Tease Fingers and Eyes - a Sensual Feast

Coverlet: Wool / alpaca / silk blend / tencel  42" x 24"

Loops, bows, fuzzy bits

For the 
Most 
Part 
Pink





One of the throws up for silent auction at www.tonalrefraction.com
Seven days to go!

Sound, the Medium

That title refers, of course, to Marshall McLuhan's famous words: "The medium is the message."  How true this is for music.  The trouble is that the medium has become confused by the media.

Recorded sound is not sound.  The difference may be likened to that between fresh and canned vegetables.
Once passed through microphones and amplifiers the thing itself is no longer recognizable.

I do not doubt in the slightest that being at home in the medium of sound with all its rich complexities releases the inhibitions that block good coordination at the instrument.

It's a Klee! No, It's a Bunch of Fuzzy Squares

 One week to go to bid on the three rugs and four throws (of which this is one).  Visit www.tonalrefraction.com and get in on it.  The throws may be hung on the wall or used to keep you warm inside and out. 

Fuzzy Squares closeup

Nothing Beats a Book

 A composer colleague has just purchased my Tonal Refraction book on the Mozart G minor Piano Quartet--the whole thing, complete with annotations of each individual part as well as the score.  With any luck working through the book will turn out to be like studying composition from inside a work of Mozart without theoretical analysis -- in other words, it will involve inhabiting the dramatic logic of each line through the sensibility of a musician whose entire life has been devoted to piercing from the ear the inner workings of textures so rich that they require four people to bring them to life.

For what does it mean to study a masterwork if not to inhabit it through the sensibility of its creator, which is completely different from the going standard of imitating the latest recording by famous players.

Going, Going....

The silent auction to support my upcoming trip to present Tonal Refraction at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition in Seoul, Korea will be finalized on Monday June 9.  I invite you to visit www.tonalrefraction.com  to bid on the seven one-of-a-kind works of fiber art  (called STRing Improvisations because they support Tonal Refraction) that I crochet, one "brick" at a time, on the subways and buses of NYC.  These rugs, throws or wall hangings are crafted of recycled fibers, mostly wool.  This photo will hopefully pique your curiosity.  The items have been compared to oil paintings: this one a Jackson Pollack.

Fire and Black Ice Detail

Great Music Teachers I Have Known

I was fortunate to have had four great music teachers, their greatness being their complete generosity in trusting that I had a musical soul of my own.  None of them required that I take on the terms of their musical identities.

For one of them that was easy: It was teacher who didn't know I existed except as an anonymous member of his audience ten times within forty days in the fall of 1962  (Row B, Seat 1, Carnegie Hall balcony).  The complete, transparent generosity of Artur Rubinstein playing the piano as he did was enough to focus my attention on his left hand thumb, thereby utterly transforming my technique once and for all.

For another it was not quite as easy: This was a teacher whom I consulted once for the purpose of finding out whether I was wasting my time trying to master the piano.  I knew from his playing that he was incapable of pretense.  Within a matter of minutes he put his finger on precisely the central aspect of my playing that caused most ordinary teachers to give up before trying to work with me.  Mieczyslaw Horszowski identified rhythm as my strongest asset -- the one everyone would try to "fix."   "Don't let anybody fix it."  By saying this he gave me the courage to continue my quest to grasp the essential connection between myself and this complex instrument, the piano.

Two of the teachers were men with whom I worked on a steady basis over periods of years.  The first, organist Fenner Douglass, was unwavering in his thorough demands regarding technique, scholarship, and performance.  I owe him more than I can ever repay.

The second, pianist Hans Neumann, gave unstintingly of his time and brilliance, sure that I would one day master the instrument to meet his standard.  I wish he had lived long enough to see that happen.   If it has happened it is, in part, because he never assumed I would accomplish this according to plan, his or anyone else's.

And that is my main point:  If we succeed in playing our instrument it has to be according to our own nature.  If we are lucky, teachers do not get in our way.

Ten Days to the Auction

I invite you to bid on the rugs and throws on silent auction at www.tonalrefraction.com.  Proceeds from the auction, which will be finalized on June 9, will help defray expenses of my upcoming trip to Seoul, Korea to present practical implications of Tonal Refraction at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition. 

It would be a great way to show your support for my work and, at the same time, to come into possession of a unique (and practical!) piece of fiber art crafted entirely of recycled string passed down to me by a designer of knit patterns.

Miss Twiggy, wool and alpaca, 59" x 32" demonstrating by its irregular shape the extent to which it is truly a String Improvisation.

More pictures : Posts of May 7, 10, 13 and 15.