The other day I read, for the first time, an essay written by a young woman, then in high school, about her piano lessons with me when she was ten.
I laughed aloud at the first paragraph, in which she recounted my comparing the acoustical effect of interacting tones to the different colored strands of wool intersecting in her plaid skirt. I laughed because I do this all the time: i.e., I compare acoustical effects to the effects of color, weave, or fabric design in a student's garments. (I have long known that, if I were not a pianist, I would be a fabric designer as, in a way, I am, when on the subway I craft my String Improvisations.)
But she went on to describe in detail her reaction to this, which was far more complicated. She feared that I was condescending to a level of perception and awareness that, though very real to a child, is not customarily made central in a learning process. I have thought about this ever since reading her essay.
Sound is extremely confusing because it is so variable. Therefore, our perception of it must also be confusing as it, too, is subject to variables. So I start with a visual gateway to perceptual awareness; alternatively sometimes with taste--a favorite food, perhaps, or a not-so-favorite one.
Plaids are terrific if you want to observe color variability.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
More on Internal Rhythm
One could go on and on seeking out the levels on which rhythmic activity spurs musical movement and the life of the listener/player. Nowhere is it better expressed than in African drumming.
I find it ironic that so much music pedagogy is involved with simplifying rhythm rather than making it as full of variables as possible.
Is this because physical coordination is so difficult? That is no excuse.
If kept in perspective, the rhythmic complexities actually have the power to solve coordination problems: responding to movement that we feel (as opposed to beats that we measure) can unleash inhibitions, releasing muscular responses over which we have no conscious control.
Now that's music.
I find it ironic that so much music pedagogy is involved with simplifying rhythm rather than making it as full of variables as possible.
Is this because physical coordination is so difficult? That is no excuse.
If kept in perspective, the rhythmic complexities actually have the power to solve coordination problems: responding to movement that we feel (as opposed to beats that we measure) can unleash inhibitions, releasing muscular responses over which we have no conscious control.
Now that's music.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Pitch Approximation and the Piano
I have learned a great deal about pitch approximation from Beethoven's Sonata for (Natural) Horn and Piano, Op. 17, which I performed the other evening for the 5th time with my son on horn. There would be no reason to compose such a duo if there were not the possibility of revealing something about the mutual resonance of both instruments.
Using that as the starting point, and reading Beethoven's phrasing and dynamic indications with insight, I find my instincts about the piano once more affirmed: i.e., that, contrary to what we are told, the piano is not a pitch-specific instrument. Rather, it is an instrument capable of taking into its resonating chamber, via the damper pedal, vibrations from any source and allowing them to clarify by a physical process over which we have little control, but which is ours to savor and respond to.
With this as the definition of a sonata all playing is transformed. This piece in particular, with all its danger and unpredictability, becomes highly engaging. On a modern horn it would be simplistic, a piece of cake; it would have no inherent interest.
Many years ago I began thinking of the piano as a "translating" instrument, one that speaks with and for other instruments, that takes them into itself and transforms them. That doesn't include the piano that Chopin had in mind, of course; his music is the piano.
Using that as the starting point, and reading Beethoven's phrasing and dynamic indications with insight, I find my instincts about the piano once more affirmed: i.e., that, contrary to what we are told, the piano is not a pitch-specific instrument. Rather, it is an instrument capable of taking into its resonating chamber, via the damper pedal, vibrations from any source and allowing them to clarify by a physical process over which we have little control, but which is ours to savor and respond to.
With this as the definition of a sonata all playing is transformed. This piece in particular, with all its danger and unpredictability, becomes highly engaging. On a modern horn it would be simplistic, a piece of cake; it would have no inherent interest.
Many years ago I began thinking of the piano as a "translating" instrument, one that speaks with and for other instruments, that takes them into itself and transforms them. That doesn't include the piano that Chopin had in mind, of course; his music is the piano.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
A New Association: Musicians Against Piano Recitals
Last night after another of my home concerts a musician who was there for the first time told me that she hates piano recitals and never goes to them. But she loved this one. What a compliment!
I admitted to her that I walk out of piano recitals more than out of any other kind of event I have paid good money to hear. Why?
My first feeling is lack of attention on the part of the player. Having been trained to not notice vibrations, since every piano is different from every other, pianists are notoriously terrified of the disconnect between what they are used to hearing and what will come forth from the strange beast they confront upon that specific occasion. Their detachment communicates.
I used to make it a strict rule whenever I had a public performance (i.e., on a strange instrument) not to touch any other instrument that entire day. Call it the piano du jour.
I admitted to her that I walk out of piano recitals more than out of any other kind of event I have paid good money to hear. Why?
