Piano teachers rely on competition or some form of adjudicated performance to motivate their students to practice. There is another, better way.
When the environment of learning is not competitive or adjudicated the standard rises because each student is at liberty to observe fully what the other students, and what the teacher, is actually doing--not only in their playing, but in their approach, their involvement, their motivation.
I have found that these unspecified elements carry far greater weight in that they inhabit the very person of each child, motivating them to achieve far greater levels than any I might set for them.
The other beauty of this is that it is inclusive of learners with disability as well as more typical children.
Teaching this way, learning this way, is based on a fundamental skill, routinely overlooked in music pedagogy: listening (not the same as ear training).
Music Inside and Out is what this is all about.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Support the Blog
A friendly reminder: But now supporting the blog is a tax-deductible gift. Go to www.tonalrefraction.com, click on the Fractured Atlas button and there it is.
I give this blog to whoever reads it, and lots of people apparently do,: over 21,000 hits since it began. Remember "Ten cents a dance"? Well, ten cents a hit would be a meaningful boost to the life and work of this dedicated blogger.
Thank you!
I give this blog to whoever reads it, and lots of people apparently do,: over 21,000 hits since it began. Remember "Ten cents a dance"? Well, ten cents a hit would be a meaningful boost to the life and work of this dedicated blogger.
Thank you!
More on Musicians and Piano Recitals
The other day I wrote about the disconnect between pianists and the vibrations they are confronted with when they have to deal with an instrument they do not regularly play. There is another kind of disconnect, just as communicable.
The temptation is great to learn the notes without connecting them. This can be done two ways:
By memorizing the notes as written--beats, barlines, and all, adding up to the correct number of beats and subdivisions, nice and tidy.
By memorizing the piece as commonly played, in effect rewinding a music box.
The connection between the notes has to be made in the mind of the player, otherwise it does not exist. For me the clue that I am not connecting them is boredom. When I am bored I am missing the essence of whatever passage I am playing. Then I have to confront the problem.
Often the solution is troubling as it challenges the beats-and-barlines approach to tidy pianism. But, however dangerous, it is so much more fun!
The temptation is great to learn the notes without connecting them. This can be done two ways:
By memorizing the notes as written--beats, barlines, and all, adding up to the correct number of beats and subdivisions, nice and tidy.
By memorizing the piece as commonly played, in effect rewinding a music box.
The connection between the notes has to be made in the mind of the player, otherwise it does not exist. For me the clue that I am not connecting them is boredom. When I am bored I am missing the essence of whatever passage I am playing. Then I have to confront the problem.
Often the solution is troubling as it challenges the beats-and-barlines approach to tidy pianism. But, however dangerous, it is so much more fun!
Sunday, February 9, 2014
A Plaid Piano Lesson
The other day I read, for the first time, an essay written by a young woman, then in high school, about her piano lessons with me when she was ten.
I laughed aloud at the first paragraph, in which she recounted my comparing the acoustical effect of interacting tones to the different colored strands of wool intersecting in her plaid skirt. I laughed because I do this all the time: i.e., I compare acoustical effects to the effects of color, weave, or fabric design in a student's garments. (I have long known that, if I were not a pianist, I would be a fabric designer as, in a way, I am, when on the subway I craft my String Improvisations.)
But she went on to describe in detail her reaction to this, which was far more complicated. She feared that I was condescending to a level of perception and awareness that, though very real to a child, is not customarily made central in a learning process. I have thought about this ever since reading her essay.
Sound is extremely confusing because it is so variable. Therefore, our perception of it must also be confusing as it, too, is subject to variables. So I start with a visual gateway to perceptual awareness; alternatively sometimes with taste--a favorite food, perhaps, or a not-so-favorite one.
Plaids are terrific if you want to observe color variability.
I laughed aloud at the first paragraph, in which she recounted my comparing the acoustical effect of interacting tones to the different colored strands of wool intersecting in her plaid skirt. I laughed because I do this all the time: i.e., I compare acoustical effects to the effects of color, weave, or fabric design in a student's garments. (I have long known that, if I were not a pianist, I would be a fabric designer as, in a way, I am, when on the subway I craft my String Improvisations.)
But she went on to describe in detail her reaction to this, which was far more complicated. She feared that I was condescending to a level of perception and awareness that, though very real to a child, is not customarily made central in a learning process. I have thought about this ever since reading her essay.
