Latest Romantic Music Features @ Latest Romantic Music Features @ <a href="/features/feed"></a> Composer Dilemmas: Revision <p>In this series titled "Composer Dilemmas," I would like to relfect on issues in the process of composition. How deterministic will this piece be, performance-wise? Once 'finished,' does it remain so? How will the scale of the composition, or the forces for which it calls, affect the final experience? These issues, though less discussed in music courses, are much more fundamental than questions such as "should I write a tonal or atonal piece?"</p> <p><strong>Revision</strong></p> <p>One dilemma I often think about is revision. Certainly in the process of writing a piece, a composer will work through several drafts. However, once the work is premiered, and especially after it (hopefully) enjoys multiple further performances, may it be revised? If revised, does it become a second work - "version B," "version 2.0"?</p> <p>The amount of revision may influence our answers to this question. Some minor editorial revisions - begin a crescendo one bar earlier, change a passages articulation from marcato to staccato - may deserve only a footnote, since changes as subtle as these occur from performance to performance naturally. Major revisions - reorchestration from large orchestra to chamber orchestra, jettisoning entire sections - seem to call for a new name of some sort.</p> <p>Or does the revised version supplant the original?</p> <p>An example from popular culture is the <em>Star Wars</em> films. When George Lucas decided to tinker with his series nearly 20 years after its creation, there was much interest and much criticism. Lucas seems to consider the <em>Special Editions</em> his definitive versions, while many fans cling to the originals, viewing the <em>Special Editions</em> as sacrelige at worst and novelties at best.</p> <p>An episode of <em>South Park</em> lampooned Lucas's obsession with revising his films, but brought up a very interesting point: once they were released, the original films became part of the public consciousness, and ceased to belong solely to Lucas. The originals remain 'definitive,' even if the creator believes his revisions to be better.</p> <p>So, imagine if Beethoven were alive this century. Say he wrote his <em>Fifth Symphony</em> in 1940 and it became as wildly popular as it is today. In the 1960s he hears a distorted electric guitar and decides that it is the timbre he was really searching for in the opening of the work. He revises the piece as more of a concerto for guitar and orchestra - all of the notes remain the same, but the guitar takes over some of the parts. Beethoven considers his new version the 'true' version, while the public, used to his original, disagrees. Who is right?</p> Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:51:32 +0000 On Performing: How to be Real <p>Yesterday I found this column by composer/writer <a href=""><strong>Greg Sandow</strong></a>, from 2002. It reflects many of my own feelings on the performance of classical music. <a href=""><strong>Here is a link to the original, </strong></a>but I am reposting it for your convenience.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>New music concerts are often informal, especially if we compare them to more normal&mdash;or, if you like, stuffier, more ritualized, even constipated&mdash;mainstream classical events. This especially interests me because I teach a graduate course at <a href="">Juilliard</a>, called "Classical Music in an Age of Pop," a course about the future of the field, which attracts students who wish that concerts were livelier, that they could express themselves more, and that they'd get more reaction from their audience.</p> <p>So often I'll tell them about new music events I've been at. After I heard <a href="">Sarah Cahill</a> play new piano music at <a href="">Galapagos</a>, in <a href="">Williamsburg</a>, I told my class about the space, which was a large room attached to a bar. Those of us in her audience sat at tables, which felt much more friendly and comfortable than sitting in rows in a concert hall. I knew a lot of people there, and I loved sitting with some of them in a little group, or, come to think of it, two little groups, since I talked to one friend at my own table, and to another sitting right on my left at another one. I'd even placed my chair so I could do just that, something that could never happen in a concert hall. Plus, we could go out to the bar, and bring back drinks. That's <em>very </em>far from classical music; it's positively civilized.</p> <p>At this point, I&mdash;or you&mdash;could say, well, so what, since drinking at tables wouldn't exactly be surprising if we were hearing jazz, or folksingers, or singer-songwriters, or African bands. Or, for that matter, if we were hearing new music at <a href="">Joe's Pub</a>, the cabaret room at the <a href="">Public Theater</a>, or at the <a href="">BAMcaf&eacute;</a> at <a href="">BAM</a>.