Summer Lessons

I like teaching piano lessons to college students in the summer. I'm more relaxed and so are they, plus, we have more time, so we don't feel rushed and can take on projects that we'd never have time for during the school year.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day with a student working on Bach and Haydn.

We started with an hour on Bach C-minor Prelude and Fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier, Book I. We noticed similarities in Bach's prelude style between this prelude and the C-major and D-minor preludes from the same volume: they are improvisatory in nature, elaborate on standard chord progressions, and have a one-handed passage preparing for the final cadence in which the rhythmic groupings change. We discussed performance practice for Bach, the instruments Bach wrote for, and idiomatic expression on these instruments. We analyzed the fugue a bit, noting the spiraling form of the subject beginning with a 4th, then a 5th, then a 6th. We discussed how memorizing imitative contrapuntal music is different from learning more homophonic music, and we tracked the keys as well as the alterations the intervals in the subject undergo in these different keys and as they appear in various sequences. I also emphasized that the name of the game is fingering if you want a solid learning experience with a fugue. In making decisions about fingering, we need to balance the helpfulness of not having too many different hand positions and the necessity of not over-extending the hand. Also, relying on scale and arpeggio fingers we already know will save a great deal of time and give us more security.

Then we moved on to the first movement of Haydn's Major Concerto in D Major which we discovered feels like a sonata form but only has one really clear theme. We highlighted passages in which the pianist needs to be very clear about the rhythm/meter for the sake of the conductor and the orchestra. We also explored how to interpret the absence of a dynamic marking such as at the first piano entrance in this work. This led to a little discussion of musical editions and what goes into creating them.

We also noticed several textures and figurations that are very typical of Beethoven, which appear to have there source in Haydn. In addition, we pinpointed one of Haydn's "life motives" as Michael White at Juilliard would say: rhythms that go "short short long" as in the "Surprise" Symphony and in this concerto.

Then, we took a break for lunch at our local German restaurant. I tried a chicken aubergine sandwich, which is pretty much like eating chicken parmigiana and eggplant parmigiana at the same time on a sandwich - a great accompaniment to analyzing cadenzas. So during our meal, we did harmonic and motivic analysis of the cadenza printed in the score we were using for the Haydn. The goal of our analysis was to prepare to write our own cadenza. (Haydn didn't write one for this concerto.) After lunch, we listened to the cadenzas Richter and Argerich play on Youtube and charted what happens in those cadenzas, as well.


Things we reviewed/discovered about cadenzas:

They are lengthy elaborations of cadences, usually ending on a trill on scale degree 2.

Cadenzas are usually based on material from the movement in which they are found, and first-movement cadenzas often seem to be more substantial than last-movement cadenzas, keeping with the tradition and mood of the first movement being the intellectual center of gravity for the entire work and the last movement being a rousing conclusion.

Some cadenzas, like the one in our score, further celebrate the most significant theme or themes of the movement.

Some cadenzas are motivically freer and are based on significant harmonic ideas from the movement. The one Richter plays picks up on the low-six scale degree going to scale degree five from an Italian 6th chord in the movement.

Some cadenzas, such as the one Argerich plays,develop more obscure ideas from the movement.

Another strategy is to build on what was heard immediately before the cadenza.

We can also vary our concluding trill so as to play on the expectations of the listeners - a familiar Beethoven trick.

Our composition assignment is to determine the overall chord progression, then flesh it out with motivic material from the movement and appropriate Viennese classical-style figurations. I loaned my student my copy of Czerny's School of Velocity to be used as a catalog of such figurations.

My student was interested in featuring the more obscure aspects of the concerto in this new cadenza. I think it's a good idea as it brings some balance by drawing our attention to the motives and ideas that have remained mostly in the shadows during the movement. But I suggested also having one or more really obvious references to the main theme that every listener would be able to hear in addition to the development of the more obscure details that the connoisseurs can enjoy.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results!