Sound is extremely confusing because it is so variable. Therefore, our perception of it must also be confusing as it, too, is subject to variables. So I start with a visual gateway to perceptual awareness; alternatively sometimes with taste--a favorite food, perhaps, or a not-so-favorite one.
Plaids are terrific if you want to observe color variability.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
More on Internal Rhythm
One could go on and on seeking out the levels on which rhythmic activity spurs musical movement and the life of the listener/player. Nowhere is it better expressed than in African drumming.
I find it ironic that so much music pedagogy is involved with simplifying rhythm rather than making it as full of variables as possible.
Is this because physical coordination is so difficult? That is no excuse.
If kept in perspective, the rhythmic complexities actually have the power to solve coordination problems: responding to movement that we feel (as opposed to beats that we measure) can unleash inhibitions, releasing muscular responses over which we have no conscious control.
Now that's music.
I find it ironic that so much music pedagogy is involved with simplifying rhythm rather than making it as full of variables as possible.
Is this because physical coordination is so difficult? That is no excuse.
If kept in perspective, the rhythmic complexities actually have the power to solve coordination problems: responding to movement that we feel (as opposed to beats that we measure) can unleash inhibitions, releasing muscular responses over which we have no conscious control.
Now that's music.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Pitch Approximation and the Piano
I have learned a great deal about pitch approximation from Beethoven's Sonata for (Natural) Horn and Piano, Op. 17, which I performed the other evening for the 5th time with my son on horn. There would be no reason to compose such a duo if there were not the possibility of revealing something about the mutual resonance of both instruments.
Using that as the starting point, and reading Beethoven's phrasing and dynamic indications with insight, I find my instincts about the piano once more affirmed: i.e., that, contrary to what we are told, the piano is not a pitch-specific instrument. Rather, it is an instrument capable of taking into its resonating chamber, via the damper pedal, vibrations from any source and allowing them to clarify by a physical process over which we have little control, but which is ours to savor and respond to.
With this as the definition of a sonata all playing is transformed. This piece in particular, with all its danger and unpredictability, becomes highly engaging. On a modern horn it would be simplistic, a piece of cake; it would have no inherent interest.
Many years ago I began thinking of the piano as a "translating" instrument, one that speaks with and for other instruments, that takes them into itself and transforms them. That doesn't include the piano that Chopin had in mind, of course; his music is the piano.
Using that as the starting point, and reading Beethoven's phrasing and dynamic indications with insight, I find my instincts about the piano once more affirmed: i.e., that, contrary to what we are told, the piano is not a pitch-specific instrument. Rather, it is an instrument capable of taking into its resonating chamber, via the damper pedal, vibrations from any source and allowing them to clarify by a physical process over which we have little control, but which is ours to savor and respond to.
With this as the definition of a sonata all playing is transformed. This piece in particular, with all its danger and unpredictability, becomes highly engaging. On a modern horn it would be simplistic, a piece of cake; it would have no inherent interest.
Many years ago I began thinking of the piano as a "translating" instrument, one that speaks with and for other instruments, that takes them into itself and transforms them. That doesn't include the piano that Chopin had in mind, of course; his music is the piano.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
A New Association: Musicians Against Piano Recitals
Last night after another of my home concerts a musician who was there for the first time told me that she hates piano recitals and never goes to them. But she loved this one. What a compliment!
I admitted to her that I walk out of piano recitals more than out of any other kind of event I have paid good money to hear. Why?
My first feeling is lack of attention on the part of the player. Having been trained to not notice vibrations, since every piano is different from every other, pianists are notoriously terrified of the disconnect between what they are used to hearing and what will come forth from the strange beast they confront upon that specific occasion. Their detachment communicates.
I used to make it a strict rule whenever I had a public performance (i.e., on a strange instrument) not to touch any other instrument that entire day. Call it the piano du jour.
I admitted to her that I walk out of piano recitals more than out of any other kind of event I have paid good money to hear. Why?
My first feeling is lack of attention on the part of the player. Having been trained to not notice vibrations, since every piano is different from every other, pianists are notoriously terrified of the disconnect between what they are used to hearing and what will come forth from the strange beast they confront upon that specific occasion. Their detachment communicates.
I used to make it a strict rule whenever I had a public performance (i.e., on a strange instrument) not to touch any other instrument that entire day. Call it the piano du jour.
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