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| Fuzzy Squares closeup |
Monday, June 2, 2014
It's a Klee! No, It's a Bunch of Fuzzy Squares
One week to go to bid on the three rugs and four throws (of which this is one). Visit www.tonalrefraction.com and get in on it. The throws may be hung on the wall or used to keep you warm inside and out.
Nothing Beats a Book
A composer colleague has just purchased my Tonal Refraction book on the Mozart G minor Piano Quartet--the whole thing, complete with annotations of each individual part as well as the score. With any luck working through the book will turn out to be like studying composition from inside a work of Mozart without theoretical analysis -- in other words, it will involve inhabiting the dramatic logic of each line through the sensibility of a musician whose entire life has been devoted to piercing from the ear the inner workings of textures so rich that they require four people to bring them to life.
For what does it mean to study a masterwork if not to inhabit it through the sensibility of its creator, which is completely different from the going standard of imitating the latest recording by famous players.
For what does it mean to study a masterwork if not to inhabit it through the sensibility of its creator, which is completely different from the going standard of imitating the latest recording by famous players.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Going, Going....
The silent auction to support my upcoming trip to present Tonal Refraction at the
International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition in Seoul,
Korea will be finalized on Monday June 9. I invite you to visit www.tonalrefraction.com to bid on the seven one-of-a-kind works of
fiber art (called STRing Improvisations because they support Tonal Refraction)
that I crochet, one "brick" at a time, on the subways and buses of
NYC. These rugs, throws or wall hangings are crafted of recycled
fibers, mostly wool. This photo will hopefully pique your curiosity. The items have been compared to oil paintings: this one a Jackson Pollack.
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| Fire and Black Ice Detail |
Great Music Teachers I Have Known
I was fortunate to have had four great music teachers, their greatness being their complete generosity in trusting that I had a musical soul of my own. None of them required that I take on the terms of their musical identities.
For one of them that was easy: It was teacher who didn't know I existed except as an anonymous member of his audience ten times within forty days in the fall of 1962 (Row B, Seat 1, Carnegie Hall balcony). The complete, transparent generosity of Artur Rubinstein playing the piano as he did was enough to focus my attention on his left hand thumb, thereby utterly transforming my technique once and for all.
For another it was not quite as easy: This was a teacher whom I consulted once for the purpose of finding out whether I was wasting my time trying to master the piano. I knew from his playing that he was incapable of pretense. Within a matter of minutes he put his finger on precisely the central aspect of my playing that caused most ordinary teachers to give up before trying to work with me. Mieczyslaw Horszowski identified rhythm as my strongest asset -- the one everyone would try to "fix." "Don't let anybody fix it." By saying this he gave me the courage to continue my quest to grasp the essential connection between myself and this complex instrument, the piano.
Two of the teachers were men with whom I worked on a steady basis over periods of years. The first, organist Fenner Douglass, was unwavering in his thorough demands regarding technique, scholarship, and performance. I owe him more than I can ever repay.
The second, pianist Hans Neumann, gave unstintingly of his time and brilliance, sure that I would one day master the instrument to meet his standard. I wish he had lived long enough to see that happen. If it has happened it is, in part, because he never assumed I would accomplish this according to plan, his or anyone else's.
And that is my main point: If we succeed in playing our instrument it has to be according to our own nature. If we are lucky, teachers do not get in our way.
For one of them that was easy: It was teacher who didn't know I existed except as an anonymous member of his audience ten times within forty days in the fall of 1962 (Row B, Seat 1, Carnegie Hall balcony). The complete, transparent generosity of Artur Rubinstein playing the piano as he did was enough to focus my attention on his left hand thumb, thereby utterly transforming my technique once and for all.
For another it was not quite as easy: This was a teacher whom I consulted once for the purpose of finding out whether I was wasting my time trying to master the piano. I knew from his playing that he was incapable of pretense. Within a matter of minutes he put his finger on precisely the central aspect of my playing that caused most ordinary teachers to give up before trying to work with me. Mieczyslaw Horszowski identified rhythm as my strongest asset -- the one everyone would try to "fix." "Don't let anybody fix it." By saying this he gave me the courage to continue my quest to grasp the essential connection between myself and this complex instrument, the piano.
Two of the teachers were men with whom I worked on a steady basis over periods of years. The first, organist Fenner Douglass, was unwavering in his thorough demands regarding technique, scholarship, and performance. I owe him more than I can ever repay.
The second, pianist Hans Neumann, gave unstintingly of his time and brilliance, sure that I would one day master the instrument to meet his standard. I wish he had lived long enough to see that happen. If it has happened it is, in part, because he never assumed I would accomplish this according to plan, his or anyone else's.
