Roses That Are Looked At

Nothing will improve a player's progress or self-esteem like the knowledge that they have been heard, seriously listened to, i.e., taken seriously in the terms in which they delivered their message.

Not that the message need necessarily conform to any known model.

Too often the assumption is that a teacher only knows how to listen in relation to known models.  I do not listen that way.  I will take you at face value, no matter who you are, whether an autistic child or a far-out-radical composer type.  I know how to listen because I have been practicing listening without bias for several decades. This was one of the most difficult challenges I ever set for myself, since most music instruction (on all levels) has to do with "getting it right." 

I have helped many individuals progress in both their progress and their self-esteem.

I call it Music Inside and Out.  Perhaps I can help you.

Simple Questions

Take as a simple proposition the major scale.  We all learn it as if it were a given.

What if it isn't so simple?  What if Beethoven transforms every portion of it to become a determinant of directionality, of stability, of speculation, of exploration?

This is what happened this morning.with my student's involuntary direct responses to the first eight sounds of the middle movement of the Moonlight.  I couldn't help but think as we puzzled them out that this is the stuff that theorists mull over but without having half so much fun as we had.

I can imagine Beethoven singing those scales to himself, again, and again.

Interview on Lucid Culture

Just out: an interview about Tonal Refraction at  lucidculture.wordpress.com.

Formlessness. Really?

Listening to improvisation affords me the occasion to observe my ear at work / play.  Last night I went to hear a pianist who specializes in improvisatory performances of considerable duration.

Unlike other performances I had heard of this same artist, this one began with transparent pitch specificity.  I do not have perfect pitch, but I do respond to the different resonant colors of black vs. white keys and I relate what I hear to my singing voice, so I really do know where I am when pitch is delivered with such clarity.

Once heard, the memory of these sensations is simply there to be referred to, contrasted with, changed -- the process doesn't matter.  What matters is the hunger to return to something recalling that initial grounding.

In that observation various musical thinkers got it right - Schencker, Zuckerkandl, etc.  -- though in no way does it require or assume formal structure in order to work.  The ear simply wants it and that is quite enough.

I do agree with this performer that we have been over-structured in our awareness of what we hear so that it is harder and harder for us simply to open ourselves to the resonance of Mozart or Haydn or Beethoven composing for the new (i.e., no longer pure in the sense of vocal overtones) sound medium that is the piano.

1/3 of the way there!

Many thanks to everyone who has responded to my request for help to get me to the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition at the University of Seoul, Korea this August to present my work on Tonal Refraction.

Please feel free to further this enterprise: www.tonalrefraction.com

Thank you.

In Praise of Boredom

If it were not for boredom we probably would not have the Early Music scene, which has so enlightened us on so many musical essentials.

The connection between the two may not seem obvious but it is implicit in the post of a few days ago on minuets coming back into style.  Back in the day -- well, not THAT far back, actually -- three beats to the bar on paper was what you were expected to play and hear.  The notion of variation within meters was virtually non-existent.  Then a number of people must have protested: Enough!  Surely Handel, Haydn, etc. could not have been that dull!

And so was born a renewed curiosity in the phenomenon of rhetoric, or the inability to produce a literal repeat of any musical element.

Musical Accuracy

Accuracy in music is relative.  People who define music as CDs would probably deem accurate any performance that sounded as much like a CD as possible.  For others, those who favor spontaneity, accuracy would be much harder to pin down.

And that is the point.  If music is defined as made with an infinitely variable acoustical mix to be perceived by the infinitely variable human brain, then accuracy is ephemeral, therefore even more to be treasured because, by definition, it cannot be repeated.

I can recall certain flavors experienced once that I will never again taste: the sauce on the quenelles de brochet in a particularly lovely neighborhood restaurant in the 1ere arrondissement, summer of 1959.