Blogging While Practicing

As I was waiting for alarm clock to sound this morning, a new motto coalesced in my mind:
active but not stressed.

Sorry it's not in Latin

Active but not stressed is a middle way between obsessing about relaxng and generating physical tension as a misguided means of  musical expression.

It's a little pardoxical - worrying about being relaxed enough is its own sort of stress, and tightening up physically beguiles us by making it seem like we're spontaneously going with the flow of the music!

"Active but not stressed" also seems like a good goal for one's life beyond practicing.

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Piano lessons from dance instructor -

Every dance requires the presence of an animal - the cow:
ie. Change Of Weight from one foot to the other

Very Dorothy Taubman-esque, eh?

Also, the lead provides the frame so the follower has freedom to do flowing, expressive, improvisatory things.

Isn't that the relation of the hands in most piano textures? And isn't that rubato?
"The left hand is the conductor; the right hand is the singer," etc.

*******

Reading through Donald Waxman Etudes. One is subtitled "Lambent Trajectories."

This suggests a theme or organizing principle for a performance: piano recital as vocabulary lesson

Joy, Cues, SInging

Joy

With another week and a half of practicing under my belt it has occurred to me that the sensations of mild displeasure or outright struggle that sometimes accompany practicing are really to be expected since the activity is really about altering one's mind through sustained effort. Recognizing that bigger picture helps  move toward joy which is something that occasionally takes a back seat in efforts at making music. Remembering that we are changing ourselves through the process and also seeking to engage joyfully with musical labor can really refresh and energize one's mindset about practicing. Remembering that practicing is a "get to" and not a "have to" experience helps, too. I think I'm rediscovering that practicing is not just something I do - it's something I like to do!

Cues

I did a bit of teaching this week which got me thinking of cues. One model for teaching piano is that of helping students develop internal cues for how to do the activity well. I consciously work that way with my students sometimes, but I seldom do my own practicing with real intention in that area. However, I should and could apply the approach at every stage in my learning. Thinking in terms of what cues one needs at each stage seems like a great way of dealing with the fluid nature of making music at the piano. What cues do I need in this phrase, on this day, at this piano, for this performance . . .?

This discipline of giving one's self good cues is reminiscent of the practice of centering prayer in which the contemplative acknowledges the various thoughts that distract, without allowing them to truly disturb the endeavor, and then gently directs the mind and soul back to the focus.

Teaching piano lessons in the otherwise pretty free-flowing midst of summer vacation makes me grateful for such settings and situations that give me cues that trigger clear and well-organized behaviors on my part. When I am in a room with a piano and a student, my system has a pretty good idea of what to do. When I am in front of a class of aural theory students, my experience and training take over. It is nice to be in such familiar terrain where there are less fundamental issues to decide.

Singing
I've always heard that one should sing one's piano music to determine phrasing and so forth. I noticed this week that singing can also help to envision an appropriate base line to which to return in terms of both dynamics and intensity. The limitations of the voice in those areas are strongly sensed, and because of that, I think issues of scale and expression can become clearer when using the voice than when facing a piano with two hands and no mediation. So often, the flavor of the music becomes distinct and touching when we know not so much when to "go for it" but when to back off. As Earl Carlyss often said in chamber coachings, "If you can't raise the bridge, lower the stream."

Discoveries

***Warning: Hidden in the midst of these seemingly random observations is some stuff that some might find a little provocative.***

Here are some of this week's piano practicing and listening discoveries:

Albeniz's music has a high incidence of measures full of double flats along with interlocking and crossing hands. This makes for some disorienting reading. Certain pages of "El Polo" are easy-to-see examples. You can listen to Alicia de Larrocha playing this here starting around 7:30.

Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe contains bits of Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (or vice versa). They were written around the same time.

The first movment of Schumann Fantasy and the E minor prelude of Bach from WTCI have something in common in terms of left hand figuration and maybe a bit of the right hand pacing. Plus, the Bach is a little fantasy-like in its unfolding: a mysterious opening giving way to a lively second section followed by a highly chromatic, unusual, brief two-voice fugue - kind of Schumannesque. The two pieces might suggest some interesting parallels as the openers of two halves of the recital I'm preparing.

I started reading through the first two movements of Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata and might learn them in large part that way - by reading through them over the summer.

There are more than sixteen exercises in Persichetti's mirror studies. There are four sets of sixteen. So, I'll aim for three or so a day so as to make it through the entire book once a month over the summer, not once a week as I mistakenly thought the last time I posted!

Putting in two to three hours practice time each day this week feels a little like healthy exposure to the sun. I suppose one can overdo it a bit with practice and the sun, though, resulting in a general withering as a person in both cases.

Several events this week led me to a little reflection on our culture's emphasis on instant gratification. These happenings included discussion at a centering prayer meeting, lunch with my friend and colleague Paul Corrigan (check out his work on teaching and learning) , and a lovely concert by the Florida Southern Children's and Girls' Choirs.

It seems to me that the experience, aesthetic, and discipline of classical music are all tuned into process over time. The music comes from a world in which things were achieved more slowly and in a fashion that fostered an awareness of process. We participants in contemporary American culture have the luxury of living with little engagement with the importance of process to human endeavor and the temptation to focus a bit too much on always feeling entertained. I love that many in my parents' generation give us a living connection to a time when "spare time" was spent doing chores necessary for orderly living or with putting one's mind to solving a problem.

