What Price Professionalism ?

Yesterday I had the good fortune to spend a couple of hours on a repertoire I haven't played for about thirty years.  It was our first meeting, the soprano and myself.  I had requested that we do Schumann lieder.  She came with the book but a look of puzzlement on her face, as if to inquire, "Why him?"

I would have had the same response of disbelief before my current fascination with Schumann and the incomprehensible.

She chose to work on Liederkreis, a cycle which she had studied as an undergraduate in music school.  Turns out she was trained, as I had also been, to deliver these songs confidently, in a well-organized manner.  But the songs are about alienation, about danger, about uncertainty.

Much of the real content of the song is clarified in the piano writing, which would have been Schumann's own involvement in the actual singing.

So artistry began to seep in more and more profoundly as she heard the accompaniments suggesting the imbalance that evokes alienation, danger, uncertainty.  How much more interesting! How much more demanding!

The Fashion World Has It Right

Lots of attention in this morning's press about a gala evening of high fashion awards.  Judging from the quotes, and the photos, high fashion is performance art at its most immediate.  Anyone can indulge in it; it needn't cost anymore than what you ordinarily spend on clothes.  All you have to do is be yourself.  Stick out.

Hmmm...  Was Beethoven a conformist?  Brahms?  Bach?   Where is the spirit that got them off the ground?

Is it just because their work has been printed, recorded, copied to death, that we are so removed from that zest, that sock-it-to-em drive that has to be what gave rise to such inventiveness?

Is There a Cure for Bad Piano Lessons?

This condition afflicts many people, some of whom think it is hereditary: in other words, they insist on passing it on to their children.

As with all chronic conditions there are nuances in the diagnosis:  Some of these bad lessons were the fault of the teacher as evidenced in lack of concern for the child's good feeling about the enterprise and/or about music.

A prominent jazz pianist told me of his childhood teacher insisting that he correct his hand position.  After having achieved some prominence in the alternative music world he realized that Horowitz's hand position looked awfully familiar to him.

In my case it wasn't the lessons so much as the assigned method books.  If that was music I wanted no part of it, so I never practiced.  Fooling around saved my musical soul.

It is like every other poison we ingest as infants:  with maturity comes the option to recover.  It can be done but it must be desired.

High Praise

It is not every day that I boast of having received high praise.  But last night, after hearing me play the "Moonlight" Sonata a listener said that it was the first time he had ever heard all three movements make sense as an integrated work.

This constituted high praise because he is a professional pianist, because he had given up on that piece, and because he put his finger on the most challenging aspect of the sonata: what to do with that second movement that seems so out of place between the radical first and third movements.

This, I told him, was the last problem I solved, having despaired of ever getting it to happen and knowing that it would not happen all by itself.

I love playing for a small audience who give me such concrete feedback.  I know that the juices are flowing both ways starting with the first note.  What a privilege.

A Town's Roofs in Autumn

Living with this rug displayed on my living room floor is like living with a three-dimensional Schiele painting, rendered all the more vivid by being down to earth, so to speak.  I have grown to love its colors, its irregularities. Crafted of recycled wool and alpaca.  It can be yours for the bidding:  www.tonalrefraction.com  But hurry, the auction is finalized Monday June 9.

October Splashes detail

October Splashes closeup

Ghosts in Our Hands

Today's lesson on the "Moonlight" with my computer-animator student revealed an important aspect of the perniciously invasive basis of traditional piano pedagogy.

After many hours delving into the mysteries of this great work I had him select a measure in which there seemed to be notable difficulty.  He chose a measure of arpeggiation near the end of the first movement.  As we worked I realized why so many serious piano students get sick of the great repertoire.

At the first lesson on a piece we are given fingerings.  I maintain that the hand is the instrument, even more, perhaps, than the actual piano.  Fingering is, then, the ultimate art of playing the instrument.  I never write in a fingering unless I find that it reveals some cryptic element in the line that habit is likely to obscure every time I refresh my acquaintance with the piece.  I can think of particular measures in Beethoven and Brahms that fit that bill.

Your hand is your very own and must freely reflect the action of your inner ear.  No one else's, thank you very much.

I See Klimt; Others See Monet; What Do You See?

Come see for yourself: It's up for auction.  Info and bidding

Seasons of Blue

at  www.tonalrefraction.com