</p> <p>They even have tables at the <a href=";amp;area=pop">Boston Pops</a>. So why make a fuss about Galapagos? First because this wasn't the Boston Pops, or even folk music, but instead, musically speaking, a serious classical event. By that I mean that Cahill played sober music; you'd never, just for instance, call the reticence&mdash;with chords and melodic lines that moved only within narrow boundaries&mdash;of <a href="">Kyle Gann</a>'s <em>Time Does Not Exist </em>a concession of any kind to informality or entertainment. Nor could you call <em>Among Red Mountains</em>, by <a href="">John Luther Adams</a>, in any way relaxed, since all of it was monumentally loud. It sounded, as its name might imply, like an enormous rock formation turned into sound.</p> <p>So the moral here&mdash;especially for classical music purists&mdash;is that sober music, and even severe music, can work in an informal setting. (Historically, that shouldn't be a surprise. <a href="">Schubert</a>'s <a href="">songs</a>, to give just one example, were first performed informally.) Nothing about the room stopped us from listening, not even spills of music from the bar. Those, I found, intruded only between pieces, and stopped mattering once the music started up again.</p> <p>And that, if I might digress, reminded me of a very fine concert by the <a href="">New Millennium Ensemble</a> that I heard one Saturday night not long ago at <a href="">Greenwich House</a>. The comfortably tiny Greenwich House concert hall is in the <a href="">Village</a>, not far from busy Seventh Avenue, which on a Saturday night of course was roaring. The street noise got inside the concert, but I'd swear I didn't notice. That wasn't a surprise during <a href="">C. Bryan Rulon</a>'s <em>MessMix Express</em>, which is designed to be, among other things, a noisy romp (and had the players grinning when a gonzo dance beat jumped into the mix; I'd heard them play the piece before, at one of last year's <a href="">MATA</a> concerts, and, quite apart from loving the piece itself, I love their delight in it).</p> <p>But the way street sounds vanished (at least from my attention) during <a href="">Lou Harrison</a>'s <em>Concerto #1 for Flute and Percussion </em>was pretty striking. My ears and mind were straining toward the music, like plants to sunlight, loving the dance between the percussion and the flute (the piece is just for solo players, in this case <a href="">John Ferrari</a> and <a href="">Tara Helen O'Connor</a>, both rhythmic, poised, and relaxed), the two parts locked together by sheer magic, while seeming independent. The piece wasn't loud enough to drown out the buzzing of a fly, but I'd swear I didn't hear a single car horn. Only when O'Connor, joined by two recorded versions of herself, played <a href="">Morton Feldman</a>'s <em>Trio for Flutes </em>did I notice the street, and that was because Feldman, as he always does, brought the silence behind the sounds alive, making me alert to anything I heard, even things outside his piece.</p> <p>But back to Galapagos. Sarah Cahill also talked to us. She's not, it seemed to me, a naturally talkative performer; she wasn't chatty or relaxed. But still she talked about the music&mdash;because, I'll guess, she was committed to it&mdash;even if she mostly only spoke some program notes. That made her reticence real for us, and therefore made her real, too, as something more than a pianist, even if that hadn't been her intention.</p> <p>And there was one marvelous moment. Cahill played a typically engrossing <a href="">Ingram Marshall</a> piece, <em>Authentic Presence</em>. She also read his comments on it, which included one phrase from an eastern religious text, something mildly enigmatic, but not, I would have thought, impenetrable in a culture where eastern religion has even been trendy. It stopped Cahill dead. "What does that mean?" she asked, with utter baffled honesty, turning toward Ingram in the audience. With perfect timing he said, "It means what it says" (the simplest and most truthful of all possible answers). For that one brief moment, the concert became a conversation, a friendly gathering that drew us all together. (Though I'll note two problems. Cahill played with the lid of her piano all the way up, which in the small space made everything loud; John's piece, for that reason, didn't seem as powerfully extreme as it should have. Nor did Cahill's touch ever seem gentle, in any of the music she played; that, too, made everything seem loud.)</p> <p>Two more concerts to tell my students about: the <a href="">Bang On A Can All-Stars</a> and <a href="">eighth blackbird</a> (their name gets written all in small letters; too mannered, if you ask me), both at <a href="">Tully Hall</a>.</p> <p>The All-Stars, of course, are wonderfully engaging, and seem completely, overwhelmingly themselves. They dissent&mdash;implicitly at least; I'd like to think they've never needed to discuss this&mdash;from two orthodoxies regarding dress. The first, the older one, says that classical musicians should dress formally. Well, clearly the All-Stars don't do that. But the newer orthodoxy says that while it's fine to be relaxed, you ought to make a good, professional impression by looking spiffy and (if you're an ensemble) looking consistent.