Does Music by a Lesser Composer Serve Any Purpose?

Just because a composer does not share the category of top billing with Beethoven or Mozart by no means guarantees that he or she has nothing to offer in the way of satisfying music.

Take Boccherini, for example.  Violinist Gregor Kitzis and I are exploring one of the six sonatas he wrote for violin and the newly invented piano -- though it says in the title that they may also be played on the harpsichord, that is just to guarantee sales, not because they could possibly sound good on a harpsichord.

These are gems of shared acoustics between two ringing instruments.  It just takes some experimentation to get to the essence of each movement, which is purely acoustical and not thematic in the way that we are all taught to approach things called sonatas.

Who is Responsible?

When the teacher seeks to impose notions of correct interpretation on the student it is the student's responsibility to object in whatever way works rather than meekly to accept that as appropriate behavior on the part of the teacher.  It matters little who the teacher is.

I recall a major disagreement with a world-class organist with whom I was studying on a Fulbright.  At the first lesson he outlined the year's course of study, namely a different major prelude and fugue of Bach (some 20- 25 minutes long) every week.  I protested that that would be not only impossible but also meaningless: How could I possibly learn such a quantity of material and play it in a way that would elicit meaning on the part of either one of us?  I argued that I would get much more from our time together if I were to play for him music that I already had some feeling about.

His displeasure at what seemed to him my inappropriate behavior was obvious.

But 3/4 of the way through that painful year he put me to the test of analyzing a major work by Buxtehude.  In response to my analysis, of which he clearly approved, he gave me one of the most meaningful lessons I have ever had from anyone.  He told me the basis of his own performance style.  He told me, too, that he cannot teach his students to play that way because they do not come to learn his art, but to learn the "correct" way to do things.  In other words, he teaches by the book, though he performs according to his own well-informed instincts.

Get Me to That Conference!

If everyone who read the February 11, 2014  post on Social Learning Theory vs. Competition just during the past week sent just $10 to support my work -- easily done on-line at  www.tonalrefraction.com -- it would pay for the airfare  to Seoul to present the paper that was accepted for presentation at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.

Think about it!  Then do it.

Thanks.

Once Again, Boredom, This Time in Relation to Mastery

Mastery is a peculiar notion.  The "master class" format is a staple of classical music training.  What does it imply?

For one thing it is probably more aptly called "fame and fortune class" as the level of mastery of the "master" must always be weighed in relation to a complex set of questions if not answers.

When Karl Ulrich Schnabel (son of Artur) gave a master class it was truly a class given by a master teacher.  As such the audience consisted of as many psychologists as pianists.  He knew how to address all manner of student with candor yet without condescension.  I recall specific instances of these classes with deep admiration.

Yet even he was confused, it seems to me, about his own musical mastery.  How appropriate is it to inflict one generation's notion of mastery on another generation for whom that notion may be totally irrelevant?

I had an argument with him once about precisely that point:  As I listen to music, it seemed to me that some of his young private students played like old men.  How can that happen if not that interpretation has been locked up somewhere, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, in a room "the sexton keeps the key to."

Roses That Are Looked At

Nothing will improve a player's progress or self-esteem like the knowledge that they have been heard, seriously listened to, i.e., taken seriously in the terms in which they delivered their message.

Not that the message need necessarily conform to any known model.

Too often the assumption is that a teacher only knows how to listen in relation to known models.  I do not listen that way.  I will take you at face value, no matter who you are, whether an autistic child or a far-out-radical composer type.  I know how to listen because I have been practicing listening without bias for several decades. This was one of the most difficult challenges I ever set for myself, since most music instruction (on all levels) has to do with "getting it right." 

I have helped many individuals progress in both their progress and their self-esteem.

I call it Music Inside and Out.  Perhaps I can help you.

Simple Questions

Take as a simple proposition the major scale.  We all learn it as if it were a given.

What if it isn't so simple?  What if Beethoven transforms every portion of it to become a determinant of directionality, of stability, of speculation, of exploration?

This is what happened this morning.with my student's involuntary direct responses to the first eight sounds of the middle movement of the Moonlight.  I couldn't help but think as we puzzled them out that this is the stuff that theorists mull over but without having half so much fun as we had.

I can imagine Beethoven singing those scales to himself, again, and again.

Interview on Lucid Culture

Just out: an interview about Tonal Refraction at  lucidculture.wordpress.com.