My first feeling is lack of attention on the part of the player. Having been trained to not notice vibrations, since every piano is different from every other, pianists are notoriously terrified of the disconnect between what they are used to hearing and what will come forth from the strange beast they confront upon that specific occasion. Their detachment communicates.
I used to make it a strict rule whenever I had a public performance (i.e., on a strange instrument) not to touch any other instrument that entire day. Call it the piano du jour.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Playing by Ear: But Whose Ear?
Looking again at the "Moonlight" Sonata: I am astonished at how tempting it is to play it the way it is played by "everyone" rather than read the score with all of Beethoven's meticulous indications.
More is going on than is revealed by the sumptuous surface of the first movement. Phrases begin and end in strange places, not always at the four-bar mark so prevalent in Germanic music. And there are stunning instances of fives and threes in this overwhelmingly four-beat environment. Where do they come from? What do to with them?
The piece gets better and better as resolution sounds elide with upbeat phrase beginnings.
It's all about paying attention.
More is going on than is revealed by the sumptuous surface of the first movement. Phrases begin and end in strange places, not always at the four-bar mark so prevalent in Germanic music. And there are stunning instances of fives and threes in this overwhelmingly four-beat environment. Where do they come from? What do to with them?
The piece gets better and better as resolution sounds elide with upbeat phrase beginnings.
It's all about paying attention.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
The Beat, Refreshed not Subdivided
One-y-and-a Two-y-and-a
So goes the standard solution to figuring out complicated dotted rhythms, ties, etc. I strongly advise you not to do it and, in case you had it dunned into you at some point early on in life, do your best to drown it out.
A good way to accomplish that is through the Alberti bass, a repetitive figure that mostly bores, rarely stimulates the imagination.
Listen to it this way: You are probably sustaining a quarter note over the sixteenth-note Alberti figure in the left hand: Listen closely to the quarter note as you play the Alberti and you will hear it change, at times getting stronger, at times clouded. These are overtones in action, an action that has great influence on how we feel the internal rhythms of the tones we play.
A masterfully composed Alberti will enliven overtones in successive quarter-note beats at different times during the beat. For example, in beat 1, it may be the 2nd and 4th sixteenths that receive maximum reinforcement, while in beat 2 it may be the first and third, and so on.
In music in which the Alberti figure appears only some of the time it has a double function: First, as described above. Second, to alert us to the possibility of our own internal involvement at that rate of potential variation within each quarter note.
This would do away with those uniform "-y-and-a"s . What a relief!
So goes the standard solution to figuring out complicated dotted rhythms, ties, etc. I strongly advise you not to do it and, in case you had it dunned into you at some point early on in life, do your best to drown it out.
A good way to accomplish that is through the Alberti bass, a repetitive figure that mostly bores, rarely stimulates the imagination.
Listen to it this way: You are probably sustaining a quarter note over the sixteenth-note Alberti figure in the left hand: Listen closely to the quarter note as you play the Alberti and you will hear it change, at times getting stronger, at times clouded. These are overtones in action, an action that has great influence on how we feel the internal rhythms of the tones we play.
A masterfully composed Alberti will enliven overtones in successive quarter-note beats at different times during the beat. For example, in beat 1, it may be the 2nd and 4th sixteenths that receive maximum reinforcement, while in beat 2 it may be the first and third, and so on.
In music in which the Alberti figure appears only some of the time it has a double function: First, as described above. Second, to alert us to the possibility of our own internal involvement at that rate of potential variation within each quarter note.
This would do away with those uniform "-y-and-a"s . What a relief!
Monday, February 3, 2014
Swimming in Sound
Being a swimmer, the analogy between water and sound has always seemed obvious to me. I work out in a pool in which the difference of one foot in depth alters completely the efficacy of my exercise routine.
The analogy came up this morning in introducing a student to the sound world of Chopin, whose complete immersion in the sound of the piano is so unique and so compelling. We were beginning work on the F# major Prelude. Immediately the subtle connection between the first two eighth notes in the left hand determines the tempo and the timing of many subsequent bars.
Slow is necessary in order to savor the connection, to allow it to affect the precise timing of what comes next or rather, of what gets added into it. It is amazing how physical and how natural that "slow" feels when the ear is fully involved.
The analogy came up this morning in introducing a student to the sound world of Chopin, whose complete immersion in the sound of the piano is so unique and so compelling. We were beginning work on the F# major Prelude. Immediately the subtle connection between the first two eighth notes in the left hand determines the tempo and the timing of many subsequent bars.
Slow is necessary in order to savor the connection, to allow it to affect the precise timing of what comes next or rather, of what gets added into it. It is amazing how physical and how natural that "slow" feels when the ear is fully involved.
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