I know what it feels like to be triaded to death. When one's listening is conceptually reduced to triadic function the subtle shadings of two-voice combinations are lost, as are the subtle shadings of triads with multiple doublings, as in many Schubert Waltzes. This impoverishment leads to boredom, to lack of finesse, to over-simplification in piano-playing. Coming back to real life after years of such malfunction is not easy.

Test yourself: Try writing out by memory Soldier's March from Schumann's Album for the Young, a masterpiece of precision in this regard.

My ten-year-old nephew (who later became a space/time philosopher) had a favorite riddle:

Mrs. Bigger had a baby. Which was bigger?

The baby was a little Bigger.

There is a musical parallel: When is a triad not a triad?

When you take one note away and position it on the piano so that it sounds like "something else."

In the spirit of the Classical sonata as auditory game, this is what happens in piano works by Haydn, Mozart, Clementi. We have grown so accustomed to assuming triads where they actually are not present that we miss a tremendous amount of double entendre.

Most of the past two days were spent reviewing a new CD of works by a dear musical friend. Our friendship came instantly and in depth straight from my ear to hers: I heard a particular cadence she had written in a particular work and remarked publicly on its beauty. She was in the back of the room (it was a symposium so it not rude to speak out), stood up and announced that that was her all-time favorite cadence and that she was told at the time that if she wrote cadences like that she would never have a career as a composer.

She has had an illustrious career. But even more important, she has never lost that spark of personal commitment that shone through that cadence. That moment of musical recognition has become a deep mutual trust.

We understand one another through the medium of sound. It is amazing that it is so deeply personal and that it means so much to each of us.

A much misunderstood feature of every sonata collection is the Table of Contents. Looking at Vol. I of the Mozart Piano Sonatas we see the following order of keys: C F B-flat E-flat G D. Six sonatas, written one after the other. Is it a progression?

Or take the first three sonatas by Beethoven: F minor A major C. Also a progression, but a less obvious one: 1. Four flats; 2. three sharps (its inverse);
3. Look, Ma! no sharps or flats!

If ever there needed to be an argument in favor of the black key / white key fascination of the piano when it was an innovation I propose these as evidence.

Be adventurous! Go to hear student recitals whenever you can. It doesn't matter what age or what level. They will appreciate your ears and you might be overwhelmed by what you hear. You never know.

Yesterday I heard three pianists in a student recital. Though not all equally interesting it was a good exercise in figuring out what exactly they were doing, besides being quite accomplished. The third played masterfully--a huge surprise. You never know.

The real question seems to be: what is music? These days it has come to mean CDs and downloads. If you look it up on the internet that's what it is. In terms of formal schooling it seems to be, more than anything, the business of music in which monetary success (fame) is the arbiter of success.

It is apparently a source of confusion.

For me music is an ideal synthesis of conscious and unconscious knowledge and experience, fusing past and present--even incorporating anticipation of the moment to come as every sound impels or resists forward motion. It occupies my entire being in whatever form I enjoy it, whether playing, singing, or listening to others--including beginners.

The several days between today's post and the preceding were spent summarizing my teaching career in what felt like ten words or less. Next to playing the piano (I mean really playing) teaching the piano is extremely difficult.

My standard in teaching children is that I will not have them learn anything that they will have to unlearn as adults. That means, not a concept, not a simplification of any kind--rhythmic, tonal, harmonic--that will keep them from experiencing a different version of whatever it is. It also means not a physical motion which will impede ease as they grow into full-sized hands.

Soon after I began to teach I became affiliated with a major music school with three divisions: Preparatory, for students through high school; Extension, for non-matriculated adults; College (or Conservatory). I thought at the time, "How sensible to recognize that music-learning is a lifelong enterprise! How interesting to work in a school where the needs of the young are taken seriously!"