By the time most people have had two years of music lessons they are lucky if they have any spontaneous reactions to sound that they can call their own.
I watched the instruction for little kids at the Preparatory Division where I taught for many years turn into a kind of mill based on the assumption that children do not hear and that their brains need to be force-fed on pre-digested music.
This is completely off target in relation to just about any kind of music you can imagine.
The greatest authority comes from one's own feeling: "I like it!" or --even more authoritative-- "I don't like it!"
Anyone is capable of expressing such response provided it won't get them into a heap of trouble or embarrass the teacher or the parents.
Children have just as infallibly reliable taste when it comes to sounds as when it comes to vegetables.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Artistic Depth is Enhanced by Teaching People with Disability
If anyone had told me this fifteen years ago I would have been incredulous: How could that be possible?
It turns out to be entirely the case, without reservation. The most disabled person I can imagine has been studying with me for over 12 years; he is now 21 years old. Among his most severe handicaps is his lack of tactile sense in his hands; since he is also blind, this is no kidding around a serious liability.
It has been like a miracle to see him capable of articulated movement in each hand, separating the outside fingers from the rest--an action that most of us take for granted but which, in reality, is immensely complex. I am astonished at his attentiveness to the task (he also has a short concentration span) and at his retention, from week to week, of the musical goal involved.
The music is by Bartok, on whom I rely for stimulating content extremely well composed to speak to the deepest available artistic and technical resources of the individual.
Today I told him that I had the feeling that Bartok had written these pieces with him in mind; that, therefore, he is his friend.
This depth of desire, of striving, of pleasure in achieving a beautiful result supports and enriches all of my own personal artistic life to the fullest possible extent.
It turns out to be entirely the case, without reservation. The most disabled person I can imagine has been studying with me for over 12 years; he is now 21 years old. Among his most severe handicaps is his lack of tactile sense in his hands; since he is also blind, this is no kidding around a serious liability.
It has been like a miracle to see him capable of articulated movement in each hand, separating the outside fingers from the rest--an action that most of us take for granted but which, in reality, is immensely complex. I am astonished at his attentiveness to the task (he also has a short concentration span) and at his retention, from week to week, of the musical goal involved.
The music is by Bartok, on whom I rely for stimulating content extremely well composed to speak to the deepest available artistic and technical resources of the individual.
Today I told him that I had the feeling that Bartok had written these pieces with him in mind; that, therefore, he is his friend.
This depth of desire, of striving, of pleasure in achieving a beautiful result supports and enriches all of my own personal artistic life to the fullest possible extent.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Neat and Tidy Quarter Notes
It is ironic, or perhaps not, that the Mozart Duos for Violin and Viola furnished music for the pre-performance time for The Taming of the Shrew, which I saw last night.
I was not the one to remark it aloud, though my friend did just as I was thinking it: Quarter notes all over the place.
To what purpose all those beats? Certainly to save time by marking time. The point of playing thus seemed to be that each player would keep the other informed at all times of the beats of the measure.
Does it really take two people to accomplish that?
I was not the one to remark it aloud, though my friend did just as I was thinking it: Quarter notes all over the place.
To what purpose all those beats? Certainly to save time by marking time. The point of playing thus seemed to be that each player would keep the other informed at all times of the beats of the measure.
Does it really take two people to accomplish that?
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
"More democratic, less hierarchical and more ambiguous"
One of the music theorists participating in a discussion about harmonics remarked that our era is "more democratic, less hierarchical and more ambiguous" than previous times in European history.
This raises a critical point to which I replied:
"The idea is to be alive in one's time.
The era in which
we live calls for flexibility in every department, not least in our
ability to listen. All the more reason to make clear that our visual
responses are different from our auditory responses and to keep the
auditory choices open to the fullest possible extent.
Most
of the comments on this thread are posted by advanced scholars: But the
skills to which such scholarship applies are open to all beginners in
the study of music, and especially music theory, and would seem to call
for cultivation of auditory diversity.
I
cannot resist an anecdote: Seated next to a prominent avant-garde
pianist, I was subjected to the whacking to bits of a Haydn minuet by a
dutifully trained youngster. Incredulous, I asked my colleague: 'Can
you believe that people are still teaching children to play like that?'
Reply: 'It's my student.' "
P.S. The real problem is that notation did not change to reflect the gradual changed in temperament. Therefore, what you see ain't necessarily what you will hear. Composers were to different extents aware of this and experimented with notation as best they could, beginning with Clementi, going on to Schumann, and, of course, Bartok.
P.S. The real problem is that notation did not change to reflect the gradual changed in temperament. Therefore, what you see ain't necessarily what you will hear. Composers were to different extents aware of this and experimented with notation as best they could, beginning with Clementi, going on to Schumann, and, of course, Bartok.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Ear Flexibility
If your formal study began, as did mine, with 18th-century-style triads as the standard of good piano sound, then you probably grew up, as I did, inflexibly committed to those sounds as the only "true" music.
