I just had the incredible experience of testing one of my theories of musical composition and ending up in a state of absolute hilarity, imagine that.
Mozart K. 283, his only Piano Sonata in G, fascinates me because it drove me to nightmares as a child. The question of how and why is not a small question. Today I think I found the answer.
I have long suspected that it had to do with his exploration and exploitation of the single contrasting black key (F#) with the predominantly white-key consonance of G. If that be the case, I said to myself this morning, then he must have intensified this by presenting F# in the vertical company of all 11 other possible tones.
So I counted them as they occurred: I got all six white keys of the G scale easily enough; then came the accidentals: C# E-flat G# A# - something's missing.....must be E#, I surmised. I looked harder and there it was, within the final cadence of the first movement: F natural, loud and clear.
Why hadn't I noticed it before? Good question, when it contained the clue to the whole procedure.
Not only that, but at the very end of the movement, when I had all but given up hope of deciphering the riddle.
Who but Mozart would play such tricks? Answer: Any of the generations of composers who have sought and still seek to emulate his approach to the splendid art of listening. For that must be why it works to the extent of causing a child to have nightmares: that sense of something missing, something elusively tantalizing, a riddle to be solved not just a piece to be played.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Thursday, July 17, 2014
The Sociology of Sound
It matters a lot that our world knows, for the most part, only reproduced sound. We wouldn't put up for an instant with food treated as badly.
Sounds used to be associated with behaviors, with conventions, with social realities that most people recognized. Bells, for example, have all but disappeared from modern urban life: every time I hear one I am moved, as it resonates through a time that reaches far back into history, connecting me to people who have heard bells through the ages.
I am re-reading Arthur Loesser's brilliant Men, Women, and Pianos, a sociological study of the instrument as it was played and viewed in various countries since the time of its invention. He makes palpable the difference between the forced involvement with practice that was to yield an "accomplished" (read, more marriageable) young English woman during the time of Jane Austen, and the real artistry of but a few pianists of the time, notably John Baptiste Cramer (whose etudes have always been among my favorites).
I find shocking the degree to which the cliche of piano playing drove out receptivity to the artistry of the few. I find shocking, too, how familiar it feels. Were there algorithms in those days determining acceptable behaviors, as there are now, determining what constitutes saleable songs?
Sounds used to be associated with behaviors, with conventions, with social realities that most people recognized. Bells, for example, have all but disappeared from modern urban life: every time I hear one I am moved, as it resonates through a time that reaches far back into history, connecting me to people who have heard bells through the ages.
I am re-reading Arthur Loesser's brilliant Men, Women, and Pianos, a sociological study of the instrument as it was played and viewed in various countries since the time of its invention. He makes palpable the difference between the forced involvement with practice that was to yield an "accomplished" (read, more marriageable) young English woman during the time of Jane Austen, and the real artistry of but a few pianists of the time, notably John Baptiste Cramer (whose etudes have always been among my favorites).
I find shocking the degree to which the cliche of piano playing drove out receptivity to the artistry of the few. I find shocking, too, how familiar it feels. Were there algorithms in those days determining acceptable behaviors, as there are now, determining what constitutes saleable songs?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Remembering a Truly Great Art Dealer
Otto Kallir was my boss for a brief time during my student days in New York. I had no idea who he was when I responded to the Help Wanted Ad, read alphabetically: A for Art Gallery. That association developed into one of my life's most important relationships.
Until I met Dr. Kallir I did not know that there were people who based their lives on instinctual receptivity to creativity in others. This has nothing to do with fashion or trends, or anything except the intrinsic worth of the work produced by individuals who may be completely out of step with the art work surrounding them. This receptivity, in Kallir's case, extended to the so-called primitive artists, among them Grandma Moses, as well as to such unique personalities as Egon Schiele.
Though I was never involved with the art world except insofar as I was employed by him for a time, he would say to me such things as: "I don't understand your work but I find it very interesting." Looking back at those words I realize now that he was responding to some communicated individuality that he recognized and respected.
Now that everything is a commodity it is hard to imagine anyone taking a similar stand in relation to a gifted individual in any field.
Until I met Dr. Kallir I did not know that there were people who based their lives on instinctual receptivity to creativity in others. This has nothing to do with fashion or trends, or anything except the intrinsic worth of the work produced by individuals who may be completely out of step with the art work surrounding them. This receptivity, in Kallir's case, extended to the so-called primitive artists, among them Grandma Moses, as well as to such unique personalities as Egon Schiele.
Though I was never involved with the art world except insofar as I was employed by him for a time, he would say to me such things as: "I don't understand your work but I find it very interesting." Looking back at those words I realize now that he was responding to some communicated individuality that he recognized and respected.