</p> <p>Thankfully, the All-Stars don't do that either. They come on stage, as far as I can see, looking however each member would like to look. <a href="">Evan Ziporyn</a>, the clarinetist, seemed comfortable; cellist <a href="">Wendy Sutter</a> glittered; guitarist <a href="">Mark Stewart</a> wore loud (but oddly muted) sloppy colors anybody else would have said didn't match. None of which mattered, except, again, that all of it showed that everyone was comfortable. The group then slammed into their program with their usual drop-dead virtuoso chops, especially rhythmic chops, something not too common in the classical world.</p> <p>Though I guess I should insert a disclaimer here. Do the All-Stars&mdash;or any other people in Bang On A Can&mdash;think of themselves as part of classical music? Clearly <a href="">the three Bang On A Can composers</a> began there; they were composition students at <a href="">a well-known music school</a>, and started the group because they didn't like the way new music organized itself. But then they promoted their first concerts to a downtown arts audience that doesn't identify itself with classical music. "That's who <em>we </em>are," a Bang On A Can administrator once said to me. And Mark Stewart, in his <a href="">bio</a> on the <a href="">Bang On A Can website</a>, says he makes his living "playing and writing popular music, semi-popular music and unpopular music." Who cares whether any of it might be labeled, ugh, classical? Maybe the best way to resolve this taxonomical conundrum&mdash;and make it more useful than merely a word game&mdash;would be to say that Bang On A Can is everything I wish all classical music was, but doesn't bow towards anything classical music currently is.</p> <p>Ziporyn introduced the members of the group, pop-band style (something I've also seen the sharp new music string quartet <a href="">Ethel</a> do) and also spoke about every piece on the concert, coming off as a friendly and relaxed MC. I've seen a Tully All-Stars concert so excite an uptown arts type that she ran to the CD table afterwards, to snap up everything on sale. I'm not sure this concert would have done that, but then Bang On A Can's success very happily doesn't depend on my taste. The piece I really liked was <a href="">Scott Johnson</a>'s <em>The Illusion of Guidance</em>, which, like so much of Scott's music, dances in a fascinating world where thoughts get complex, and rock and R&amp;B rhythms subtly jump around. There's sometimes a contradiction there, when straight classical ensembles play these pieces, because they can't get the rhythms right. But that's one reason why the Bang On A Can performance was so invigorating; they're at home on both sides of what shouldn't be a fence.</p> <p>What didn't work so well, at least for me, was the final entry on the program, a set of <a href="">Burmese</a>-Western hybrid pieces by <a href="">Kyaw Kyaw Naing</a>, a master of the Burmese <em><a href="">pat waing</a></em>, a set of tuned drums arrayed in a half-circle behind a sculptural&mdash;almost architectural, as if the wall of the drums were on a grand but miniature building&mdash;facade. This took the All-Stars very far from classical music (assuming that matters), but also uncomfortably close to clich&eacute;.</p> <p>And that, I think, was due to differences between Burmese and Western music, which I'm not qualified to analyze, or at least not in depth. But when Naing played by himself, everything seemed right, with the pitches (not quite, or so I thought, tuned for western ears) supporting the drive and sparkle of the rhythm. Add western instruments, as the All-Stars and some guests did, and the rhythms, still exhilarating, took on an added edge of challenge (because, as Ziporyn explained, they're far from easy). But the pitches&mdash;now tuned, at least in the western instruments, to familiar western scales&mdash;now emerged as storytellers in their own right, unfortunately telling stories far too familiar from music in the west. If Naing played music that leaped upward, outlining the pitches of a triad, it sounded fun and fresh. When the All-Stars did it, they sounded gaudy, because the triad seemed to sing out more. That was especially true when guest violinist <a href="">Todd Reynolds</a> (from Ethel) played triads; not that he tried in any way to milk them, but the sound of the violin is naturally juicy, especially next to Burmese drums, and, unless the pitches bend away from western intonation, also naturally western. The effect, unintentionally, was like putting <a href="">Mary Martin</a>, doing "<a href="">I'm as Corny as Kansas in August</a>," next to right next to <a href="">folk singers from Bulgaria</a>.</p> <p>Not that the musicians weren't completely sincere, and also excited about what they were going. eighth blackbird, by comparison, didn't seem so agreeable. I wanted to like their concert, but I didn't, except for the beginning, where they played pieces by the <a href="">Minimum Security Composers Collective</a>, melding four short works into a single pointed, individual (and informal) statement that reminded me of Bang On A Can, but with its own quite separate voice.