It only takes an occasional foray into contemporary music concerts to get the point: Sound itself is no longer a subject matter that instrumentalists care about or know how to pay attention to.
There are many notable exceptions to this: most percussionists, a lot of club musicians, early music people, for example. And there are living composers who know how to address the beauty problem in such a way that musicians who still know how to respond to their instruments make you aware of that as you listen. My friend Ursula Mamlok is such a composer.
But among the "serious" musicians I hear, some of whom are very good, indeed, I get the feeling that difficulty has become their substitute for beauty. In order for them to concentrate as they practice the music has to be difficult.
Too often I go to the concert and all I hear is difficulty. I am rarely moved.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
Why Not Boo?
It is not polite to boo in concert halls. It is apparently polite to fall asleep and show other signs of boredom.
I say bah! to that. If you can't get yourself to boo at least get up and walk out at the first available opportunity.
At a nursing home where I used to play with some frequency I recall showing up once early enough to chat with some of the potential audience. They were disappointed that I was not going to play the music they really enjoyed: pop stuff. I told them that if I were good at it I would play it, but I'm not.
Then I made a deal. They should come and listen and, if they didn't like it, leave - but do so in between pieces. I kept track of the departures. None.
It should be assumed that audience will get up and go if you don't hold their attention. The standards might change. I was going to say "would change" but I realize that the definition of listening has been so eroded by constant background music that it may be that people don't know any more what it feels like to really listen.
I think often with gratitude of Lily Tomlin's joke: I had a terrible nightmare the other night. I dreamed that the man who invented Muzak invented something else.
He did: It's what we now call music.
I say bah! to that. If you can't get yourself to boo at least get up and walk out at the first available opportunity.
At a nursing home where I used to play with some frequency I recall showing up once early enough to chat with some of the potential audience. They were disappointed that I was not going to play the music they really enjoyed: pop stuff. I told them that if I were good at it I would play it, but I'm not.
Then I made a deal. They should come and listen and, if they didn't like it, leave - but do so in between pieces. I kept track of the departures. None.
It should be assumed that audience will get up and go if you don't hold their attention. The standards might change. I was going to say "would change" but I realize that the definition of listening has been so eroded by constant background music that it may be that people don't know any more what it feels like to really listen.
I think often with gratitude of Lily Tomlin's joke: I had a terrible nightmare the other night. I dreamed that the man who invented Muzak invented something else.
He did: It's what we now call music.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Picking Up Your Beloved Instrument!
Thinking about stage fright, mentioned in yesterday's post, I was fantasizing about how different it must feel to be a violinist walking on stage, tucking under her chin her own beloved violin, knowing her rapport with its every aspect, conversing with it as with her dearest friend. How different the experience of a pianist!
It took me decades to realize that whenever I performed I should not touch any instrument that day except the one on which I was to play in public. No warming up backstage, no trace of the memory of a different instrument. The piano of the day had to be that one and only public instrument, even if it meant playing without a warmup, as sometimes happened while on tour.
I learned from this to respect how fragile and fleeting the touch/tone memory is. By observing this rule I eliminated a great deal of the otherwise inevitable shock of addressing a strange instrument.
It took me decades to realize that whenever I performed I should not touch any instrument that day except the one on which I was to play in public. No warming up backstage, no trace of the memory of a different instrument. The piano of the day had to be that one and only public instrument, even if it meant playing without a warmup, as sometimes happened while on tour.
I learned from this to respect how fragile and fleeting the touch/tone memory is. By observing this rule I eliminated a great deal of the otherwise inevitable shock of addressing a strange instrument.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Music Gives So Much to Think About
Seymour Bernstein, who was a student of the late Hans Neumann at the same time as I was many years ago, is the subject of a new documentary by Ethan Hawke. According to a New York Times report on a news conference with Seymour the reason he decided not to pursue a career in performing was fright. He then goes on to talk about making use of fright.
A complicated subject, to say the least. What are pianists afraid of? My work is based on my realization that it is terrifying to deal with something as variable as the sound of "the" piano (no two of which sound even remotely the same) unless specifically trained to deal with that variability along with the variability of one's own responses to that level of complexity.
Conventional training does exactly the opposite: By analyzing the composition as if it existed independent of the player every attempt is made to get the damn thing to stand still, as if that were the point. It does not stand still.
The better the musician, the more talented the player - and Seymour was and is both - the less likely that strategy is to work. So the player gives up on the idea of a performance career.
There are many reasons not to pursue a performance career. I would have loved to do so but had such a relentless succession of physical problems to deal with that it would have been out of the question. Perhaps because the problems were so obviously physical I was allowed to go in the direction of the invisible to analyze the dynamics of playing.
A complicated subject, to say the least. What are pianists afraid of? My work is based on my realization that it is terrifying to deal with something as variable as the sound of "the" piano (no two of which sound even remotely the same) unless specifically trained to deal with that variability along with the variability of one's own responses to that level of complexity.
Conventional training does exactly the opposite: By analyzing the composition as if it existed independent of the player every attempt is made to get the damn thing to stand still, as if that were the point. It does not stand still.
The better the musician, the more talented the player - and Seymour was and is both - the less likely that strategy is to work. So the player gives up on the idea of a performance career.
There are many reasons not to pursue a performance career. I would have loved to do so but had such a relentless succession of physical problems to deal with that it would have been out of the question. Perhaps because the problems were so obviously physical I was allowed to go in the direction of the invisible to analyze the dynamics of playing.
