio at sight better than I could play one even after practicing.
It is simply wrong-headed to equate piano instruction with eye-based and concept-based notions. At most this produces efficient reading. But what is efficient about a Mozart Adagio?
Friday, November 8, 2013
Words and Meaning
Words are somehow more internally illuminated when we encounter them in translation. Wald, in German, means woods or forest. Does it matter?
The notion of Woodland Scenes is to me radically different from Forest Scenes.
I recall starting out for a walk on a cold winter afternoon, young, alone in a strange German town, following a trail into a forest of tall, primordial (it seemed to me) trees. Dark, forbidding, completely strange in every way, it terrified me and I quickly ran for the comfort of the town, that is, of people.
This will always be for me the experience of entry (Eintritt) into the forest of Schumann's Waldszenen, never an expectation of idyllic serenity, rather the opposite.
Then there are the inevitable hunters, always somewhere in the foreground or background, their horns distinguishable already in inner voices in the Eintritt, suddenly upon us in the second piece: Jaeger auf der Lauer (Hunters on the Prowl).
With this pieces comes the first obvious mystery: An octave D. What key are we in? What is the beat? No clue. Everything that follows is ambiguous in the extreme. The point must be that contained within that first duration, that first unaccompanied tone, is the mystery of the forest. Most likely you missed it, as did I for years, needing to know the answers before noticing the questions.
The notion of Woodland Scenes is to me radically different from Forest Scenes.
I recall starting out for a walk on a cold winter afternoon, young, alone in a strange German town, following a trail into a forest of tall, primordial (it seemed to me) trees. Dark, forbidding, completely strange in every way, it terrified me and I quickly ran for the comfort of the town, that is, of people.
This will always be for me the experience of entry (Eintritt) into the forest of Schumann's Waldszenen, never an expectation of idyllic serenity, rather the opposite.
Then there are the inevitable hunters, always somewhere in the foreground or background, their horns distinguishable already in inner voices in the Eintritt, suddenly upon us in the second piece: Jaeger auf der Lauer (Hunters on the Prowl).
With this pieces comes the first obvious mystery: An octave D. What key are we in? What is the beat? No clue. Everything that follows is ambiguous in the extreme. The point must be that contained within that first duration, that first unaccompanied tone, is the mystery of the forest. Most likely you missed it, as did I for years, needing to know the answers before noticing the questions.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Mind and Body in Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, and Everyone Else
So much time is wasted figuring out the simplest way to play piano repertoire: match the triplets to their quarters, for example. What a colossal waste of time. It becomes too easy. Therefore, dull.
As soon as these simple multiples are examined in context, however, they more often than not come out totaling 21, 27, or 15--decidedly not duples. In other words, if a triplet figure repeats seven times it produces 21 tones. Why not play them in sevens, rather than in threes?
What happens is that the mind becomes engaged in a completely unpredictable manner, charging the enterprise with an energy that communicates to the listener as speed even though it may be metronomically slower than if played in predictable triplets. The coordination of quarters against sevens entails split second timing, which is never lost on an audience.
As soon as mental agility steps into these otherwise self-evident, simple passages they become wondrously engaging. Try it.
As soon as these simple multiples are examined in context, however, they more often than not come out totaling 21, 27, or 15--decidedly not duples. In other words, if a triplet figure repeats seven times it produces 21 tones. Why not play them in sevens, rather than in threes?
What happens is that the mind becomes engaged in a completely unpredictable manner, charging the enterprise with an energy that communicates to the listener as speed even though it may be metronomically slower than if played in predictable triplets. The coordination of quarters against sevens entails split second timing, which is never lost on an audience.
As soon as mental agility steps into these otherwise self-evident, simple passages they become wondrously engaging. Try it.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
It's Not What You Listen To, But How You Listen
The media are feeding us a lot of garbage about Mozart and the brain. I hope you are spitting it out, as babies spit out the carrots that feel so foreign on their tongues.