Now that everything is a commodity it is hard to imagine anyone taking a similar stand in relation to a gifted individual in any field.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Support Non-Conformity Wherever You Find It
Like the honeybees editorialized in this mornings NYTimes, nonconformists in every field are in danger of extinction. Support a nonconformist today, any nonconformist. Buy a ticket. Go to a concert. Buy a book of poems.
Pay for your ticket on this ride: www.tonalrefraction.com/
Sound Like a Pro vs. Feel LIke an Artist
Sounding like a pro is all too easy, given the many recordings that sound more or less alike -- and increasingly I notice this to be the case. I test this thesis by listening at random to WQXR. Yesterday I heard by chance a recording of some generic symphonic work played generically by some generic orchestra. Having no idea it was QXR (it was being played in a waiting room) I had some trouble entering my experimental mode and found myself simply annoyed.
Later I ran into a dedicated amateur cellist who, in the space of a three-minute walk, unwittingly put his finger on the problem: Too much of the time amateurs are coached as if their goal should be to sound like professionals, i.e., to treat the music as an object that can be mastered, or at least played "correctly." These amateurs are not given credit for having responses of their own to every element of their playing: not just the notes and the rhythms, but their rapport with their specific instruments, and with one another.
Too many pros have to restrain themselves when it comes to such individual responses, their job being to sound like the generic recording of generic Beethoven. Amateurs are blessed in that they may give full rein to their individual responses thus feeling like the artists we all crave to be--perhaps I should alter that a bit to read: "the artists we all might realize we crave to be were it not for the increasing pressure to conform to norms imposed by commercialization." Writers call this the censorship of the marketplace.
Later I ran into a dedicated amateur cellist who, in the space of a three-minute walk, unwittingly put his finger on the problem: Too much of the time amateurs are coached as if their goal should be to sound like professionals, i.e., to treat the music as an object that can be mastered, or at least played "correctly." These amateurs are not given credit for having responses of their own to every element of their playing: not just the notes and the rhythms, but their rapport with their specific instruments, and with one another.
Too many pros have to restrain themselves when it comes to such individual responses, their job being to sound like the generic recording of generic Beethoven. Amateurs are blessed in that they may give full rein to their individual responses thus feeling like the artists we all crave to be--perhaps I should alter that a bit to read: "the artists we all might realize we crave to be were it not for the increasing pressure to conform to norms imposed by commercialization." Writers call this the censorship of the marketplace.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Reflections on Sound and Newness
This is probably the essence of the difficulty facing all music and all musicians of our time: we have heard it all before. The roses, as T.S. Eliot so beautifully put it, have the air of having been looked at.
We have become jaded by over-exposure. What now passes for music in no way resembles actual music, in the way that a canned green bean (but who is old enough to remember those affronts to nature?) bears little resemblance to the real thing.
I remember traveling with my young children in France. The first day they couldn't eat the tomatoes:
"They don't taste like tomatoes," was their objection. It is the similar problem when I invite people to hear the piano played close up in the chamber, as the music is supposed to be heard, not separated by a half-block of sound absorbing people and stuff.
It must all ideally be heard for the first time, no matter how familiar.
When are music teachers going to wise up to the necessity of incorporating that freshness into every child's instructions for daily playing?
We have become jaded by over-exposure. What now passes for music in no way resembles actual music, in the way that a canned green bean (but who is old enough to remember those affronts to nature?) bears little resemblance to the real thing.
I remember traveling with my young children in France. The first day they couldn't eat the tomatoes:
"They don't taste like tomatoes," was their objection. It is the similar problem when I invite people to hear the piano played close up in the chamber, as the music is supposed to be heard, not separated by a half-block of sound absorbing people and stuff.
It must all ideally be heard for the first time, no matter how familiar.
When are music teachers going to wise up to the necessity of incorporating that freshness into every child's instructions for daily playing?
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Variation Rhythm
The longer I am involved with music the more I believe its purpose - if it has to have one - is to arouse in everyone within listening distance awareness of the speed of vibration. Put another way, awareness that the very air is moving, breathing, alive.
Despite the pretense of commercialization that air can be packaged into tiny boxes and plugged via buds (crazy word!) into the ear, we must do everything in our power to subvert this attack on our own aliveness.
One good remedy is to sit in the front row whenever you can get to a free, unamplified performance: Try a local music school. Don't be fussy about the performance, but do be fussy about your ability to listen with empathy to whoever is playing. Put yourself in their shoes. Listen as though your life depends on it.
It does.
Despite the pretense of commercialization that air can be packaged into tiny boxes and plugged via buds (crazy word!) into the ear, we must do everything in our power to subvert this attack on our own aliveness.
One good remedy is to sit in the front row whenever you can get to a free, unamplified performance: Try a local music school. Don't be fussy about the performance, but do be fussy about your ability to listen with empathy to whoever is playing. Put yourself in their shoes. Listen as though your life depends on it.
It does.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)