</p> <p>After that came the damnedest tribute to classical tradition&mdash;the world premiere of <a href="">George Perle</a>'s <em>Nine Movements, </em>written for the group. I'm not going to say I don't like Perle's work, because it's beautifully written, concise and elegant, without a note or gesture wasted, but it's also constrained, without a note or gesture that speaks with any force. For me, that makes it academic music. You can understand that in the best possible sense, since Perle's academy sounds like a refuge for solid workmanship, a place where every detail gets respect. But the protecting walls also serve to keep the music isolated, so it never steps outside itself.</p> <p>What amazed me, though, was that group, intentionally or not, put Perle above the other music that they played, or at least they talked about him that way. They introduced every piece, speaking from the stage, and when they came to Perle, they told us, in tones of deep respect, how honored they were to have him write for them. Not that Perle doesn't deserve respect, as a solid professional, and also (I mean this in the most sincere, old-fashioned way) as an older man. But do they think he stands on some great, high pinnacle of art? I couldn't tell. They could just as well, to judge from how they sounded, be echoing ideas that other people have.</p> <p>But at least they sounded human. Elsewhere in their program, they spoke affectedly, announcing, for instance, the Collective's four-headed works in a kind of contrapuntal singsong. For some people, that may have seemed artistic, but to me it just seemed mannered, and also a little flat, as if the members of the group, having in effect decided <em>not </em>to be themselves, hadn't gone far enough toward the opposite extreme, where they'd manufacture gloriously artificial (and, of course, theatrical) personae. That would have helped them in the piece that followed Perle, a fluffy pastry by <a href="">Aaron Jay Kernis</a>, all about music, food, and attitude, which in the end added up to nothing much, even with narration by the hyperactive <a href="">Food Network</a> chef <a href=",3439,,00.html">Mario Batali</a>. The whole thing seemed pretty pointless, unless you find yourself grinning with delight when you recognize, among many other fairly obvious musical quotations, two notes from <a href="">Debussy</a>'s <em><a href="">Clair de lune</a> </em>sneaking in, very pleased with themselves at the end of one movement (which, to be fair, did seem to make many members of the audience laugh with appreciation). The eighth blackbird people really got into this piece, I have to say, singing, speaking, and even barking, as the score tells them to, with all the animation so strangely missing when they spoke at any other time.</p> <p>They finished the concert with a 40-minute wasteland, a huge floppy spiritual piece by a student composer who can't yet yoke his thoughts together. Still, it was nice to see them go to bat, in their <a href="">Lincoln Center</a> debut, for a composer with no developed reputation, simply because they evidently believed in him. That (apart from the piece itself) is something to admire, and so is the way they try, at least, to do something livelier than what normally happens in the concert hall.</p> <p>Which leaves me with one last thought. What happens when this new-music informality spreads to older music? I've said that I have students who want classical concerts to be looser&mdash;more communicative, more like conversations, more personally expressive. But it's important to understand that they don't want this just for new music, or, in fact, even mainly for new music. They want it for <a href="">Beethoven</a>.</p> <p>The odds would seem to be against them. You approach a new piece&mdash;written, maybe, by a composer wearing sneakers and a T-shirt, with her nails polished green&mdash;with relaxed expectations. You don't know what it's going to be; it reveals itself as you play it. Beethoven can never seem so innocent; he's not just himself, but also, unavoidably, a statue of himself, because we carry statue images of him around with us. How can we learn to play him without the ritual of the concert hall?</p> <p>That's a question I've bumped around for years. There's the postmodern approach, where you figure out what the music means now, and emphasize the parts of it that might convey that meaning. The late <a href="">Giuseppe Sinopoli</a> did that, when he first got famous as a conductor, with sometimes touching and sometimes odd results; he'd blast, for instance, the piccolos and basses in a <a href="">Verdi</a> <a href="">opera</a>, to recreate the edgy sound of Verdi's orchestra. That was interesting, but didn't register as quite spontaneous.