Spontaneity and a Task Completed

First, task completed:

Some of you know I've been writing a little cantata based on Chowan's quality enhancement plan. The plan was devised to address findings of SACS, which is the accrediting organization for our school. The cantata (or jingleata, as I'm calling it) is to be performed as part of a presentation explaining our plan. A jingleata, by the way, is a cantata made of jingles or a jingle-qualitied cantata. I made up the term, and perhaps the genre.

The scores are now in the hands of the performers and out mine! It was a fun project. It's always nice to have a composition assignment. But it's also really nice to be able to move on to something else.


Now about spontaneity:

On Sunday, after the sermon, Kathy pointed at her watch and gave me the signal to stretch the offertory meditation. It was only 11:45, and our service is scheduled to go to noon - and we're also on the radio until then. So I stretched.

I started by filling up at least a minute, maybe two, with introduction. Then I played a version of "There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place" with lots of hesitations between phrases. I embellished that a bit, got a little blusey or soulful, then added a coda using a favorite effect of mine - sort of a random ring imitation on the piano.

Because of the extra time, I explored improvisational aspects that I wouldn't often use in church. I basically explored a variety of things I could do with the tune until it seemed like it gone on for long enough (musically speaking).

The surprising thing about all this is that I belive I had more positive comments about this offertory than any other thing I've played at the church in Ahoskie. I'm not sure if that's because of the different energy of more extended improvisation, because of what I improvised, or maybe it's because people really like the tune.

My friend, Charles Winstead, commented about the accumulation of layers as I improvised. I usually think of layers happening simultaneously, but in this case, they were happening one after the other, as in a theme and variations. I like that thought, because it explains something of the process of the cumulative impact of a theme and variations, and gives me food for thought as someone who makes up music sometimes!

Theory Fun

1.

In my Music Fundamentals class, we have been studying how to generate intervals above and below specific notes. I taught the students that for ascending intervals, they can use an ascending major scale as a starting point. For instance, if they need to determine a major third above G, all they need to do is consult the G major scale and note that the third note of the scale is B. All of the intervals from the tonic up to any other note in a major scale are major, except for scale degrees 4 and 5, which are perfect. Minor intervals are then generated by lowering the top notes of these major intervals a half step.

One of my students started asking questions about generating descending intervals and whether or not some sort of scale could be helpful. After thinking about this a little, we realized (something that is actually pretty obvious but I hadn't thought through before) all the intervals from the top tonic down to any other note in a major scale are minor, except for scale degrees 4 and 5, which are perfect! Thus, a descending major scale can be used as a template for determining descending intervals.

2.

I have one adult student outside the University. She plays for church services, and the focus of our lessons is for her to learn how to enhance her hymn accompaniments through improvisation.

An important skill to develop towards that end is the ability to quickly understand what chords and chord progressions are in the hymn at hand.

As we were analyzing chords in a hymn, we came upon a cadential six-four chord. As many of you know, the naming of that chord is controversial. Some call it "I six-four" since the pitches in the chord are those of a second inversion I chord. Some call it "V six-four" because it has a strong dominant feeling. The problem with calling it that, though, is that in the standard system for labeling chords with Roman and Arabic Numbers for roots and inversions, respectively, it is assumed that all the chords are stacks of thirds. Thus, the bass note of a cadential six-four chord couldn't really be the root of the chord since the distance from that pitch to the next chord member is a fourth and not a third. In addition to that problem, there is already a chord that is labeled "V six-four" without being inconsistent with labeling principles. The bass of that chord starts on scale degree 2, not 5. The phrase "Dominant six-four" is a little better, but it can still be a little confusing as "V" and "dominant" are synonymous when referring to scale degrees and chords (most of the time.) The phrase "cadential six-four" seems to be the clearest description of the chord's funtion and its inversion.

Now for the good part! I asked my student if the chord sounded like it had a tonic, dominant, or pre-dominant function. She accidentally but very accurately referred to it as "Tominant" - tonic pitches with rather dominant function.