Inside of the Box

Sometimes that's just the right place to be as, for example, when playing the piano.  Inside the box is where all the action takes place.   An on-line discussion is considering the matter of hand position at the piano.  I would be much more concerned with the touch than with hand position.  When the ear is fully absorbed in the strings' vibrations the touch reflects this contact in a highly individualized manner, as if the sound is a living entity.  Perhaps we need to have it clear that some of the sounds we make when we are learning the instrument are not really meant to be listened to.  Then why not practice on a mute keyboard?  As soon as real sound comes into play the more internal artistry of the hand needs to be fully present and responsive.

I have heard too many horror stories from musicians who were told as children that their hand position was all wrong and who therefore gave up on their beloved classical music to go into other fields.

My own story is an ironic twist on the notion of a correct hand position.  In the early 60's Artur Rubinstein played ten different recital programs at Carnegie Hall within the span of forty days.  I went to all ten and sat in the same seat, row B, Center Balcony.  Peering through my opera glasses I observed the stunning sound of his left-hand thumb.  How did he do it?

On returning home, before going to sleep, I imitated the feel of his playing whether or not I could actually play all the notes.  Within those same forty days my technique completely changed; my hand extension increased, my incipient tendonitis vanished.

In subsequent lessons with different coaches my hand position was vociferously frowned upon.  So unorthodox!

The Piano Outside of the Box

The whole idea of the piano involves sound that cannot be identified: one can name the keys but not the sound they produce.  It is a big mistake to lead children to believe otherwise.

Once restricted to easy definitions and limitations the ear is relegated to replay as opposed to play.  One of my students complains of having melodies that go round and round inside her head in a most maddening way.  She feels powerless to stop this.  Her field is science, a discipline that requires the ability to reproduce consistently and accurately the experiment of yesterday or last year.

Music is quite the opposite.  If it were a question of accurate repetition I would do something else--anything else.  Yet for many years it seemed that that was the goal of the classical music establishment, a goal very much suggested and furthered by recording techniques that stressed perfection above all else. 

Play not Replay

Describing my work to a musician colleague yesterday I found myself stating as a fact an observation of how I work so fundamental that I had never before put it into words.  It felt like looking down and realizing that--oh my goodness! I am standing on a floor!

For many years I have enjoyed the close collaboration of two friends, a painter and a poet.  The painter, Joan Farber, once told me that she sees the way I hear.  I conclude from this that she is more likely than I am to recognize a floor when she is standing on one.

The poet, Michael O'Brien, feeds me poetry, often by poets of whom I know nothing, as well as his responses to my playing, to which he listens as if he is listening to poetry.  When I announced the series on Classics of Childhood he gave me Anthony Rudolf's cycle of pieces inspired by Schumann's Kinderszenen.  The lyricism of these poems enabled me to play that most difficult work--difficult in that it is entirely lyric, not in the least sentimental.

There is little that I have craved more than the close companionship of other musicians.  I confess that I have given up on it.  There is too strong an undertow of rivalry, judgmental listening, one-upsmanship--all the negativity we learned as dutiful piano students.  To be continued.

Talented vs. Gifted

The power of my own childhood musical drive emerges with ever-greater power and clarity the older I get, informing my playing, my listening, and my teaching. 

I don't believe that I was an unusually gifted child: I believe that every child is gifted with the ability to perceive and to feel deeply the bond that is affirmed when perception is shared.  I treat every child as one with whom I can share that gift.  Sometimes it is not easy to figure out how to get to the essence of the matter, but persistence pays off.

The notion of talent has nothing to do with this.  I teach some marvelously gifted young people who are short on talent as measured along traditional music school lines: they lack manual dexterity, their ability to sing is inhibited.  But the power of what they hear and their confidence that I can hear as they hear frees them to surpass themselves in musical depth.

In the press to produce competitive offspring too many parents are concerned about talent and in the process are ignoring gift, the part that requires interpersonal nourishing.

Polite listening

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I do not like to attend concerts with other people, with very few exceptions.  The experience is too precious to me.  If I am bored, as I often am, I want to fall asleep.  If I am disappointed, as I often am--I can be interested in the music while not enjoying the playing--I don't want to have to talk about it, as I don't like discouraging other people from finding interest in what they are listening to.  Live listening always takes precedence over individual taste.

If, on the other hand, I do enjoy what I am hearing, everyone around me knows it whether or not we have been formally introduced.  This often leads to conversation with total strangers, not only in clubs but also in concert halls.

When Artur Rubinstein played in Carnegie Hall I invariably sat in the balcony, some seven flights of stairs up and down.  On the way down, again invariably, total strangers would converse about the excitement of the evening, as if we had all been guests at a generous feast.

Play!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of hearing a harpsichord master class by Skip Sempe.  At one point he said that of course players of the late Renaissance period (Frescobaldi, Castello, etc. ) would not have played the same meter at the same time with both hands.  This struck me as self-evident: aren't keyboardists  like babies who want to wriggle every extremity at once?  During my many years as an organist I was often inspired by this physiological observation.  But when I shared Sempe's insight with a former student, now a Ph.D., he wanted me to cite a source.

My embodied imagination is the only source I require, my desire to move in every way imaginable to match the variability of what goes on inside of brain and body.

This perhaps epitomizes the difference between the scholar and the artist.  Knowing I would be tempted to pin it down like a captured butterfly kept me out of graduate school and at the piano. 

A New Canning Process

It was quite a revelation to attend an early music concert in the company of a friend from the swimming pool.  Ordinarily I go to concerts by myself so that I don't have to be polite while enjoying myself, or not.  This woman, who avowedly knew absolutely nothing about the music on the program, had had a wonderful life as an impassioned actress.

Her astute ear detected the underlying affect of melancholy in the sound of the viols.  "How different from the Italian opera-inspired violin!" she remarked.  But the real astonishment was her observation that this group played like students.

Indeed.  I know the style and can tell when a hidden counter-meter is missing; I know the ironic twists that cause melancholy to take off its mask, for just the tiniest peek at real life.  But she could hear the caution; she could feel the absence of derring-do.

So now I add the PhD to the list of canning processes, this one having the effect of phreezing.  (Question: Who is more paralyzed in the process: player or reader of the program notes?)