Are You Worth Being Listened To?

It is usually with some embarrassment that people tell me, as many do, that they "took piano lessons for a while."  What is the source of their embarrassment?  Impossible to tell, for sure.  But I have the feeling that some, if not most of that emotion comes from their recalled feelings of combined inadequacy and non-comprehension.

Inadequacy is the main lesson taught by the teacher's constant insistence that every note be correct and played on time:  This impossible and meaningless standard will certainly foster feelings of inadequacy on the part of the student, particularly if gifted or intelligent.

Non-comprehension is fostered by the lack of vocabulary in which to frame questions, and there are many questions.  Why do I have to practice such boring music?  Are technical exercises really that important when I hate them so much?  How can Mozart be so famous when I find nothing of interest in this sonata?

In teaching/learning situations like those I evoke above, the one thing the teacher is not doing is listening to you.  If the teacher heard your boredom the teacher would surely address it, enlighten your ear and your mind, teach you about the wonders of the hand and fingers, reveal how much more there is to music than what is printed on the page.

But teachers are not encouraged to listen to what you bring to your playing.  They know how to listen for the finished product and when that is not there they know how to make you feel inadequate.

Everyone's loss.

Too Much Text

An art historian friend tells me of the trend in art museums not to have "program notes" next to the art works; nobody looks at the art, they just read the text and think they have had the experience they paid for.

Or perhaps they click the camera in their phone.

Well, so I'm part of a trend.  A bas the written barrier.  Turn on the eyes and turn on the ears.  Indulge the senses; get back to the reason why the stuff exists in the first place:  as a sign of life for the creator, the performer, the beholder.

Nothing short of wow. 

Why Not to Hate Mozart

I know so many people who do hate Mozart - who feel, as someone once put it, "Mozarted to death."

This has to have happened because his music all adds up -- at least, most of it does -- to the right number of beats per bar, and is characterized by a lot of solid musical syntax that puts a lot of it within the playable range of children, amateurs, and professionals who can't be bothered with their own boredom, in other words, they can't take a hint.

Their boredom should be the clue that indicates the presence of something beyond the printed page.

Today I had a wonderful chat with a Mozart hater.  During his many years of music training and exposure no one ever told him that within Mozart's music are hidden, sometimes thinly, sometimes deeply disguised, references to a universe of musics: street music, Renaissance counterpoint, Baroque dances, even speech.  To make the puzzle even more intriguing, Mozart had a way of switching from one hidden reference to another with no pause, no preparation: catch it if you can.  (Errol Garner's allusion-rich jazz piano playing comes to mind.)  A player must be on the alert so as not to miss the crossovers and must take the chance that, though this will not be the usual packaged-in-the-factory variety of Mozart it just might prove compelling.

Worth a try, don't you think?

Program Composition by Free Association

There used to be a standard way of putting recital programs together: One started with the earlier music, almost always of the Classical period, working one's way forward in time and upward in difficulty, ending with some virtuosic number to get everyone excited enough to demand an encore.

I long realized that to me this is counter-intuitive.  Why not start with the music of one's own time and work backwards so as to enlighten the music of the past with the ear of the present, so to speak.  Nobody who every wrote music did it in a vacuum, or out of a textbook; so why listen that way?

Now I will be programming based on my own ear working its way from period to period, starting wherever it will and ending however it ends.

Engage the audience in the process.

Habit Hits Happening

Emphasizing technique* in piano study is closely related to the sort of  conditioning produced by constant re-listening to the same recorded performance of a piece of music.  After a repetition or two most people stop listening, unless they are listening for specific details or with an agenda that requires repeated hearing.

But for most people repetition is a turnoff of real attentiveness.

So what happens when you are in the same room with a live performance of, to pick one of my favorite over-heards, Fuer Elise?  I get a great kick out of playing such pieces imagining Beethoven is right there, making it up as he goes along.  Just how far apart are those first two notes: in terms of tonal weight? in terms of timing?

Wait 'til you hear it!

*Every time I think of piano technique I am reminded of what Busoni said about teaching it:  To paraphrase: Technical exercises should be assigned the way doctors prescribe toxic medicines.  

I Agree with YoYo Ma: Let's Drop "Classical" and Just Call It What It Is: Music

Music could be described as going where the ear takes you.  Listening to music being made up on the spot is particularly exciting if the improviser wants you to go along, to include you in the process of going where the ear takes you.

Too often printed music acts as an excuse to leave the ear out altogether, both that of the player and of the listener.  I am fascinated by the difference between reading for sound and reading for the MuzApp notion of what is happening.  I play with the score because that's what I do - also I do so many other things that playing from memory is out of the question, with some noteworthy exceptions.

The MuzApp notion is based on themes.  Nonsense, say I.  What the MuzApp people call a theme is one acoustical event compelling more acoustical events.  Maybe they line up to produce a sort of idea that is easy to remember, but that is not what they are, nor is it why they exist (I am talking about real composers, not writers of tunes...)

As you may know I am a knitter.  I no longer follow instructions but make things up as I go along.  I am struck by how musical an exercise it is: the need for variation comes out of the string itself as it becomes too one-dimensional and I need it to cast shadows.  I think of music constantly as I do it, music pure, not this piece or that.

Playing Without a Printed Program

The season takes off with a new experiment:   No printed programs.

I did my first such program last night with astonishing results.  I had planned the program, even announced it on-line; the composers' names were the subject of the evening.  But I decided not to distribute programs until after the playing.  The result was amazing.

It freed me to hear as I wanted the listeners to hear, as if every note were a challenge to pay attention, to become immersed in a never-to-be-repeated moment.  It was truly like an improvisation.  And my interpretation of a Clementi Sonata (F# minor - a great work) was entirely different from the last time I performed it several years ago.