Our popular musical aesthetics, shaped by radio, require brevity, and because of that, more or less instantaneous appeal. But it's hard to take much of a musical journey in three minutes. The radio has also dictated that styles need to be pretty consistent dynamically, which eliminates one aspect of expressive potential. The result in the concert or worship setting is a few big dynamic moves that exist to give the listener a rush or a little impression of a large-scale formal move in spite of the absence of significant large-scale form.

I wonder if the next evolutionary step for humanity will be a step back from the engagement with process and higher-level thinking that help to distinguish us as a species. How ironic that such as step might be brought about by our ingenuity and technological progress. And so it is that one might become a passionate advocate for classical music as part of a larger mission to preserve what we believe it is to be human.

To my friends who are keeping the human focus on process in any musical styles, I applaud you!

A final  discovery: while listening to a beautiful performance of Franck's Panis Angelicus sung by a quartet of four young men (members of the Florida Southern Childrens' Choir) the genius of Franck's canon in this piece dawned on me.

Comeback - Summer 2013

For the last six years, I have spent a good bit of time on the theory and composition side of my career. Starting today, I'm coming out of retirement as a pianist. (I'm only 41, so it's not time to hang up my hat just yet. And I actually do have a hat.)

This summer, barring some unforseen events, I plan to get back into gear as a pianist. Perhaps blogging about the process will contribute to my momentum.

The repertoire:

a new program for the coming year which I hope to perform numerous times -
Bach Prelude and Fugue in E minor, WTC Book I
Mozart C Major Sonata K. 330
Some Messiaen work (suggestions anyone?)
and Schumann Fantasy

The Back and Mozart are old pieces and the Schumann and I casually dated a few times in the mid-90s.

Plus, a Rachmaninoff program to be performed with my excellent string colleagues, Ron and Annabelle Gardiner: Cello Sonata, Elegiac Trio, and Vocalise.

The plan:
Learn one movement of the Schumann and one of the other pieces each month -
May - Bach
June - Mozart
July/August - Messiaen

Today I put in a little time with four of Persichetti's mirror studies. There are 16 in all. I'm aiming at an average of four a day so as to get through the cycle once a week over the summer.

I also practiced sightreading today. I haven't really practiced sightreading regularly since I was a child. Today's selections included "El Albaicin" of Albeniz. There's some tricky whole-tone stuff in there.

I also listened to Rachmaninoff's tone-poem The Rock this morning and read the liner notes then spent some quiet time admiring nature. I feel like a student again!

Day 1, pretty good.

Bach!

It's a beautiful, quiet morning at Southeastern - roses blooming, birds singing . . .  At 8:00 A.M. there were four students in the coffee shop, and me, each of us quietly studying. Well, I was drinking coffee. They were studying.

Yesterday afternoon was a new and fun experience for me. Kathy and I performed as part of the Central Florida Bach Festival. The Festival is about forty years old and maintains a great choral tradition presenting works of Bach and others. Yesterday's offerings were a Buxtehude mass and Bach's Cantatas 78 and 131. I also played harpsichord for a trio sonata with my SEU colleagues Ron and Annabelle Gardiner. 

The special take-aways from the event were as follows.

1. Bach needs movement. A physically loosened-up performance seems to be in the right spirit, as far as I'm concerned. It's a spirit of joy.

2. Bach is incredibly rich. I have an idea of Bach's music based on the pieces I play and teach. I'm afraid these amount to a generalization of Baroque style. But there is so much more personality and variety to the actual music.

3. Bach is delightful. I loved watching the audience during the cantatas - heads bobbing to the beat, smiles, and eyes closed in serene contemplation (not sleep)!

New Testament Words 4

This week, I studied two words about how to be or not to be, but not in the Hamlet sense. These words remind me of my father because he was especially sensitive to the issues they raise and particularly ethical in these areas. The first word is about the right type of justice, while the second is about the wrong kind of ambition.

One who is EPIEIKES knows that there are times when that which is legally justified might be morally wrong. One with this concept of justice recognizes that the formal law is too general to address all the nuances or real life situations and that true justice will, at times, go beyond the letter of the law to apply gentleness, kindness, forbearance, and reasonableness.

In the realm of music, we also need to view the score with love, not literalism.

For example, a passage such as the last few bars of Waldstein's first movement may need a bit of pedal to create, as it were, a sense of an acoustic in which those joyful chords can reverberate. The score does not indicate pedal, but the instruments and the rooms and the times were different when Beethoven wrote this music. But the joy still speaks to us and should not be squashed by a dry delivery that could never support the depth of feeling the conclusion of the movement suggests.

Or, in playing Chopin's G minor prelude, we do best by seeing the veritable shark attack behind the notes on the score: chops and waves, jagged gestures, sudden change, relentless tumult, blinding uncertainty and a sense of peril - dealing justly with such a vision cannot be reduced to mere obedience to signs on a page. It requires the consideration of the whole person.

ERITHEIA involves contentiousness, political maneuvering, and in general, "applying earthly and human standards" to everything, as Barclay puts it. I imagine there is no need for me to provide personal examples here since you have probably already thought of several from your own life in music or the church.

As my dad would contend, the Church is Christ's body, and as such, it should not move according to what seems expedient from a purely human view or, for that matter, according to what passes for wisdom in the workaday world. The church is the place where another way is breaking into the world, a way that knows nothing of personal ambition, but instead, is motivated by service.

And I think that such altruism ought also to characterize the way we musicians go about our work as bearers of messages that are beautiful and good for the human race.