Friday, October 3, 2014
A Minuet Rides Again and Wins
This morning I had the privilege of discovering as if I had never known it before a minuet by Beethoven. It was the student's choice to work in B-flat, a key that inspired a lot of writing for the piano when it was a new invention. We chose to work on the minuet of Op. 22 because, as a rule, it is the most approachable movement of a sonata.
Where did we start? Not with beats and barlines because this student already knows there is more to it than that. Sizing up the score he decided there was an undercurrent of 4s. Then started the search for explicit fourness. Following his nose he found some astonishing things in this piece that I never knew were there, things entirely consistent with other extraordinary works of the same period (1800-1801) of Beethoven's life, during which he composed some two dozen (count them) sonatas.
We turned up startling things in common with the "Moonlight" Sonata, composed in the same year.
We turned up also a startling paucity of chords, finding only one in the main part of the minuet, and a chord which, at that, defies standard definition, consisting of only two tones, the fifth left out, as it resonates anyway as a prominent overtone of the doubled B-flat root.
Incidentally, by sticking to my definition of a chord other fascinating elements of the movement are exposed: A chord is a combination of tones, usually three or more, played simultaneously with the same note value in all voices and the same articulation. What might look like a chord, if slurred to another chord, is not actually a chord but an unstable combination of tones in motion. A chord must pronounce itself clearly and with stability in order to function as a truly vertical harmony. Everything else is contrapuntal in nature.
Where did we start? Not with beats and barlines because this student already knows there is more to it than that. Sizing up the score he decided there was an undercurrent of 4s. Then started the search for explicit fourness. Following his nose he found some astonishing things in this piece that I never knew were there, things entirely consistent with other extraordinary works of the same period (1800-1801) of Beethoven's life, during which he composed some two dozen (count them) sonatas.
We turned up startling things in common with the "Moonlight" Sonata, composed in the same year.
We turned up also a startling paucity of chords, finding only one in the main part of the minuet, and a chord which, at that, defies standard definition, consisting of only two tones, the fifth left out, as it resonates anyway as a prominent overtone of the doubled B-flat root.
Incidentally, by sticking to my definition of a chord other fascinating elements of the movement are exposed: A chord is a combination of tones, usually three or more, played simultaneously with the same note value in all voices and the same articulation. What might look like a chord, if slurred to another chord, is not actually a chord but an unstable combination of tones in motion. A chord must pronounce itself clearly and with stability in order to function as a truly vertical harmony. Everything else is contrapuntal in nature.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Swimming In It
That's how a friend describes what it is like to get together with fellow amateurs to enjoy a morning of music-making. They are fortunate to play an assortment of instruments that suggests repertoire new to most if not all of them--recorders, violins. This keeps them from that most unsatisfying business of bumbling through beaty Classical period cliches.
Having once heard the Classical period's gems turned into arithmetic exercises - and I did spell beaty correctly - it is very difficult to reverse the dynamic and get them to flow like an element in which anyone would voluntarily swim.
The challenge has represented a lifetime of work for me, personally. I always thought (ha! ha!) that once having figured that out everyone would be overwhelmed. Uh!uh! The opposite seems to be the case.
What? You don't want to sound like everyone else? What on earth is the matter with you! (yes, it is an intentional ! and not ?)
Having once heard the Classical period's gems turned into arithmetic exercises - and I did spell beaty correctly - it is very difficult to reverse the dynamic and get them to flow like an element in which anyone would voluntarily swim.
The challenge has represented a lifetime of work for me, personally. I always thought (ha! ha!) that once having figured that out everyone would be overwhelmed. Uh!uh! The opposite seems to be the case.
What? You don't want to sound like everyone else? What on earth is the matter with you! (yes, it is an intentional ! and not ?)
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Headline: Bar Lines Remove Critical Laughter
Last night I heard two outstanding flutists displaying considerable virtuosity in a duo recital, eventually bringing down the house and me with it, with a two-flute rendition of the Carmen Fantasy by Bizet, if you can believe it. (I love Bizet, a much under-rated composer, and I love Carmen, but I never expected to hear that piece played like that!
But the house should have started falling (from being brought down) with their first two numbers. If it didn't it was because they made sure that I knew where every bar line should fall. The composers in question, Thomas Morley and W.F. Bach, were not Classical period masters. On the contrary. Each flourished in an era when variation was constant and rhythmic vitality uncontrollably out of kilter with predictable symmetry.
Surely the players didn't need to reinforce their ensemble musicianship in this pedestrian way. Wouldn't they have more fun if they allowed asymmetry to peek in, as, for example, at every sequence of three notes of the same value even though the meter is 2/4? And if they had more fun, wouldn't everyone else have had more fun as well?
Why not bring down the house with the first number? And the second?
But the house should have started falling (from being brought down) with their first two numbers. If it didn't it was because they made sure that I knew where every bar line should fall. The composers in question, Thomas Morley and W.F. Bach, were not Classical period masters. On the contrary. Each flourished in an era when variation was constant and rhythmic vitality uncontrollably out of kilter with predictable symmetry.
Surely the players didn't need to reinforce their ensemble musicianship in this pedestrian way. Wouldn't they have more fun if they allowed asymmetry to peek in, as, for example, at every sequence of three notes of the same value even though the meter is 2/4? And if they had more fun, wouldn't everyone else have had more fun as well?
Why not bring down the house with the first number? And the second?
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