On the Newly Heard

Because we are so sure of what happens when we push buttons we are out of touch with the possibility that things happen in the interstices between touching and pushing those buttons.

We learn chord progressions.  Then someone comes along who has never learned chord progressions and introduces wonderfully off-beat details into what might otherwise pass for a standard harmony.
That off-beat detail grabs me.  I look for it every time I hear the live performance of the song but it always moves around, or is it that there were always several such details and I caught only one the first time and am now catching a different one? 

The great thing is that I'll never know.  I have to keep going back and listening for more.

That is what all good music making should be about, whether the piece was composed two days or two hundred years ago. 

Constant variation, no matter how "familiar."  Keep it (and yourself) moving.

Did I Really Hear That?

Composed or improvised into the most memorable musical experiences are sounds so unlikely that you must wonder whether you did, indeed, hear them.  Very often they masquerade as "normal" and are easily lost in a haze of approximated listening. 

It works like this:  I am listening to a song obviously inspired and informed by the blues.  The standard blues chords that go along with that style are compatible with the harmonization of the song - almost.  Not entirely.... 

Every once in a while one of the standard chords will contain a slightly off pitch, a bent interval here or there, introducing an element of mystery into the expected experience of a standard blues progression.

So you have to go back and hear the song again to check whether what you thought you heard is really there...this is the mark of real musical genius in every genre, not just the blues, but there as well.

The Like Factor(y)

The word is in disrepute.  First there were the Valley girls, now ubiquitous.  I am allergic to the likes of them.

Then came Facebook.  From time to time I feel obliged to log in, to see what posts I may have received since the last time - probably a week previous - and this brings me face(book) to face(book) with the word used differently.  I am asked to like the pages of friends, acquaintances, organizations...

Sorry, my definition of the word does not allow me to participate in this idiocy. 

Why don't we reduce everything to out and out popularity contests and leave out the like factor?  If you really need to count your friends do so forthrightly and admit that is what you are doing.  If you need a count of how many people recognize your name, that's different, isn't it?  

Music and Real Time

Time in music exists on three levels simultaneously:  the faster than fast time experienced by the performer, the kind of time we associate with rhythm, and the time of a life affecting every element of tone and meaning, potentially of every note we play.

The first kind of time is almost entirely missing from music instruction.  Yet it is the manifestation of time most vivid to children as they play, as it is to professional musicians who are really serious about their sound.  Inside of this time one is open to whatever is happening in a way that invites involvement in every instant to come.

The rhythm level of time is all too readily associated with rote learning, with repetition, with boredom.

Alas.

The lifetime is most difficult to discuss as it varies entirely from individual to individual.

Competition Holds Us Back - Especially the Winners

Winning a competition is just that: being judged better than the other competitors.  It has nothing to do with mastering the art or reaching the fullness of one's potential.  (How is one to accomplish that before the tender age of 25 or 30, the usual cutoff ages for prominent piano competitions?)

Having won the competition is a guarantee of some sort of livelihood.  But what sort?  In our media-dominated climate it means more of the same, thank you.  And don't by any means suddenly discover something new and unlikely.

Whether or not I enjoy someone's playing is completely separate from my admiration for anyone sticking her or his neck out and trying something new: new repertoire, new performance outfits, new venues.

But we are at an ironic time where sticking one's neck out may have to do with deciding to focus on repertoire that has become so stultified that no one knows anymore how great it is:  Mozart sonatas, Schubert sonatas, Brahms pieces, Beethoven sonatas, even Fuer Elise, one of the most perfect compositions ever written.

Of Course We Hear in Utero!

I wrote yesterday's post without thinking through the known facts about prenatal hearing.  I was concerned, rather, with the assumption of many young parents that their baby has not heard anything yet.

Heartbeats, breathing, digestion, all those sounds of life must have been intensely magnified in that environment, not to mention the music that the mother listened ot, perhaps even danced to, while pregnant.

It is adult assumptions that are off, not the infant's hearing.

Is Music Only Outside of Us?

From what I see of young children responding to live sound I don't believe that music exists only outside of ourselves.  Those eyes light up with an expression of recognition, as if they are responding to something with which they identify.

Isn't it possible that vibration pre-exists external music?

Has anyone checked the amount of auditory activity in newborns?  I would be surprised if it turned out to be zero.

By the time most Americans have reached the age of about ten that sense of wonder seems in danger of being chewed up by over-stimulation of the most boring sort, either Muzak or MuzApp.  Which is worse, I wouldn't venture to guess.

My ideal audience reaches out to me as much as I to them: open-minded, curious, eager.  It is definitely a mutual adventure.