Handel on the Piano

Last night's Mixed Bag performance included a knockout Suite in D minor (No. 3) by Handel.  The penultimate work on the unannounced program, it was the piece that elicited audible gasps from the listeners.  Every time I play it I say out loud what a tremendous work it is.

What makes it so great?  It is completely unpredictable: no matter how many times I play it I am surprised at its whimsy, its subtle turns of line from rhythmic to lyric, its sense of foreboding alternating with exuberant virtuosity.  The level of variation built into this work is amazing, and none of it lost on the listener.

The other composers that evening were C P E Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.  We know, and you can tell from their music in case you didn't know it in advance, that both Beethoven and Brahms were heavily influenced by Handel.  You can hear those same attributes in their works, whether long or short.  C P E is more complicated to define in terms of influence.  He definitely had a mind of his own, whether influenced by anyone in particular I cannot say.  But the same properties, whimsy, variation, profound vocalism are all there. 

Do YouHave It In You?

We live in a peculiar culture: so much is made of private enterprise, of the self-made person, of individuality.  Yet every day the media are star-studded, as if the real point is not the individual but the star -- not at all the same thing.

The belief is early instilled into young children that their "job" is to compete, not to develop.  As I write that sentence I am struck by the motivation behind that approach to child rearing: For one thing, it assures that your child will not surpass you.  Heaven forbid.

My children have both, each in her/his own way, surpassed me.  I learn from them.  They have picked up things I would never have noticed.

Is it because parents and teachers are afraid they might have to bend down and actually learn something from someone younger than themselves that so many of them persist in passing on this madness?

The Music Part

In the face of a 3-year-old visiting my new neighbors across the hall I see an expression I now recognize instantly:  while waiting for the elevator she has heard a piano.  Her mother introduces me as the person who plays that piano.  The eyes light up with an expression of hunger.  "Invite me in!" 

I have seen this before.  In fact, one of my most successful students was a child who lived in that very apartment from birth until graduating from high school.  Was part of her success that she heard that piano playing every day? (Not that I practice constantly, I don't; neither did she.  "I don't have time," she once told me.) 

But her deeply insightful musicianship was fed by a clear experience of dedication--not tedium, not mindless repetition, but pure dedication.  I refuse to be bored, to be lured into repeating what I did yesterday or last week.  (I do sometimes repeat myself in conversation, but those are senior moments, which I do not have when playing the piano.)

That kid's sight-reading of a Mozart Adagio would have me in tears.  As a teenager I had no patience for adagio, much less the ability to focus my conscious attention on anything that lacked surface movement.

Respecting the Complexity of Hearing

Playing the piano looks so easy.  Listening to the piano while playing it is anything but easy.

The instrument gives off incredibly complex overtones - so complex that the sound of the piano defies synthesis.  Think about that.  You are a child (remember?) whose hearing is very much more sensitive and detailed than your teacher's.  Hard to imagine?  Well, the acuity of the child ear wears off over time, for a variety of reasons, some of them cultural.

And there is your teacher imposing upon you, the child -- by definition more "with it" -- a version of hearing that is woefully simplistic, if judged according to the only applicable standard, that of your sensitive ear.

So why doesn't pedagogy take this into account?  As a distinguished colleague (Professor of Piano Pedagogy, by the way, which I am not, thank you) answered when I asked her: "It takes too long."

Odd Numbers Within Even Bars

It fascinates me that Beethoven goes to so much trouble to indicate the tension between passages based on three's and five's within squarely symmetrical meters:  15 unslurred sixteenths within a 2/4 bar followed by a clearly slurred run of the expected 16 sixteenths.  Why do we not get it?

Because it's hard. 

Is that a good reason?  Test it once.  See how much more fun it is to play this way, despite the risk that you will fumble.  See how much more interested your audience will be in the results you achieve, whether or not they are 100% "accurate."  What is the point of accuracy if the results are dull?

I have been working Beethoven this way for years now and am always astonished that people notice the difference - ordinary people, not just musicians.

I Work at it Because it is Hard, Not Because it's Easy

As I continually point out, counting is over-rated.  It is set up as the first requirement of good musicianship and all children are expected to do it and listen at the same time.  Because I could not do so I have been fascinated all my life with the relationship between tone and time on all its levels. 

I would have been eliminated in any competition for piano skill - thankfully such things did not exist in the culture in which I grew up.  As it was, I eliminated myself from that kind of running, opting instead to work at the instrument, at the music, at my problems on my own.  Would I succeed?  Who could say? And succeed at what, precisely?

Along the way I was fortunate to have mentors who did not interfere with my working style and did not impose simplistic solutions where there are none.

Insisting on the steady beat is a cop-out.  It only turns people off.  It turns everyone off Classical music.  Ask around....

Music and Disability

In some circles the aim of teaching children with disability is to mask their specialness by getting them to produce results commensurate with those produced by more typical children.  I couldn't disagree more.

The aim of all education should be to strengthen the individuality of every child, typical or set apart by special characteristics, whether of genius or any other sort.

I work at this by stressing variation.  No piece of music is ever repeated mechanically, but always with variations of timing, tempo, dynamics, articulation.

This morning I witnessed the triumph of that approach as a young man with severe developmental disability not only figured out how to coordinate his two hands in a tricky assortment of eighth notes vs. quarter notes and consonances vs. dissonances, but - even more impressive - he slowed himself down in order to do it with greater accuracy.

Slowing oneself down voluntarily is one of life's more difficult adjustments.  That he did it of his own accord is proof that teaching variability is critical to the heart of the person.  It gives them choices, empowers them.