Behold, the Katzenklavier!

[The cats] be arranged in a row with their tails stretched behind them. And a keyboard fitted out with sharpened nails would be set over them. The struck cats would provide the sound. A fugue played on this instrument--when the ill person is so placed that he cannot miss the expression on their faces and the play of these animals--must bring Lot's wife herself from her fixed state into conscious awareness.

Imagine a piano.

Remove all the strings and replace them with cats.

Arrange the cats in a chromatic scale.

When you press a key, a pin hits the designated cat.

Behold, the Katzenklavier!

[caption id="attachment_667" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is the kind of thing people did for entertainment before television and the internet."][/caption]

Created in the 17th century by Athanasius Kircher, this instrument was invented with the initial purpose of waking up catatonic patients. It was actually built and used for entertainment purposes.

Here's the Wikipedia page. Follow the references at the bottom of the page for additional information on this crazy contraption.

12 rules of being a first year piano student at the conservatory.

1. Don't have fun at concerts, stand around looking snooty and slightly bored.


2. Have contempt for any kind of mainstream music, including popular classic pieces. If people like it, then it is not good.


3. Spend five hours each day criticizing other musicians at your school or on the Internet.


4. Spend five minutes every other day actually practicing your instrument.


5. If you're going to start playing the piano, make sure you start with the most technically difficult music you know. The Rachmaninoff second concerto, Liszt's second Hungarian rhapsody and Flight of the Bumblebee are all popular choices. Make sure to mention that you are "playing" those pieces to everyone you know.


6. Carry the score to those pieces everywhere you go, preferably with the title page clearly visible to everyone.


7. Once you are able to play the first couple of bars of the above piece at half speed with lots of mistakes, proudly tell everyone you know how you "nailed it" the last time you played it.


8. When you are unable to "nail it" in front of someone else, make sure to blame: 1) nerves, 2) cold hands, 3) lack of sleep, 4) the piano. When you are alone, you always play it perfectly and your word should be enough for other people and for your teachers.


9. Talent is the same as technical skill. The faster the fingers, the more talented the musician.


10. Show off your piano, show off your sheet music, show off your artist clothes, show off your bohemian lifestyle, show off everything... show off your dog (get a dog). How others see you is the most important thing.


11. Whenever you listen to another person play, make sure you mimic them. Play an "air piano" at recitals so that people know that you can do whatever the person playing is doing even better (this is not in the least bit annoying).


12. Fast is good. There is no good slow music, except when it's Liszt.

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Some additional rules for the jazz students:

1. A single note sounds bad. Play in chords, play it in octaves, play it with chords in one hand and octaves in the other (and an arpeggio somewhere in the middle).


2. There are countless possibilities to the chords you can use to supply texture and color to your playing. With so many options out there, pick the two chords you like best and use them in everything you play.


3. Length is the single most important factor in a solo, it doesn't matter if you keep doing the same things. If you can't go for length, then go for playing as many solos as possible.


4. If it is impossible to be a good jazz pianist, at the very least pretend you are Chick Corea. It's all in wishing hard enough, no practice or talent required.


5. Dissonant chords are the only chords.


6. Sixteenth notes are the only notes. (This does not apply to trumpets or saxophones playing very very high, in that case they are not permitted to hold a note for less than four seconds).


7. If it's not a piano or a trumpet, it's not a real instrument and should not be playing solos. That goes double for bass. In any case, if there's a piano on the stage, there's really no point in having anyone else there.


8. If you can't pretend to be Chick Corea, you can at least pretend you know how to play Latin jazz piano.


9. On second thought, don't do that. It's really annoying.

Updates start on monday.

We just got a new computer! Updates start on monday again.

A short break.

My computer decided to have a complete system malfunction that included smoke, sparks and weird stuff all over the place. It is beyond repair. So, while I get a new machine, I'll have to take a short break from updating this place.

Don't buy a stupid Compaq, they are terrible.

The Presidential Candidates and the Arts.

I've been following the American elections very closely. Here in Mexico, a lot depends on what happens in the United States. I was also raised in the USA and lived almost half of my life there, so a lot of it is curiosity. From a professional point of view, I am very interested in the candidates' stance on the arts. I live in the border states here in Mexico, and there is a lot of artistic and cultural exchange between both countries; a lot of shared projects.