</p> <p>And then there's the <a href="">early music approach</a>, where you try to figure out what performers in the composer's time would do, and of course what instruments they used, which leads you into one usually unexamined contradiction&mdash;those performers, unlike you, didn't have to learn all that stuff, and so could approach the music far more directly than you ever could. Again, this isn't quite a recipe for the kind of spontaneous performance I find in new music (unless, perhaps, you're <a href="">Ren&eacute; Jacobs</a>, and, as he does on a delectable <a href="">Harmonia Mundi</a> <a href="">recording</a>, you play <a href="">Mozart</a>'s <em><a href="">Cosi fan tutte</a> </em>on period instruments but with your own kind of romantic phrasing, freely admitting that Mozart would probably object).</p> <p>The only satisfying answer I've found goes like this: Play new music most of the time, then see what happens when you try something old. Or, to put it differently, unlearn the classical approach by putting it aside, because new music doesn't want or need it. Then return to classical works when new music seems the norm to you&mdash;with no idea what the result will be. That, if you ask me, would give a fabulous jolt to the standard classical repertoire&mdash;a jolt, perhaps, of reality.</p> <p>Which is yet another good reason why most of the classical music we play should be new.</p> <p>-Greg Sandow, 2002</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Videos: Sarah Cahill plays Dane Rudhyar, NewsHour profile of Bang on a Can, profile of eighth blackbird</p> Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:42:22 +0000 In Brief: Nine Beet Stretch <p><a href=""><strong>Nine Beet Stretch</strong></a> is a piece by sound artist Leif Inge, which takes a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and stretches it from its normal length of one hour to a length of 24 hours. There is no pitch distortion, so you hear the timbres and harmonies of the piece at a glacial pace. It ends up being more of an ambient installation. To the right of this post is an excerpt from the opening (it takes awhile to start up - be patient!), and below is a video of the "real time" original version (note: not the same recording).</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>You can also stream the entire piece <a href=""><strong>here</strong></a>. Enjoy!</p> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:40:46 +0000 Archives: Petrucci Music Library <p>There are many places on the web where you can download free pdf's of sheet music, but <a href=""><strong>The Petrucci Music Library</strong></a>, formerly known as the International Music Score Library Project, is one of the most extensive and well-organized. The site is currently boasting over 43,000 scores, representing over 19,000 works by over 2,500 composers.</p> <p>The Wiki-style site is very useful, especially if you are studying common-practice era music. It is all public domain, so you won't find stuff by modern composers here, unless they have uploaded it themselves.</p> <p>Couple this with the <a href=""><strong>Naxos Music Library</strong></a>, as mentioned in <a href=""><strong>Alen's previous post</strong></a>, and you can have a score-study field day!</p> Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:27:11 +0000 In Brief: What to Read When Awake <p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><img class="blog_item_image_small" src="/uploads/images/0018/0581/Frosted_Bowl_lightbox.jpg?1258168857" /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Notes on music, by Alex Ross (</span><a href=""><span>link</span></a><span>)</span></span></p> <p><span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Books and a dormant blog by the music critic of <em>The New Yorker </em><em><span>(<a href=""><span><span>link</span></span></a>)</span></em></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><em></em></span></span></p> </span></p> <p><span><span><em><span> <p class="MsoNormal">I&rsquo;ll be honest: I worship the ground that Mr. Ross walks on. I can only aspire to be anywhere near as good a writer as he is.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>It is so rare to read a critic that not only has great empathy for what he writes, but does so in such an unassuming manner, with intelligence, wit and depth. His critically acclaimed blog <em>The Rest is Noise</em> (now moved to The New Yorker&rsquo;s website as <em>Unquiet Thoughts</em>), delved not just into the well-worn paths of the traditional repertoire, but gave fair accounts of contemporary Art music as well.<span>&nbsp; </span>It is difficult to find contemporary writers who are sympathetic to the creation of often difficult, and rarely heard, music. His writing speaks to the truth that all composers wish to relay: the truth that <em>all</em> Art aspires to convey the desires, mind and consciousness of the artist.<span>&nbsp; </span></span></p> </span></em></span> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> </span> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:20:08 +0000 Media Exhibit: Door Number Two <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span><img class="blog_item_image_small" src="/uploads/images/0017/4776/Hard_Frost_lightbox.jpg?1256960083" /></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>Who is to say what prize hides behind this door&mdash;envelope, please!