New Testament Words 3

KALOS

This is a word for all things that are good practically and morally as well as aesthetically. It connotes goodness that appears beautiful. According to Barclay, it is used in the Bible to describe the Temple, good fruit, fertile land, good seed sewn, fish caught, salt, wine, a generous measure, the Law, the name of Christ, and the word of God.

I think an important dimension is missing from our English versions of the Bible that simply call these things good. It seems that these things are also described as being a type of good that is wondrous and lovely.

In teaching and playing piano this week, I find myself focused on flow. Flow is good. It connects with life, movement, breath, and our listeners. A huge part of our performing involves maintaining an appropriate flow.

But along the path of that flow, we encounter things that are special. A harmonic event, for example, that catches our attention as something wondrous or a resolution that strikes us as lovely.

And so a program for performance springs from this word "kalos" - flow with specialness. In fact, when we focus on the flow, we engender a hearing of the music that brings those special moments to to the fore.

One of Chopin's Nocturnes sensitized me to these issues during a lesson this week. You can listen to Rubenstein playing it hear. The first section of this Nocturne is rather long and lacks contrast. So it needs a lot of flow (Chopin warned us by marking it "allegretto,") and the performer needs to be careful only to tak extra time at the most special moments, otherwise we lose a sense of movement, direction, phrase, and even of which things are special. Without attention to the piece's propulsion, a performance of it can easily devolve into a lovely but shapeless roll of musical wallpaper.

Working on the first movement of Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata also made me think a lot about flow. To play or hear the piece well is to have an exhilerating experince of momentum. Perhaps it's a lot like skiing. I don't know for sure, since I'm not a skier. But as you play the piece you have the sense of moving rapidly over a slick terrain, and sometimes, you even become airborn. And balance is keep on those sharp switchbacks. Listen for yourself: Solomon playing Waldstein I.

New Testament Words 2

The last two weeks I tried to tackle Barclay's chapter on the word "agape." The chapter includes other Greek words for love and explains why those other words could not be appropriated by the New Testament writers for the love of God and the love to which we are called by God: the other words were more related to involuntary feelings, connoted too much of an emphasis on warmth and passions, and were too limited to bear the weight and express the breadth of the love the writers sought to convey.

This agape love involves choice and action, and is an engagement of the whole being. It is, as Barclay puts it, a stance of "unquenchable goodwill."

This grand concept has profound implications for all that we do as artists and teachers around the piano. Piano playing itself is an engagement of the whole person, and the arts often tend towards an altruistic attitude of ever-refreshed goodwill.

In last week's piano pedagogy class, we explored theories of how learning happens. We also reflected upon our own good and bad experiences with teachers. We explored the necessity of sensitivity on the part of the teacher and the very negative power of criticism, especially in the early years of study. One student noted that her entire sense of self as a musician as well as her feelings about music making in any given period of her life seemed to depend almost entirely on her teacher's attitude towards her and the teacher's way of modeling a life in music.

As I taught private piano lessons these two weeks with a heightened regarding for the whole persons I was encountering and hoping to help develop, many doors seemed to open for my students and me.

With one student, I sensed a lack of calm, a diminished ability to quiet himself before a task. Instead of focusing on positive action, he was pouring valuable energy into creating anxiety about whether or not he would achieve the task at hand without messing up. We sought ways in which he could teach himself internal cues and judgement processes with greater intentionality so as to keep his mind on track in practice and performance. A lack of internal calm, by the way, seems typical of most of us, especially when we get alone with the piano.

Another student confessed the revelation that we are never learning "just piano" but that each discipline studied in the college setting connects with everything else.

With a couple of other students who were perhaps a little under-prepared, I pursued their interests and also used the lesson time to practice with them, leading them through a working method they can use on their own. One of these played for me a bit of a hymn in his own style. Then we analyzed his harmonization and voicing together and learned from each other terminology and concepts. This paved the way for better question asking on his part and a growing relationship between us.

In retrospect,  there were no tedious times in these weeks' lessons. It all felt pretty authentic to me and I was most pleased with the sense that valuable work was being done in every meeting.

Reflecting back on these experiences and the sharing in pedagogy class, it seems that all of those good learning theories can somehow be summed up in agape.

Two postscripts:

1. An idea for Christian piano instructors: while educators looking to relate well to the whole person might seek insight from I.Q. and personality tests, what if we approached our students more through spirituality? For example, it seems that practicing quiet or disciplined silence ourselves can, over time, serve as a catalyst for addressing the things that trouble our students' spirits. Another possibility - instead of using something like of Myers-Briggs, or just going on instinct, what about a spiritual gifts inventory as a starting point for understanding each student's unique musicality?

2. Teaching a more eclectic repertoire (which could be an agape-ish expression) can lead to some interesting juxtapositions that bring about interesting imagery, characterizations, and so forth. One student played Zez Confrey's Kitten on the Keys and Chopin's G Minor Prelude in the same lesson this week. Click here for Lincoln Mayorga talking about and playing "Kitten on the Keys" and click here for Dr. Walden Hughes playing the Chopin prelude.

I've never put these two pieces together in the same thought before, but it turns out that there are some technical similarities due to their layout on the keyboard. But the more interesting thing is the radical difference in affect between the two pieces despite the few technical similarities. Next to "Kitten on the Keys," the Chopin sounds more like Poe's "The Black Cat." 

New Testament Words 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently reading a book on New Testament words and seeking some meaningful and creative outcome as I take those words into my piano studio. The book is William Barclay's New Testament Words.