Let's talk about those spitting babies as the models of proper attentiveness. When infants are engaged in real listening, that is, listening attached to human involvement, there is no limit to what they will take in. The human involvement has to include a warm body, preferably with a face that has moving parts, like eyebrows, and a smile or a frown--any sign of life will do.
Too much Classical music is about the notes, the structures, and not about that spitting baby's hunger for the real thing.
This morning, once again, it was my young adult student with the Trio of that Beethoven Minuet in Op. 10 # 3. Played as I always used to play it before I started paying attention, it is simply a matter of triplets in one hand and punctuating quarters in the other. Not so fast, say I. Where, exactly, are the downbeats? Surely not where the barlines would have us believe they must be, for otherwise why are there so many dash staccatos -- remember those marks indicate strong ambiguity about ups and downs, and recall also that minuets are hemiola territory, par excellence. Then, what might we have?*
We might have hemiolas intersecting other hemiolas, as was common practice back in the day when musicians were not so tied up in knots about counting as a linear procedure. And we might have triplets played not in threes but in multiples of seven or five, i.e., constantly against the predictable beat. Try it. It will get you up in the morning, day after day, and you won't be able to repeat yourself, not ever, not once.
(See my book, What Might It Mean? An Uncommon Glossary of Musical Terms and Concepts for the Stuck, Bored, and Curious, with entries for hemiola, minuet, and dash staccato, among others. Purchase one at www.tonalrefraction.com.)
Let's talk about those spitting babies as the models of proper attentiveness. When infants are engaged in real listening, that is, listening attached to human involvement, there is no limit to what they will take in. The human involvement has to include a warm body, preferably with a face that has moving parts, like eyebrows, and a smile or a frown--any sign of life will do.
Too much Classical music is about the notes, the structures, and not about that spitting baby's hunger for the real thing.
This morning, once again, it was my young adult student with the Trio of that Beethoven Minuet in Op. 10 # 3. Played as I always used to play it before I started paying attention, it is simply a matter of triplets in one hand and punctuating quarters in the other. Not so fast, say I. Where, exactly, are the downbeats? Surely not where the barlines would have us believe they must be, for otherwise why are there so many dash staccatos -- remember those marks indicate strong ambiguity about ups and downs, and recall also that minuets are hemiola territory, par excellence. Then, what might we have?*
We might have hemiolas intersecting other hemiolas, as was common practice back in the day when musicians were not so tied up in knots about counting as a linear procedure. And we might have triplets played not in threes but in multiples of seven or five, i.e., constantly against the predictable beat. Try it. It will get you up in the morning, day after day, and you won't be able to repeat yourself, not ever, not once.
(See my book, What Might It Mean? An Uncommon Glossary of Musical Terms and Concepts for the Stuck, Bored, and Curious, with entries for hemiola, minuet, and dash staccato, among others. Purchase one at www.tonalrefraction.com.)
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Limited by Notation
We have begun work on Tonal Refraction II which treats Schumann's Waldszenen (Forest Scenes). The first problem is how to notate the printed score. I have a master engraver working on it and his questions reveal again and again the limitations of music notation, especially as revealed by in-depth visualization of the actual sound of the piece--two entirely different things.
I had noticed that, in making the Tonal Refraction of the score, I wanted to account for the underlying tension between duple meters and triple rhythms. That was the first "inaccuracy," perhaps inconsistency is a better word, that turned up in comparing modern typographical usage with the 1887 edition on which he is basing his copy.
Schumann was always pushing envelopes. His notation of internal rhythms is never easy to decipher and keeps many pianists at bay -- I am tempted to say, thank goodness.
I had noticed that, in making the Tonal Refraction of the score, I wanted to account for the underlying tension between duple meters and triple rhythms. That was the first "inaccuracy," perhaps inconsistency is a better word, that turned up in comparing modern typographical usage with the 1887 edition on which he is basing his copy.
Schumann was always pushing envelopes. His notation of internal rhythms is never easy to decipher and keeps many pianists at bay -- I am tempted to say, thank goodness.
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