</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>These are websites I follow on a regular basis (I chose not to hyperlink!):</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Said the Gramophone</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Synestheteque</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Post Classic Radio Playlist</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Gilles Peterson Worldwide</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Classical-Drone</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>The Devil has the Best Tuna</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Disquiet: Ambient/Electronica</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><a href=""><span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p><span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>All the other videos include spoken word, dub poetry, art music, and European folk music...</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></p> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:31:27 +0000 On Performing: Part 4 <p><img class="blog_item_image_small" src="" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><strong><span>In memoriam</span></strong><span>: with the death of Alicia de Larrocha, a bright star has been added to the constellation. A wonderful pianist, and one of the greatest of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century-she was an inspiration for me. I truly idolized her playing. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>She was renowned for her interpretations of the romantic repertoire, but she is equally well known for her performances of Spanish composers such as Manuel de Falla, </span><span>and the masters from her native Catalonia such as Enrique Granados and Isaac Albeniz. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>This is a link for the Los Angeles Times article </span><a href=",0,6219150.story"><span>here.</span></a></span></p> <p><span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>The You Tube link is the first movement of Maurice Ravel&rsquo;s Piano Concerto in G (1929-31).</span></span></p> </span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:16:19 +0000 On Performing: Part 3 <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span><span><img class="blog_item_image_small" src="" /></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>I&rsquo;m still learning to play the piano&hellip;</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>Around five years ago I suddenly realized why I appeared to be having so many problems creating a good playing tone on the piano.<span>&nbsp; </span>I had thought that I had merely acquired bad technique, or that perhaps I wasn&rsquo;t a very good player. I also felt that my &lsquo;touch&rsquo; sounded harsh (to my ears, anyway), and I wasn&rsquo;t creating a very good &lsquo;depth of tone&rsquo; on the keyboard.<span>&nbsp; </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>For any musical instrument, it&rsquo;s not just about technique-some players have a prodigal ability, and exhibit excellent technique from a young age, others, like myself, have to practise like mad until you (sort of) get it right.<span>&nbsp; </span>Attaining good technique is continuous hard work-but it&rsquo;s not the only work that needs to be done.<span>&nbsp; </span>Technique without musicality is one of the very worst things to find in a musician, but the opposite is almost just as bad.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Although I practised regularly, and listened to numerous musicians, I wasn&rsquo;t seeing a strong improvement in the sound quality of my playing.<span>&nbsp; </span>What else did I need to learn? I honestly felt that I was truly missing something in my technique: did I need to see another piano teacher (for a second opinion), or was I just a terrible pianist? How was I going to &lsquo;get&rsquo; this sound on my own? And this was something that I <em>knew </em>I had to learn on my own; the tonal quality that I was trying to attain was more of a personal goal: the way I sounded wasn&rsquo;t necessarily bad, so I didn&rsquo;t think it fair to ask a piano teacher to try to change something that wasn&rsquo;t immediately obvious.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>I asked myself: is it possible that the solution I seek is not as complicated or as laborious as I had originally made it out to be? What if it&rsquo;s not about technique-and I still wasn&rsquo;t sure about this-what if it had to do with the more fundamental issue of how I physically positioned my self in relation to the piano.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><em><span>Any </span></em><span>musician (doesn&rsquo;t matter the genre) has to come to terms with the physical presence of the instrument that they play. Whether or not the instrument is very small and relatively easy to carry, or large and cumbersome and requiring the services of several well-built burly men with a truck, it still comes down to a body (the musician&rsquo;s) learning and adapting to the physical strengths and limitations of the instrument they have chosen to work with. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>What I discovered was that a large, immovable and <em>still</em> instrument like the piano perhaps demanded the same kind of stillness from me, the performer. I realized that I moved too much whilst I played, and that this was detrimental to the sound quality of my touch. Many musicians will move whilst they perform, and it doesn&rsquo;t harm their playing: I&rsquo;m not trying to create a &lsquo;correct procedural practice&rsquo;, only describing a particular limitation of <em>my</em> performing.<span>&nbsp; </span>One of the common complaints I&rsquo;ve heard from previous piano teachers was: &ldquo;stop moving so much, it&rsquo;s distracting&rdquo;, &ldquo;the extraneous movements are taking away from the energy of your playing&rdquo; etc.<span>&nbsp; </span>I decided to try playing with as little &lsquo;extraneous&rsquo; body movement as possible.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>When I did this, I found that the movements I <em>had</em> to make with my fingers/arms/back were more controlled, my sound became more focused and I was better able to concentrate on creating a good sound-instead of relying on all the twisty-body movements I had used previously to express some kind of &lsquo;musical&rsquo; emotion. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>I&rsquo;ll introduce two classical pianists that I admire because of their playing combines a heady mixture of bravado, focus and stillness: Grigory Sokolov and Kemal Gekic. Both have flawless technique, and are incredible musical talents.<span>&nbsp; </span>What I like about the video examples is that both musicians embody what I aspire to in my performing, which is a playing technique that is completely focused, calm, musical and adheres to a stillness that I think is deeply respectful of the piano as an instrument.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The Liszt and Prokofiev are both very active, and technically demanding pieces: that the players performed these works and still maintains a grounded calm, playing without (apparent) tension or stress is testament to their incredible talent.<span>&nbsp; </span>The Prokofiev is performed with utter attention and laser-like focus; Gekic&rsquo;s cool and somewhat detached (but still with energetic musicality) performance of the Liszt, on the other hand, radiates a serene calm. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><strong><span><span><span>Kemal Gekic performs the &lsquo;La Campanella&rsquo; of<span>&nbsp; </span>Franz Liszt</span></span></span></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><strong></strong><strong><span><span>Grigory Sokolov performs Prokofiev&rsquo;s Piano Sonata #7, 3<sup>rd</sup> movement</span></span></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></p> Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:12:10 +0000 Theme for August: "Quiet Music" <p>This month in Classical and Experimental Music (as well as related genres and subgenres), I would like to focus on &ldquo;quiet music.&rdquo; William Cosgreve wrote the oft-misquoted line &ldquo;music has charms to soothe the savage breast,&rdquo; and many people have taken this to mean that the aim of music is solely to soothe. Classical music in particular is plagued by this notion, despite the fact that many of the most popular pieces in the repertoire are anything but soothing. I would defy anyone to relax to Beethoven&rsquo;s Ninth or Stravinsky&rsquo;s Rite of Spring, for example. To me, it is also hard to believe that emotionally-charged works such as Barber&rsquo;s <em>Adagio for Strings</em> find their way onto compilation discs such as <a href="">Classical Music for Sleep.</a><br /> <br /> While I disagree strongly that the purpose of music is to calm savage beasts or breasts (enjoying my fair share of rousing or aggressive music), I continue to be drawn to softer music &ndash; the Impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel, the experimental and expressive music of Feldman and Webern, Ambient classics by Eno and Budd, the cool jazz of Davis and Evans. Quiet music invites you in &ndash; perhaps simply by being hard to hear. You have to seek it out, and it rewards you in different ways than louder, more assertive music. <br /><br /> For August, let us share with each other some of our favorite &ldquo;quiet music.&rdquo; Post audio and video for us to enjoy, and write about why you enjoy these pieces. To begin, let me point out two items: <br /><br /> 1. A previous post of mine, on George Crumb&rsquo;s Vox Balaenae. <a href="">[link]</a> <br /><br /> 2. An interesting version of the second movement of Webern&rsquo;s Five Pieces for String Quartet, played by Spooky Actions (clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and percussion). The composition itself ends at 3:10, but the group continues with an improvisation in the style of Webern.</p> Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:02:06 +0000