This week, I became more deeply aware of the words charisma and ekklesia, words for God's free gifts  and God's called assembly, the church. I also became acquainted with the words diatheke and eilikrineia.

Diatheke is word used of covenants but it connotes something more like a will in that it is entered into on the terms of one of the parties, not both. It occurs to me that the musical score is a little like this. Its author is usually beyond our reach, often deceased, so it is a will of sorts. It is ultimately some sort of expression of the composer's intentions regardless of my ability to discern or interpret them and whether or not I bring an agenda of my own to the enterprise. Perhaps this calls for an adjustment of my attitude to keep in mind the real person behind the notes I play and to make more room for their presence in my study and music making.

Eilikrineia is word for purity. It is accompanied by images of being shaken through a sieve and being brought out into the light to be judged.

In one lesson this week a student brought in Liszt's famous C-Sharp Minor Hungarian Rhapsody. The piece is in two large sections, the first of which sets the dramatic tone and introduces the materials explored in the other. The second section begins with a mysterious dance tune which Liszt varies kaleidoscopically and grows to monumental proportions. Having read of eilikrineia, it seemed to me that this little theme was a bit like a shiny object glimpsed in the dim light of a tent at market that is then brought out into the open to reveal its truly spectacular qualities under intense sunlight. Here's a link to a brilliant performance with a film of the musical score timed so you can follow it as you listen. The portion I am referencing begins at 4:38. Marc-Andre Hamelin playing Liszt 's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

On my own in the studio, eilikineia shed some light on the process of practicing. I'm practicing music from the Parthenia these days. The Parthenia is an anthology of English keyboard music compiled in 1611. I think it's the oldest stuff I've played on piano. At the beginning of the process, the structure and flow of the music was a bit of a mystery to me. These are not 18th century preludes and fugues. These are 17th century preludes and pavanes and galliards. Day by day, I practice them and try to hear them clearly. Over time, I have started to see how they are organized and have developed some intentions of my own about how to play the overlapping contrapuntal lines that fill these dance movements. I've also noticed that practicing William Byrd can be mildly addictive. Here's a link to a little something Stokowski did with one of these pieces a pavane, Earl of Salisbury.

In more general terms, the effort of disciplined practicing (for a sort of grown-up musician) is about shedding more and more light on one's technique and interpretive grasp, and the structure of the music itself.

Pianists and Other Friends

Strange fog and eerie sunlight this morning in Lakeland - it was like driving through a cloud, or a Turner painting. This afternoon, non-stop diagonal mist.

Feeling tired, I left school a little early. I saw a colleague in the parking lot who was doing the same. Now, with a comforting cup of tea in hand, I'm contemplating and resonating with all my middle-aged friends near and far who struggle with energy, health, beauracracy, family issues, anxiety, etc. on afternoons like this. Know I prayed for you today, friends.

Feeling scattered, it occurs to me how important a schedule can be in times like these. I have some time for practicing, composing, correspondence, study . . . but if I don't schedule when I will do them, I have a hard time settling down and really focusing.

The fall was a sketchy blogging time for me. I don't k now what happened to November. Maybe I should have scheduled blogging. But the spring semester should find me blogging about once a week regarding a new little project. In an effort to spiritually enliven my imagination and discipline when it comes to teaching piano lessons, I'm reading a book on biblical words and trying to find some connections between these words and what happens in my studio. I'll start reporting tomorrow.

Another topic (an idea I don't want to lose track of so I'm writing about it now) is a certain perspective on pianism that clicked for me over the Christmas break.

I've done a lot of work as utility pianist or pianist-on-call the last few years and reflecting on what that has done to my pianism led me to think of how pianists might fit into various classifications. Beware. Broad generalizations follow.

What do I mean by utility or pianist-on-call? I mean the keyboardist in a community (a church, school, etc.) who catches the loose ends. There's lots of piano work to be done in these institutions - a little musical theater coaching here, accompaniment for a viola student there, a choral anthem here, an orchestral piano part there, and so forth. It's fun to be needed, but the danger is this: you spend a lot of time playing music that is well within your abilities and doing so with little preparation. If this becomes your primary diet for several years, it will change who you are in ways you might not like.

In addition to the utility pianist, there is the concert pianist. For my own classification on this one occasion, I will define that in a very specific way. The concert pianist is about the concert, about performance.

Another possibility, which for want of a better term I will call the classical pianist, is the pianist whose focus is the poetry of piano playing. Of course this potry involves performance, and performance involves poetry. What I am noting is a difference in focus or degree. It seems to me that many pianists of what I am calling the classical type gravitate toward college jobs where their tendency toward reflective work is appreciated.

I used to be the concert pianist type. I was all about that magical, powerful moment in which the audience is affected. These days, I'm a little more of the classical type and seek to bring my audience and community some awareness of the beauty and tradition that I am trying to perpetuate and develop.

Then there is the jazz pianist who is very much a composer but also a performer.

And of course, there are all those hard-working musicians who use pianistic skills for specific tasks  which doen't necessarily require continuing advancement of those skills. This might include people like the school music teacher or the accompanist at church.

My descriptions should not be read as value judgements but as recognitions of dynamics, requirements ot different types of work, and differences of ever-evolvimg personalities.

I should go practice.  

Practicing

Yesterday, a piano student asked an excellent question:

How should one practice when it is a sporadic thing such as when one goes home to visit family during a holiday from school?

I have several answers and I need to take them to heart myself.

