Can You Hear It Talk?

A lot of music written for the newly invented piano was inspired by the instrument's innate capacity for inflection: white keys sounded different from black in terms of not just pitch but the amount of resonance they released. Suddenly there were inflections that did not exist on harpsichords, inflections that came directly out of the instrument talking, rather than out of melodic conventions left over from the Baroque era, like the sighing descending half steps.

Most of us have learned this music in terms of analyzing its harmony.  So what has become of the melody?

Being in Tune

Yesterday I experienced two radically opposed versions of being in tune:  The first, by far the more moving, was five live voices singing a mass by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Victoria.  Lustrous.  Glorious.

The second occurred much later in the day, this time a radio broadcast of a singer/songwriter/cellist recorded on multiple tracks playing various cello lines and singing.  Cooooldud.....  if you get the drift.

Ironic that the same singers who had produced the Victoria went on to improvise!!  in their several voices the singing of a Gregorian chant.  It was marvelously random, based on a kind of tuning that I use all the time with my students.  Learning not just to tolerate but to enjoy random sound is a mark of true musicianship, in my view.

All sound, however consonant, contains elements of random.  Paying attention to them can be frightening or liberating, depending.

Hear it Right the First Time!

When you first fumble your way through a Beethoven sonata movement, don't just play the notes to prove that you know how to do that.  You will end up imitating some thoughtless version of the piece that will in no way reflect your present state of mind or attentiveness.

Do yourself a favor: Assume that you understand articulations and that you have liberated yourself from the tyranny of beats and barlines to such an extent that you can discern real content right away, rather than having to hear it wrong first and then correct it.

Be on the lookout for subtlety before you work out technical problems:  let good articulation dictate your fingering, rather than work out a mechanical fingering which you will then have to change, if you can change it once it has become habitual.

Why do music teachers insist on assigning this great stuff so as to make it routine.  It isn't.

Intimacy Always Frightening, Even with Music

I should not be surprised that most people are frightened of the intimacy of listening.  Perhaps that is why it seems to be easier for people simply to take in what they are hearing in a cabaret environment: the room is dark, people have a drink in hand, there is no distraction, and the sound is close up.

But it puzzles me that people seem to be so frightened of their intimate connection to their own playing.  Why is that so threatening?  From what some individuals have reported to me I gather that some of it has to do with the terror of growing up.  If you acknowledge that your own playing is worth paying attention to you are acknowledging something basically respectable about yourself, something adult, something authoritative.

Too often music study is dedicated to the proposition that thou shalt never feel mastery.  Only the master is authoritative.  Your experience will never measure up.

How is that measurement taken?  In fame, perhaps; in commercial success?

Violin Meets Piano

"How do you do?" 

The comedian replied, "How do I do what?"

Which came first?  Historically the violin came first.  But the piano changed everything about the acoustical world in which string intonation ruled supreme.

With the piano came a previously-unimagined fog.  It might be compared to the difference in sound between a solo violin and a violin section.  Notice the difference next time you have occasion to hear what I am talking about.  It is not unlike the difference between a single bass note and one doubled at the octave on the piano. 

Except that every pitch on the piano resembles the string section sound, for the simple reason that every pitch is made by three vibrating strings inevitably vibrating slightly out of sync with one another, therefore with fuzz around the edges of their frequency.

Can a violin make peace with such an arrangement or does it always have to project like the concerto soloist?  That depends on the ear of each player, and that depends on the desire of each player to produce a new sound.  It involves a sort of acoustical magic that fuses the two players in one element that neither one can produce alone.

The current Tonal Refraction work is a return to Beethoven's Op. 24 Sonata in F for Piano and Violin, the "Spring."  It is very much concerned with frequent intersections of the two sounds, made more evident by their wide separation.  What a splendid demonstration of what happens when this magic is allowed to happen. 

Have you ever heard it performed in such a way that you feel that you are beholding that level of meeting?

Touch and the Ear

Touch is perhaps the most elusive skill involved in piano playing.  It cannot really be taught because it reflects the most intimate connection between the player's inner ear and the tiniest nerve endings in the skin of each finger.

I have been knocked down by the touch of a few pianists in my lifetime.  Could I figure out what they did?  Not really.  Could I figure out what I wasn't doing?  To a certain extent, I could.

At one point I lost sensation in my fingertips for a few months.  During those months I was performing regularly and also recording those performances out of which two CDs were ultimately produced: Haydn / Bartok and Piano Works of Joseph Haydn.  During the performances I was unable to hear soft sounds :  I couldn't feel the keys, therefore I couldn't hear them!

Yet the sounds are all there on the recording.  So intimate is the connection.

Hard to Listen

One of the parents who attended my recent class get-together remarked that it was hard for her just to listen when she goes to a concert.  Oh!  The MuzApp devils have truly taken their toll!  Where else would she have gotten the idea that she had to be doing something besides just listening?

All it takes to listen is that one relinquish control over time.  Think about it:  It means whatever timing you walked in with you will let go of as soon as the music begins.  If it is Adagio and you are a distinctly Allegro con brio type this will not be easy.  (It never was for me; I used to hate having to listen to anything slow.)  Just doing that, though I do not mean to imply that that is a simple thing to do, but doing that will allow you into the realm of the vibrations that the performers are producing and you will be more likely to listen.

Of course, that assumes that the performers are themselves paying appropriate attention, which is not always the case.  I would go so far as to say that if you are bored they are bored.