My students, begun -- most decidedly not as I was -- on 20th-century sounds, are shocked when I tell them that I was an adult before I could tolerate the chromatic pieces in Bartok's Mikrokosmos. Diminished triads were, to my ear, streng verboten, no matter who wrote them. If it was Bach or Beethoven I merely added the missing tone to turn the offending diminished triad into a dominant seventh chord. None of my teachers caught me at it, can you believe it!
The fact of the matter is that the equally tempered piano does not produce the right resonance for 18th-century triads. But, ironically, if raised on music written for the modern instrument, the ear is adaptable and will be open to sounds that approximate various tunings. My students enjoy all kinds of sounds without the distaste that plagued me for so long as a young player.
First rule: Be alive in your time!
My students, begun -- most decidedly not as I was -- on 20th-century sounds, are shocked when I tell them that I was an adult before I could tolerate the chromatic pieces in Bartok's Mikrokosmos. Diminished triads were, to my ear, streng verboten, no matter who wrote them. If it was Bach or Beethoven I merely added the missing tone to turn the offending diminished triad into a dominant seventh chord. None of my teachers caught me at it, can you believe it!
The fact of the matter is that the equally tempered piano does not produce the right resonance for 18th-century triads. But, ironically, if raised on music written for the modern instrument, the ear is adaptable and will be open to sounds that approximate various tunings. My students enjoy all kinds of sounds without the distaste that plagued me for so long as a young player.
First rule: Be alive in your time!
Sunday, August 3, 2014
In Tune As a Function of LIstening
If the purpose of being in tune is to sound good with others, then the secret to being in tune must have to do with listening.
This, I fear, is the lost art. Like the well-intentioned singers I mentioned in yesterday's post, too many musicians are schooled to read without listening. I did it myself for many years before a great teacher caught me at it and made me stop that pernicious habit.
As soon as you listen to the sounds of your fellow players you are more likely to play in tune with them, particularly if you respect the differences between your instruments and decide to go with the flow, which is determined usually by the least flexible of the instruments.
I say "usually" because flexibility is also in the ear of the player. There is a common belief that the piano is inflexible. I couldn't disagree more wholeheartedly. The overtones of the piano are so complex, and the control available via finger and pedal so subtle that I can play so as to block or not block resonance with almost any other instrument. This is the art I practice and which I find never-endingly fascinating.
This, I fear, is the lost art. Like the well-intentioned singers I mentioned in yesterday's post, too many musicians are schooled to read without listening. I did it myself for many years before a great teacher caught me at it and made me stop that pernicious habit.
As soon as you listen to the sounds of your fellow players you are more likely to play in tune with them, particularly if you respect the differences between your instruments and decide to go with the flow, which is determined usually by the least flexible of the instruments.
I say "usually" because flexibility is also in the ear of the player. There is a common belief that the piano is inflexible. I couldn't disagree more wholeheartedly. The overtones of the piano are so complex, and the control available via finger and pedal so subtle that I can play so as to block or not block resonance with almost any other instrument. This is the art I practice and which I find never-endingly fascinating.
Off to Korea
At the time of this posting I will boarding a plane for Seoul, Korea where I am to present my work on Tonal Refraction. I will be showing examples of a few individuals' progression through stages of visualization of tones, tone-relatedness, compositions. Some of these individuals' musical lives were forever changed by the process which is condensed into three weekly sessions. Others refused the intrusion of change into their lives and did not complete the process.
I have continued to explore the implications of committing my sense of the tones in a specific composition to this process, to wondrous effect. It completely transforms my sense of what I am doing when I play the music. How it works is not my concern. That it works is what I know for sure. Why it works I can tell you: It is because I refuse to ignore the negative emotions aroused by certain combinations of tones that I have to play. This does not happen in just any composition. But one thing that distinguishes the work of a master from just another skilled craftsman is their capacity to load specific sounds, the way a poet might load a specific word, in such a way as to arouse the question in the attentive player's mind: "Why do I have to play such a disagreeable sound?"
Professionals are trained not to notice such reactions and are certainly not given guidance on how to deal with them. I once questioned such a sound to a prominent pianists whose eyebrows promptly went up in disbelief as if to say: You just play the notes, like everyone else.
During the short week of my stay in Korea I will not be editing blog posts; the posts published this week will have been written prior to my departure and I will not be posting directly from the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.
I have continued to explore the implications of committing my sense of the tones in a specific composition to this process, to wondrous effect. It completely transforms my sense of what I am doing when I play the music. How it works is not my concern. That it works is what I know for sure. Why it works I can tell you: It is because I refuse to ignore the negative emotions aroused by certain combinations of tones that I have to play. This does not happen in just any composition. But one thing that distinguishes the work of a master from just another skilled craftsman is their capacity to load specific sounds, the way a poet might load a specific word, in such a way as to arouse the question in the attentive player's mind: "Why do I have to play such a disagreeable sound?"
Professionals are trained not to notice such reactions and are certainly not given guidance on how to deal with them. I once questioned such a sound to a prominent pianists whose eyebrows promptly went up in disbelief as if to say: You just play the notes, like everyone else.
During the short week of my stay in Korea I will not be editing blog posts; the posts published this week will have been written prior to my departure and I will not be posting directly from the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.
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