1. The problem might be mental. If you only have a few minutes here and there to practice, getting in practicing mode may be hard to do because of concentration issues. Start the day with a writing session of ten to fifteen minutes. Write down whatever is on your mind. This isn't journaling, it's mental house cleaning. Julia Cameron suggests this in The Artist's Way, and it's what broke my own years-long creative block about composing. (Mark Lackey, thank you for that book!)

2. Recognize that practicing is an extension of your "quiet time." Your quiet time helps you care of yourself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I almost always fair better in these areas when I've gotten some practice in.

3. Tell your family and friends you need to practice. You're likely to be the only one in your situation who will make sure you practice. Someone is pushing you to do almost everything else in life, but you're the only one who will see that the practicing gets done. Say "no" to something every day or every fews days so you develop the discipline of sacrificing at least a little for your art.

4. Remember that the you want to share from the core of your life through music, not from the periphery. You want to offer a good quality gift that reflects time and thought and even a little sacrifice, not something patched together in spare moments. Having a consistent routine as you approach a recital also builds a platform of stability you would not have otherwise. You want to play from that type of place so as to do right by your talent.

5. Perhaps you should rephrase the question one often gets "How many hours a day do you practice?" as "In how many of the hours of the day do you practice?" While establishing two or three hours in a row for focused work is great for playing from the core, practicing some during many hours of the day might dramatically alter your consciousness and help you really discover who you are as a pianist. What if practicing in this way became your normal pattern of being and your mind was somehow always working on your repertoire and technique and interpretation? Then, the feeling wouldn't be that of finding a few minutes to practice here and there. Instead, your perspective would be more like sneaking in a little non-practice every now and then. You might not be able to maintain this for a long time, but it's a good experiement and procedure for learning every now and then.

6. All of this talk about sacrifices and making music from the core of one's life speaks to me of memorization. Memorizing repertoire can be a way of getting a deeper engagement with a work, making it part of yourself, and being able to express the importance it has for you with greater urgency. Those like myself who don't feel compelled to memorize everything we play should beware of becoming complacent about our actual performances. I love Robert Weirich's brilliant idea that we are playing by heart meaning that we are putting our hearts into understanding and playing the music beautifully, not burning up all our time memorizing the music. The pitfall in adopting this superb idea is feeling enlightened and relieved but not doing the work of really interpreting fully and executing worthily. Memorized or not, that's what we need to achieve through practice: thorough muscianship expressed through our specific talents. How can that really be accomplished on a diet of sporadic engagement?

Christmas 2012

Inundated by press reports regarding the shootings in Connecticut, I realize that this particular holiday season will always be remembered because of this tragedy. So many friends in education and the arts are stunned and shaken.

Yesterday was Joy Sunday in the season of Advent. We attempted to remember the big cycle of the church year to which we relate that somehow provides a context for whatever events are happening on any given day in any given year. Trying to sing "Joy to the World" at this time seemed to be one of the deeper faith experiences of recent days. Two words from this Sunday resonate in my mind. My pastor, Tim Sizemore of Church in the Meadows, acknowledged the ongoing question that many ask in times of suffering: Where is God in all of this? Tim reminded us that God was exactly where God has been everyday - in the lives and presence of the teachers, administrators, and janitorial staff who were caring for those children day in and day out.

Another pastor, whose name and church I missed, was briefly interviewed on a Tampa television station. He stated "Sometimes, God does not give us the answers because God is the answer."

While my own faith helps me cope, I would also love to hear from people with other worldviews as to how they understand and deal with such events. Would that the mainstream pmedia could demonstrate a bit more E PLURIBUS UNUM spirit and interview leaders of other traditions for the good of our national culture.

Important Post (at least it seems important to me)

The new piano curriculum we're using at SEU organizes each class meeting as a meditation or a liturgy or a practice - choose your favorite word. The meditation follows a basic outline:

preparation

encounter

reflection

I've started using this as a way to organize the diverse things that happen in our worship services at Church in the Meadows. I'm also using the ordering to understand my own journey through days and weeks.

It's a very helpful way of analyzing one's musical life, as well. For example, consider what the event is you are to be playing. That's the encounter. Now, what preparation is appropriate for that encounter. What type of practicing do you need to do? What sort of physical arrangements need to be made: transportation of an instrument? best location of instrument? (Harpsichord needs to be close to the conductor. I'm learning!)

Then, when it's all over, reflection is very important, but easily neglected. You need time following the event to reflect, journal, and maybe to communicate with others about its aspects. I often fail to plan time for that follow-through.

Now, I must go do some follow-through. Then, some more preparation.

Duckworth

Sad news I just heard -

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/09/13/161093436/william-duckworth-an-innovative-voice-in-music-and-teaching-silenced-at-69

How to Play Chopin, also, maybe, How to Listen to Chopin

Here's everything you need to know about how to play Chopin. Not really, but it's a pretty good start.

1. Chopin loved opera, particularly opera of the bel canto variety. Listen to Joan Sutherland. Notice how each note sounds like a unique, beautifully-colored gem in a bejeweled tiara. Also, realize some notes are melodic and others are ornamental. Play that way.

2. Chopin was a master melodist and a master harmonist. Often, the masterful melodies depend on the masterful harmonies. But be sure to notice when the mastery is more melodic or more harmonic and respond accordingly.

3. Those masterful harmonic moments often amount to the effect of a lighting change on-stage. Learn about chiaroscuro in Rembrandt and notice how Chopin does this, too. Suddenly, the sun comes out, or a single intense ray brings hope to a dungeon. Just really register these things as you play, and they will be very effective. Mozart and Debussy do this, too.

