Listening as the Basis for Learning

I knew long ago that if ever I founded a music school its main focus would be on listening, not on technical achievement, for it has always seemed to me that if young people are encouraged to listen in a holistic manner they will recognize the qualities that make music irresistible and will need no requirements to ensure that they study thoroughly.

Ear training is the opposite of listening, for it is devoted to naming what one hears, identifying tones. intervals, and themes--a process that  restricts listening in the larger sense.  An example: When the student listens for the theme it becomes irrelevant that it is now in a different key, i.e., in an altered resonance environment.  The alteration is the real subject, not "the" theme.

I find it particularly annoying that such over-simplifications are typical of teaching at the earliest stages, when it is most crucial that concepts do not block perceptions.

Listening For Rather than To

I should and maybe will write a book on the subject of siblings of the talented.  Though I know there is no such thing as a category of human being, I have begun to think that this is a special category, entitled to some respect and attention.

One of the most precise listeners I have ever taught is one of the least naturally musically talented.  His younger sister, both severely developmentally challenged and blind, has a musical capacity that is astonishing even given its limitations.  This older brother listens for every small sign of content coming from the disabled sister and extends that quality of attentive, almost devotional listening to every note he plays himself.

The desire to play, to have what comes naturally to the other one, no matter what kind or extent of effort is required is truly noteworthy.

I have seen it before.  Years ago I had dinner with a couple of psychologists who were celebrating passing their certification exams.  One, new to me, made more noise than anyone I had ever seen.  I telephoned her the next day to ask if she had ever studied music.  Silence.  Her older brother had been the talented one in the family and there was not enough money for her to have lessons; she had always craved music in her life. "What do I do?"  she asked.  Cut your nails, get a piano, and give me a call.   She did.

Frederico Busoni, Another Great Teacher

The second memorable phrase that has inspired me for many years I found in Great Pianists on Piano Playing, a compendium of essays by prominent pianists of the day (1917), now reprinted by Dover.    Frederico Busoni wrote: "All technical exercises must be given to the pupil with great discretion and judgment just as poisonous medicines must be administered to the patient with great care."

What respect for the hand, for the ear, for the student's imagination!

Schnabel the Teacher

Artur Schnabel once famously said: "First hear, then play."   Figuring out what he might have meant has taken me quite a while, not only in terms of my own playing but also exploring whether it is possible to train children to give priority to listening.

One of the critical aspects of this admonition is its implication that passive hearing is irrelevant.  In a way it implies a rewording: Hearing is more important than playing. 

If you agree you certainly would not dream of going through the motions of playing, doing the kind of exercises some pianists (the late Charles Rosen, among others) boast they practice while reading novels.

When I listen to anyone play I figure out first of all whether they are listening first.  If they aren't, I leave, regardless of the ticket price.

Listening as an Animal Listens for Danger

The Deagan Chime Company was located just a few blocks away from my childhood home on Paulina St. in Chicago.  That the chimes ringing every quarter-hour had anything to do with telling time was beyond me as a small child.  I was fascinated by that four-part melody: Why did it stop there?  was my question.  When was it going to come back?

I believe this atmospheric involvement with a much-loved sound was the model for my life of listening for meaning.

Practicing is Overrated

I was amused to read in a footnote to a chapter on the art and teaching of Artur Schnabel that a colleague of mine chastised Schnabel in no uncertain terms (in print, not face to face) for recommending that piano students not practice so much.  Schnabel maintained that he did most of his preparation while going for walks.

I tell my young students not to practice and, if they do, to tell somebody else.  Of course, I can tell right away that they have or haven't practiced.  What is more important than practicing is dreaming about music, any music.  Internalizing is really difficult.  Getting the external music to match the internal is the work of a lifetime -- work worthy of a lifetime.   Putting the emphasis on the external aspects (i.e., technique), especially at an early age, merely  fogs the issue.

Boredom / Frustration

In a recent radio interview British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips was discussing the importance of frustration: acknowledging it, accepting it, dealing with it as important determinants of a fulfilled self.

He might have been speaking of boredom in practicing music.  Some of the most fulfilling aspects of my musicianship have emerged from my acknowledgement of utter boredom, with the Alberti bass, for example, which has become one of the features of Classical style that I most enjoy.