And that is my main point: If we succeed in playing our instrument it has to be according to our own nature. If we are lucky, teachers do not get in our way.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Ten Days to the Auction
I invite you to bid on the rugs and throws on silent auction at www.tonalrefraction.com.
Proceeds from the auction, which will be finalized on June 9, will help
defray expenses of my upcoming trip to Seoul, Korea to present
practical implications of Tonal Refraction at the International
Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.
It would be a great way to show your support for my work and, at the same time, to come into possession of a unique (and practical!) piece of fiber art crafted entirely of recycled string passed down to me by a designer of knit patterns.
Miss Twiggy, wool and alpaca, 59" x 32" demonstrating by its irregular shape the extent to which it is truly a String Improvisation.
More pictures : Posts of May 7, 10, 13 and 15.
It would be a great way to show your support for my work and, at the same time, to come into possession of a unique (and practical!) piece of fiber art crafted entirely of recycled string passed down to me by a designer of knit patterns.
Miss Twiggy, wool and alpaca, 59" x 32" demonstrating by its irregular shape the extent to which it is truly a String Improvisation.
Ghosts of Piano Lessons Past
I recall vividly the sensation of playing in an auditorium in which I had performed as a student. It was a warmly welcoming room with wood paneling and beautiful stained glass windows. It featured a small balcony off to the side toward the front, in full view of the pianist--my teacher's favorite place to listen.
He was an exceptionally brilliant musical thinker and an inspired teacher, deeply respectful of the individuality of his students. We were not expected to imitate his musical instincts or to take on his way of viewing things.
Yet....there was his ghost in the balcony, long after he died.
Or was it his ghost? Perhaps more than anything he projected onto me it was my awareness of my own inexperience vis a vis his richly informed musicianship .
What would it take to avoid being the sort of teacher who inadvertently becomes a ghost?
I think I have figured it out: Calling the student's attention to her own responses to the elements of music puts her in charge of those responses. Once and for all they are hers to love, to live with, to develop. All of that is out of my hands because completely grounded in the experience of the student.
Can a person be rescued from the ghosts of piano lessons past? To tell the truth, I think most pianists are too frightened at the prospect to consider it a possibility.
He was an exceptionally brilliant musical thinker and an inspired teacher, deeply respectful of the individuality of his students. We were not expected to imitate his musical instincts or to take on his way of viewing things.
Yet....there was his ghost in the balcony, long after he died.
Or was it his ghost? Perhaps more than anything he projected onto me it was my awareness of my own inexperience vis a vis his richly informed musicianship .
What would it take to avoid being the sort of teacher who inadvertently becomes a ghost?
I think I have figured it out: Calling the student's attention to her own responses to the elements of music puts her in charge of those responses. Once and for all they are hers to love, to live with, to develop. All of that is out of my hands because completely grounded in the experience of the student.
Can a person be rescued from the ghosts of piano lessons past? To tell the truth, I think most pianists are too frightened at the prospect to consider it a possibility.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Re Clementi: "It's So Intense!"
This the comment of an adult student reading a Clementi Sonatina in C, the famous Sonatina in C that every little kid had (and all too often still has) to learn to play in exactly the same manner.
She is reading from a facsimile of the first printing. No phrase markings, no slurs. All the wit and brilliance of the piece is exposed to the reader's unbiased ear.
And that's how the intensity came across to her: via her ear. I asked what she had meant by remarking on the piece's intensity. Her answer was that it would be so comfortable one moment and so uncomfortable the next.
The composer was at his fullest maturity when he wrote these works, which are treated as though he was the "mechanicus" Mozart pronounced him to be at their piano-playing competition.
Might Mozart have been jealous of Clementi? Either it was aspects of his technique, or the fact that, unlike Wolfgang, Muzio was not under the thumb of a musician-father. Who knows?
Last night, reading a biography of Brahms, I came across a quote from him about how much he admired Clementi's compositional skill.
Me, too!
She is reading from a facsimile of the first printing. No phrase markings, no slurs. All the wit and brilliance of the piece is exposed to the reader's unbiased ear.
And that's how the intensity came across to her: via her ear. I asked what she had meant by remarking on the piece's intensity. Her answer was that it would be so comfortable one moment and so uncomfortable the next.
The composer was at his fullest maturity when he wrote these works, which are treated as though he was the "mechanicus" Mozart pronounced him to be at their piano-playing competition.
Might Mozart have been jealous of Clementi? Either it was aspects of his technique, or the fact that, unlike Wolfgang, Muzio was not under the thumb of a musician-father. Who knows?
Last night, reading a biography of Brahms, I came across a quote from him about how much he admired Clementi's compositional skill.
Me, too!
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