4. Clouds have a silver lining and vice versa. The sad music is rarely wholly sad, and the happy music is never fully happy. Joy and sorrow, life and death, are constant companions in Chopin. It's a lot like Mahler. Read about Mahler 3 (or anything else by Mahler) to get the idea.

5. The handling of transitions creates charisma. In those tentative moments, the momentum of meter is not in the driver's seat. Your personal sensitivity is.

6. Look for rhetorical connections between the sections. For example, usually the sections of a Chopin Nocturne don't sound much alike, but they might make sense together because of some structure they both feature such as a parenthetical phrase at the end of a series of phrases.

7. At times, the music is more contrapuntal than you might expect. Don't forget that the left-hand part can be just as musical as the right. Sort of like playing Bach, you can almost take those left hands and perform them as their own free-standing pieces of music. Almost. With Bach, of course, you can actually do that with all the individual lines. 

There's more, but that will be another post - something about "Ode to the Western Wind."

Thank you to Veda Kaplinsky, Michael White, Ellen Mack, Wayne Connor, Joseph Machlis, and Richard Becker for teaching me these things, and also to my students for studying Bach, Chopin, and Debussy with me.

Dwelling in the House of the Lord

After last night's concert, I was feeling a little depressed about my playing. Many factors contribute to that feeling:

My hands are forty years old and don't always feel quite like they are twenty. (I've finally given up on 17.)

I've been busy professoring for years which means I haven't been practicing so much.

My relationship with the instrument and my ability to control it seem to have eroded a bit as the collateral of increasingly distant years of somewhat consistent practice has worn down.

I did lots of different things on a single concert which is often a way to feel bad about something.

Also, there were flashes of what I imagine I would be like if I had consistently practiced for years and had truly set performing as my primary goal. There were moments when the memory and technique and musical impulse were so clear that I could play with abandon and start to discover the pianist that's deep down inside of me. I really like it when that guy appears, but then I'm sad since I'm not sure how to keep him around

etc.

But after sorting through all those things and recognizing that the performance was pretty good considering the big picture, there's still a little voice, an insinuating whisper, that suggests that my efforts are not good enough, that I'm an outsider, a fraud.

I just happen to know that I'm not an outsider or a fraud in this particular world of music. And my efforts usually seem to have been pretty good.

I don't know where that whisper  came from. I don't think my parents put it there. Maybe folks who did bad stuff to our family contributed. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how it came to me. I have a whisper and so do a lot of other folks.

Come to think of it, that whisper is so insidious, so undermining, so joy-robbing, that its source must be the Deceiver, even if it did make its way to me through human channels.

I spoke of these experiences with one of my classes today and we talked about what maybe ought to be as opposed to what often is.

As people and musicians, we're on a pilgrimage which means we left somewhere to start with. But we always carry some of home with is on our journey, as well.

So what exactly am I and where did I leave? I don't think I'm just this body, or just a concept of this physical brain of mine. No, I think I am somebody, an identity, a person, a being with a design, a soul, a spirit.

And what is my home? Who has extended hospitality so I'll have a place to be and needs met? I think God is that host. I dwell in a body God has provided, and it's furnished with some talents. Plus, I've been provided time and education for developing them. Really, I've already been blessed through these basic/extraodinary provisions of human existence. Living out this design with intentionality and awareness, I think I can be at home anywhere in this world.

This means, among other things, that my musical impulses are a good gift. The way my hands find to deal with the instrument is okay. I don't need do a dozen different things to be like someone else to not be a fraud. (It sounds stunningly obvious when I put it that way.) Being me is good. In fact, it's really the thing I should be doing. Only being  me will be good enough.

So when I go before an audience,  the fact is that I am extending and expanding the blessing that comes to me daily through God's hospitality. I bet it's the case that the more me I am, the more blessing is expanded.

Indeed, last night I was touched by sweet students who care about what I do; and by friends, church members, and in-laws who have hearts to show up and then appreciate piano-playing; and a lovely wife who tells me I am a good pianist. These things meant something to me because the musical experience had meant something to each of these people. That's the expansion of the blessing, the meaning of the offering, the reason we call talent a "gift."

So I think the starting point for being human and for being musicians ought to be that as we are made in God's image, we are good. We've been blessed with that image and with all the mysteries that bearing it entails.

And to bless our students with an accurate view of their specialness, we must begin with recognizing and celebrating the good that God has placed in this house for them.





 

Test Pilot

In memory of Neil Armstrong

Today, I presented a little lecture recital on Gottschalk for our departmental recital. As part of this I shared the idea that playing in departmental recital is like being a test pilot.

A little helpful background for those who haven't been music majors before: the process of preparing to perform music, at least the process followed in an academic setting, involves these three stages.

1. Work one-on-one with your primary applied teacher to learn the music, to get some idea of how to interpret it, and to develop disciplines to support your performance.

2. Practice performing for peers (peers who study with the same teacher) in studio class.

3. Performance for a larger group of peers in departmental recital.

As you can see, these steps become progressively more public. The result of this is that students often feel a lot of pressure to play or sing well on the departmental recital.

Pressure or not, the fact is that some event has to be the first time you go public with your performance of each work in your repertoire. A test flight must happen sometime and somewhere. That's what departmental recital is for. You take your performance up and it might work great, or your psyche might pull apart up in the air. But at the very least, the instrument isn't actually going to blow up and your life is not really in danger, although you might go into fight, flight, or freeze-mode just for the heck of it!

