Marshall McLuhan and Me

After playing last night to an audience of significant ears -- i.e., ideally engaged listeners -- I found myself referring to McLuhan's observation that all new media should go straight into the hands of children.

This morning I awoke realizing that that is exactly what happened between the piano and me: I enjoyed a period of immersion in the instrument before ever seeing anyone play the piano or having any idea of what the piano was supposed to be, in other words, no model, no preconception, no instruction.

The sense of wonderment at its fascinating sound has never left me.  It may account for the various twists and turns of my musical and personal quest for mastery of this extraordinary phenomenon.

Trouble is that because the Industrial Revolution came after the invention of the piano, it did not go into ordinary households until its splendid fantasy-rich sound had been tamed by piano teachers armed with finger studies.

Think about it.  Then move your piano into your child's room, where it belongs.

Why Did I Come Back to the Piano?

The father of one of my long-term students asked me that yesterday when I described my youthful frustration with the instrument, which led me to quit when I was fifteen.

I would never have told anyone that all I really wanted to achieve was mastery of the piano.  If someone hadn't spotted and identified the particular aspect of my hearing that gave it away I would probably still be languishing among the many drop outs whose musical lives are stuck in an "if only."

The sound of the piano is as fascinating to me as the sound of a cappella singing, but in a totally different way.  Perhaps because I hold them both so dear I can cross the line from one to the other, though after resuming intensive piano playing I became unable to tune the harpsichord as I liked it in some version of mean-tone tuning--i.e., more like vocal tuning than equal temperament can be.

Nurturing the Private Ear

It has often occurred to me that, with the invention of the piano, composers began writing music that would literally instruct us as to the nature of our hearing.

Increasingly, as I work from the sounds that are most real to the student's inner ear, I believe this to be true.

I behold it happen:  the most "ordinary" sounds become complicated by virtue of some unexpected trick -- a sustained pitch, an accidental, a doubling -- and the sight-reader is plunged into a state of curiosity.  Could Beethoven really have meant for me to play that?

Why does this require a teacher?  Because most students have been listened to by teachers who feel it their duty to find fault.  In so doing they undermine the student's confidence in the innate sense of their own ear.  It requires an experienced ear to identify the sense of the errors and build the student's trust in the ear as a source of activity, not as a passive organ.

Happy New Year on the M104

It was one of those rare days when an animated conversation got started on a NYC bus, sparked by a friendly New Year's greeting from a woman with a warmly outgoing face.  Pretty soon quite a few people were involved.  The subject?  Sight-singing.

Unbelievable, I thought to myself.  Is this a sign or what?  One of the subjects I care most about in the world, brought up and discussed openly by total strangers.

All I can think is that if that is a sign of priorities for the year we are off to a very good start.

Compliments

We had a reunion this afternoon: students past and present together with their parents.  Those who felt like doing so played.

As usual their playing was deeply revelatory though, from music school standards, far from polished.
But the room was all attentiveness, as if everyone was listening to discern meaning in every sound.

Then, for the first time since I have begun teaching from the ear out (the student's ear, that is), I played for them the most intimate piano piece I know, not really intending to play the entire work.  But they were so rapt that I couldn't stop; I played the whole thing.

Then came the real compliment.  The young woman whose playing does not come easily to her, and who hadn't even seen a piano in the past two weeks, played her two Bartok pieces.   I was deeply moved that, rather than making her in any way self-conscious, my playing made her feel like playing.

That is about as deep a compliment as I can imagine.

Thanks to all my students, past and present, and to the parents who have stayed the route of unorthodox methods that produce lasting love of the piano and of its music.

Listening Fast and Slow

OK, it's a parody of the best-seller on thinking.  But in music it is a real problem.  The emphasis is on fast thinking, whereas listening requires the ability to adjust speed, as Beethoven well knew and made explicit in many of his works.

But I will be addressing the topic from a variety of points of view.  First, the problem of parental listening.  With the piano usually in a public space (living room, in most households) it is extremely difficult for a child to be aware of anything but a parental ear listening, an ear which almost certainly has been conditioned by exposure to polished performances, most of them on recordings.

I am involved in an in-depth exploration of sonata reading with a young adult whose ear works with extraordinary speed and accuracy but whose facility at the instrument is much slower.  I suggested he move the family piano (played by no other family member) into his room.  "No space," says he.  Then move something out.

He will never be comfortable exploring the connection between his own ear and the music on the page as long as the hearing surrounding him is moving at an unrealistic pace in relation to his auditory thought process.

Is the Piano Necessarily Meant for Public Consumption?

People sometimes tell me that, while they have children who are interested in the piano, they don't have room for a real one.  Therefore they buy a keyboard.

But why does that real piano have to fit into the living room?  Why can't it be an upright that goes into the child's bedroom?  If it is to be shared by more than one child why can't it go into a foyer, or a rec room?

The beauty of a guitar is that it can be taken into one's own room for one's own private exploration and pleasure.  There is some assumption about the piano being public that is not essential to the instrument's definition.

My family was fortunate to have two pianos: a grand, on which I practiced (though never for hours on end), located in the living room; an upright in my daughter's room, hers to fool around on howsoever she desired.  Fortunately sharing was not an issue as my son, having the ear of a horn player, was drawn to the piano only for occasional musings.

It is possible to deal with the sharing problem so that no one feels left out.  Egg-timers and alarm clocks come in handy. The ability to close doors is crucial here:  "I don't want anyone to listen while I play" is an valid a personal statement as "I don't want to listen to you play."

I installed outdoor weather stripping on all the interior doors of my apartment to provide maximum soundproofing.  It works.