Correcting the Dissonance

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending a party at the home of two musicians, many of whose friends and relatives are or have been involved with music, some professionally, all seriously.  We were talking about how difficult it is to learn to read music and, therefore, to teach children how to read music.

One young relative had studied piano with me over 30 years ago.  Her frustration at the complexity of reading was horrible to her at the time and even now as she recalls the experience.  (It was long before I was able to observe the signs of conflicting activities and preoccupations on the part of each student and adjust expectations accordingly.)  She described her frustration in dealing with a particularly dissonant diminished fifth in a Bartok piece, a sound that she really disliked and insisted on "correcting." 

Over and over again I use this very experience as proof to the child that, in fact, they are reading.  The fact that they are not reading mechanically but in reference to an internal predisposition to consonance (in this and in most cases) displays active musical intelligence at work.  All the pain involved in correcting the error by deliberately distorting the desired sound reveals the subject matter of the composition. 

I have learned this from observing Tonal Refraction at work in the lives of many musicians of all ages. 

Singing is the Best-kept Secret

The other day I had occasion to share stories of getting fired with a friend who had, like me, had had that experience.  I recall a distinct feeling that on one occasion I was fired because I had done good work. 

My job was to get the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in an inner-city parochial school to sing.  It was no doubt a major challenge, but what is music, anyway?  After an entire year of free-form fooling around--improvising on found objects, composing operas, making up variations on well-known songs--I sent each kid home for the summer with a note giving my recommendations for a good thing to do over vacation.

For conspicuously shy Nicole, African-American, already more developed than the other girls, I recommended seeing what the Harlem School for the Arts had to offer.  She returned to school in September and announced, "I'm a soprano."  This completely changed the dynamic in all three grades.  Nicole sang; everyone wanted to sing.

The day came for our Christmas presentation in which the assembled three grades were to sing, among other things, the Tallis canon with bell accompaniment, and the tenor aria from Bach cantata #140 (Wachet auf!) with viola obbligato, played by a young blind Haitian musician.  On my way up to the classroom a staff member sharing the elevator remarked that it was too bad I was not returning after this semester.   

A Real Bell

Today I was in a new space, brick and stone-walled, a small yet huge liturgical space.  I had never been there before except for a concert.  All I knew was that I was attending a Solemn Mass, yet I did not know what to expect.

Then a bell rang: a large, close-up bell.  Instantly I was transported outside of and deep into a space I cannot describe.  The ringing was a command, altered with each repetition, as I was altered.

The bell prepared me for what followed.   From the expert vocal sextet singing a Morales mass setting I learned something I had never before observed about the a cappella mass:  I had always known that the Sanctus, when well set, is an ecstatic piece of vocal writing.  By their warm intonation this group made palpable the build-up to the ecstasy.   

Numberless Faceless Friends

Do you treasure certain specific moments of listening to music, moments that you will never forget, engraved upon your memory though perhaps in the most unlikely circumstances?

As a performer I treasure more than anything else having people tell me -- people I hardly know -- that they remember a piece I played thirty years ago in some little room on 58th St.

How many such people are there?  Who's counting?  Who wants to count?

There's the rub: Some of those people want to be counted, want to have faces, want to be part of what generates the performer's art.  To those people I owe my independence, my freedom to play as I wish, to teach experimentally, to carry on this blog.

To all of you, thank you!

Why Practice?

Assuming that the ear is alert and that the hand functions well the only reason to practice is to reduce the time it takes to register one's response to the quality of every tone as it flits past, faster than any speed that we can consciously register.

It is a speed of animal alertness, accessible to urban humans only under special circumstances, like a superb live performance.

Without that alertness practice becomes routine, counterproductive.  Maintaining that alertness also requires practice, but of a not-repetitive sort: that is, paying attention to our vivid response to every sound, either liking it or rejecting it.  Most practice is associated with dulling that response by constant repetition of same-old, same-old.

I think of playing the piano as chasing vibrations.

Musical Logic vs. Music Theory

The argument rages (or simmers, depending) in academic circles whether the music theory canon is or isn't a good idea.  I am definitely on the side that says it is not.

I would replace it with musical logic, a function of listening rather than of identifying elements and functions.  Listening is a complex activity which, at its best, eschews repetition and predictability.  That musical logic is innate to the musical mind was amply demonstrated back in the 50's by Viktor Zuckerkandl.  His work made it evident to me that I could teach music as a way of deepening my own experience while imparting the basics to very young as well as to older learners.

His point is that mistakes reflect sensible alternatives to the composer's designated choice.  That has meant to me that attending to mistakes reveals the essence of musical composition. Even better, attending to mistakes builds confidence on the part of the student, who thus learns to recognize and trust her own musical intuition at work.

I recall being praised for my playing as a teenager, though I had no idea what the praise was based on.  My intuitions were probably interesting; they were certainly strong.  But to what did they correspond?  I had no clue.

Until Brahms.  I was given a volume of Brahms pieces, Peters Edition, at the time considered "the best" edition.  Dutifully observing the phrasings and articulations, I found Brahms to be a most unmusical composer.  Imagine my double shock when, in college, I stumbled on the Kalmus edition, at the time considered "the worst," of the same pieces.  The phrasings and articulations, all radically different from the Peters, turned out to be from the Authentic Edition, prepared by Brahms himself.

It was pure musical logic at work.  I sometimes wonder what might have happened to my development had someone taken the trouble to analyze with me the differences between the two editions as they spoke to my musical intuition in such contradictory ways.

Support the Independent Point of View

Writing a New Year's greeting to a composer friend this morning I was reminded of the nerve it takes for a composer to put pen to paper - to imagine that anyone will want to even attempt to discern what prompted the work in the first place.

That applies to anyone who creates anything. 

Make a point during 2013 of supporting not just one, but at least five people who are sticking their necks out without institutional or governmental monies/controls pulling the applicable string.  Why not start by supporting this blog?  www.tonalrefraction.net