Another comforting thing about this test flight (That last paragraph was comforting. Music students, you'll want to re-read it if you didn't catch the comforting part.) is that that this test flight takes place in the company of many other test pilots. Everyone present has the same fear of blacking out and making crash landings. It can be the most empathetic of audiences.

While navigating the performance experience, I am often reminded that the business of musical performance seems to demand a presentation that appears whole and a presenter who comes across as self-assured and as one who has arrived. But the art of performing music requires that we be on a quest involving growth and vulnerability. On this quest, we learn the same things over and over again. We become exhaustingly familiar with our specific issues. And I think it is best to think of these as issues and not problems. They are the things that make us who we are. And we must be ourselves so that others can be themselves. I think of my mentors who were clearly being their own unique selves. Without them being exactly who they were, I could not have found the way to be who I am, which is someone quite different from who they are.

Some of my issues I was reminded of in my recent departmental recital performance:
too much movement, physical tension, and general lack of focus on fundamentals of musicianship in performance. I'm trusting that somehow, in the big scheme of things, in some significantly human way, in the divine design, that it is important and worthwhile for me to have and deal with these issues.

A pianist is always somewhere in the process of learning music and bringing it to the public. Each performance is a step in a life-long journey that keeps you alive and moving artistically. Knowing these steps, making the journey- these are the core, motivation, and discipline of our musical lives.  

New Record Set?

I started this post back in the spring, and it has lingered, incomplete, forming a psychological blog block for me for months. Today, I will finally finish and publish it so I can get back to a more consistent schedule of blogging about new stuff.

From roughly 9 to 10 o'clock this morning was an exciting time at Southeastern University. Not many people were in on the excitement, but Dr. Tindall and I got to coordinate and observe it. Two strong young men (not us) moved sixteen pianos between various rooms, several buildings, and on and off of a truck. I really don't know for sure, but it seems like it could be some sort of record. No doubt many more instruments have been unloaded into a warehouse in less time before, but the various placements and the territory covered seem to make our situation a little unique.

Also, it was a big day in that such an event hasn't happened in a number of years here. According to Dr. Tindall, the last time this many pianos were moved was when the department of music first started using the Spence building.

It has been a fun, if sometimes nervous, experience, and one full of learning. For those with an interest in the lives of college music professors, administration, or puzzles, the following might be a little intriguing.

In spite of occasional misperceptions in the practice rooms, schools generally do have plans for the maintenance and updating of their instruments and other equipment! As part of our plan, three new uprights came to our campus today. One goal of this current move was to be sure all the practice rooms that music majors regularly use would have either a grand, or an upright of the most recent generation. There appear to be three generations of uprights on our campus. There are some good Yamahas that seem to be no older than ten years, and maybe only five years or so. Then there are the middle-aged pianos which are still pretty good but are showing signs of years of numerous hours of daily use. And there are the really old uprights that need to go.

So part of the puzzle is getting the old pianos out (and earning some credit for future purchases with the company that took them) and then relocating the middle-aged pianos in a way that makes good sense. Several of these went to our modular classrooms. This provided some new rehearsal space that is available to all students, not just music majors, and it allowed us to get a better piano into a room that is used for aural theory classes.

One of the middle-aged pianos that was moved came from a room that also had a grand in it. We swapped a newer generation upright into there so that we could maintain one practice room with two pianos. We already had two grands in the piano lab which can be used for two-piano rehearsals as well.

An old grand that wasn't ideal for lots of piano major practice was discovered to be a pretty good instrument, though, and we moved it into a room that had housed a not-so-hot upright. That room may become available for some choral sectionals, and a grand could be better for that than an upright.

In addition, one little old grand that is more of a desk than a piano at this point was removed from a classroom and replaced by an okay upright. That particular grand was rather old and it seems that its designers had made a bunch of alterations to the ways pianos are usually designed, all of which made that particular instrument worse!

Postscript:

Since I wrote the above, a couple more new pianos arrived requiring more re-arranging, plus, the old grand that was pretty good was going to require too much rebuilding, so it has been replaced with an upright.

In addition, we switched the piano in the chapel with one from the piano lab. The old chapel piano was slightly bigger, but the piano lab piano is more brilliant, and that is important for playing in the chapel's acoustic. Figuring out if that move would work gave me an idea for a future post: Tools of the Piano Professor's Trade. In this case, it's a tape measure. I wouldn't have imagined such an item would be part of my profession when I was studying in conservatory. But knowing the precise sizes of pianos for negotatiating spaces during moves, and determining the comparative sizes of instruments that are not in the same room are sometimes essentials of the job!

After the last series of moves, I put together my own inventory of serial numbers and piano conditions which I will update yearly. That data can be used in figuring out future plans.

Very important: the company that did all of this moving was superb. The men working tirelessly, quickly, carefully, and with a very good spirit. A super heart-felt thank you to Piano Distributors.

40

40:

The number of days the Israelites spied out the promised land
The number of years they spent in the wilderness
The number of days Jesus was tempted in the desert

And, less significant but important to me,
the age I'm about to turn.


Night before last, Kathy and Wesly took me to a beautiful concert at Bok Tower Gardens to commemorate my 40th birthday. This made me think of the power of hearing musical performances and encountering specific works at the time of important events in one's life. In this regard, I often think of hearing Beethoven F Major Quartet, Op. 135 at the Garth Newel Festival near Warm Springs, VA, not long after my mother died.

As many of you know, my mom spent three months in intensive care before she passed on. She was in a hospital near the school where I was working, so I was able to spend a lot of time with her during those months. Following the funeral and the burial in Durham, NC, Kathy arranged for us to spend a few days in Warm Springs before returning to Richmond. So for me, the quartet and the music making I experienced then became a profound part of my grief, acceptance, and whatever healing has come or will come. Interestingly, I have not continued to listen to the quartet a whole lot in the years since, but it persists somehow as a very present part of the experience in my psyche.

And now I turn to another right of passage - moving from 39 to 40! I think I've been preparing for it for a year. After all, 39 is strikingly closer to 40 than any other age I've been.

Two posts about 39:
http://hulinmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/539-am.html
http://hulinmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/birthday.html


The concert at Bok Tower, "Curtis on Tour 2012," was very beautiful. The performers were the school's president, violist Roberto Diaz; a guitar faculty member, Jason Vieaux; and two students, Nadir Kashimov and Eric Han, violin and cello, respectively.

The smallish audience filled the intimate venue, and most of us sat around little tables. I enjoyed having a table to lean on. I'm aging fast.

I had been in the space before, but had not given the beams and rafters much thought. On this occasion, I noticed them, and they gave me a sense of being in a performance shed on a summer night in Norfolk or at Brevard. A lovely backdrop behind the small stage added to the mood. It was a brooding nocturnal image of the hills and the tower lit by an enormous moon on a bank of clouds.

Incidentally, this concert was an extremely good value. Tickets were $25 apiece and the level of playing was extremely high.

First on the concert was a transcription of Piazzolla's "Oblivion." Here we learned that Mr. Vieaux has really practiced his scales and can employ his technique with great expression and intensity.

Next was Kodaly's duo for violin and cello. The young musicians were incredibly in-sync and generated a huge amount of good sound with apparent ease. The Duo is a rich masterpiece, a "written-out improvisation," as the cellist put it. He went on to say it sounds out of control, but it's actually quite in control. I liked that statement. It let us know not to be anxious, sort of like letting the folks on the amusement park ride know it is safe, even though it's designed to feel dangerous. For me, though, the richness of this work comes from the moments of distilled folkiness that Kodaly sets with such beauty and with such a memorable quality.

After intermission, during which I was please to bump into one of my SEU students, we heard a wonderful new work by a Curtis graduate, composer Tian Zhou. It was an original and convincing amalgam of Asian and western elements. For example, the work unfolds what feel like rows that are actually Chinese-sounding collections: one of many examples of the rhetoric of the concert hall enacted with sounds of the East. The guitar also performed a sparkling role with sudden cascades and small fountains of notes giving depth and detail to the musical scene.

Up to this point, the playing had been very good, and it would have been a terrific and worthwhile experience even if the concert had not gone any further. But the crowning music-making of the evening was still to come.

Mr. Diaz came returned to the stage to perform the more soloistic viola part for Paganini's last quartet. Really, in terms of virtuosic impact, it's a pretty souped-up quartet all around. But Mr. Diaz's performance was stellar. Obviously, all four men have mastered their instruments, but Mr. Diaz brought a moving musicality and maturity that made the night even more of an event. His phrasing was heart-felt and profound, also varied but always grounded in the music's architecture. He was deeply expressive without striving to impress us with his expressiveness. The way he played everything he played was so masterful that I feel like I know the work much better than I would have if I heard some other performance of it. Indeed, I can remember much of his phrasing, and I believce I will continue to, to some extent. This a great example of a musician rising to the level of artist - that's the goal.

Thank you all for making my fortieth just right.

Check

Last night I played my first gig with my colleague Ed Bryant. It took place at a Free Methodist camp (for the most part a retirement community) near Lakeland. The evening started with a pot-luck dinner for 200+ people. Our table enjoyed meatloaf, jello salads, hash brown casserole, and peanut butter brownies. After the meal, Ed performed several musical theater selections and I played some Gershwin and Piazzolla. This was the first time I've performed Piazzolla.

The evening's concert instrument was an electronic keyboard, and that's what I find myself playing on more and more these days. Often, folks will describe what they have as a piano, but in reality, it turns out to be a keyboard.

Since I wasn't trained to perform on these instruments, there is a bit of a learning curve for me and, I would imagine, for most classical pianists. It reminds me of the learning curve with learning to play the pipe organ. A great deal of initial anxiety comes from not really knowing all the things that could go wrong. At the piano, I've known those things for years and feel prepared to deal with a lot of them without a lot of conscious consideration.

To make a long story short, last night's keyboard was transposing. Several times during the performance, I thought certain chords or low vocal lines sounded a little lower than usual, but I didn't explore whether the instrument was set to transpose in mid-performance. I need to add "check to make sure the instrument isn't transposing" to my pre-performance check-list.

Such an occurrence makes you feel pretty silly and un-professional. On the other hand, I was told that I "got a lot of music out of that instrument" which was quite encouraging. It's very deflating to show up expecting a piano and discover a different sort of instrument. But I'm learning not to complain and to strive, instead, to do the most I can with what's there, just like when I show up to play a broken down old spinet. I accepted that experience long ago.

Repertoire seems key. The music that sounds great on a grand (for example, Ravel's Alborada) may not work so well on a spinet or upright (better for ragtime) and a keyboard needs something else, too. Maybe we should teach our students with more of an eye to the various instruments they will play - as well as the various architectures in which they find these and the types of occasions for which their abilities will be needed - and not just focus on building a well-rounded "classical" repertoire.