In any case, I found this site. It compares Obama's and McCain's record on the arts. Make sure that you click on the specific policies and speeches linked in that document. As a music teacher and artist, it is important to see how each candidate might affect your work and job opportunities.

A guide to clapping at a recital.

Clap often, loudly and proudly. It's a good way of making time go faster in a boring recital. I favor booing and hissing, but I find that pity-clapping or sarcastic clapping is even more devastating for the guy playing.

The first step is learning how to properly clap. You want it to be loud and deep, and you don't want to hurt your hands. Make a cup with one hand and hit over the cup with the extended fingers of the other hand. You can try cupping both hands, but it won't have a sharp sound, and you might look kind of silly.

Know when to clap:

- Clap whenever anyone enters or exits the stage.

- Clap after someone gives a speech or makes an introduction.

- Clap whenever the performer plays a really hard passage, even if you weren't particularly impressed, it will show him your appreciation.

- Clap whenever the performer messes up. You clapping will boost his self-esteem and might help him make a quick recovery.

- Clap if he makes a quick recovery.

- Clap when he finishes a piece. Make sure to keep on clapping loud and proud until you are the only one left clapping, don't stop until you are sure the performer notices you. If you do that enough, the musicians will appreciate it and might invite you for a drink after the concert.

- Make sure to bump it up a notch with a "Wooooo!" or an "Oh, yeah!" when something really cool happens. Make sure to do this in an opera or a ballet when a villain gets thwarted, the singers hit a really high note or a ballerina makes a really impressive pirouette.

- Make sure to sit as near to the front as possible. That way, when you start a standing ovation, everyone else will see you and follow along.

- Sing along if there is a really catchy theme or clap in rhythm to the music.

- Always try to start a wave if you have some friends with you. If someone near you gets up for any reason, try to take advantage of that to start a wave, specially if you're alone. Some music lends itself very well to the wave; wait for some fast scales or arpeggios going up and down and time the wave to the music (for example, Chopin's first etude from op. 10).

By clapping you show your appreciation, which has a huge effect on how the performer does. Don't walk out, clapping is better and will make the recital more fun for everybody.

Uninformed opinion.

The great irony of the information age is that uninformed opinion has gained a status that it never had before, being widely available to the public. It used to be that a newspaper, magazine or the evening news had a professional academic or journalistic work done behind them. Now, with the Internet, no matter what you believe, you can do a Google search and find someone that agrees with you, even if what you believe is completely unproven and contradicts reality in every way. People can find validation of their own ignorance everywhere.

The same goes for music. It used to be that to get heard by other people, you had to work very hard. These days anyone can tape himself playing the theme from Rach 3, upload the video to YouTube and get 800 comments with half of them saying "OMG, that song is sooo beuutiful!!!!11".

I do believe that the great benefits of being able to communicate freely outweigh the spread of ignorance.

Given the volume of uninformed opinion out there, it is important to know who is writing that article you read. Perspective is very important. In that sense, I really recommend that you take a quick look at the "About the Author" page, and a quick listen in the "Recordings" page. Most of the things I write on this website are my opinion, and are derived from my own experience, my teachers and my own search into things that I find fascinating. I am still learning every day, and I welcome any suggestions or discussion you may have on these subjects.

I hope you enjoy this website. In the title it says "for the discussion of life and music". I really hope this site sparks a lot of it.

Be a man, dammit!

There's something peculiar about playing a big beautiful chunk of highly expressive music like the Brahms concerto. When you do it, you have to do a lot of self-inspection. You have to get in contact with your feelings. You have to analyze yourself and the reasons behind everything you do. You have to suddenly become sensitive and in touch with your emotions and when you play you wear your heart on your sleeve.

I am happy being a big insensitive caveman 99% of the time. Every time something like this comes up, I become a big blubbering mess, blathering on about how things make me feel. I start using words that never come up in my vocabulary; words like "self-esteem", "support", "insecure".

Normally you can count on what I am going to be like at any time of the day. Quiet, impatient, indifferent to most of the world around me, always with a very direct and a bit of a rough way of saying things. People tend to be scared, or impressed by me. They think I am an ogre; maybe they are right. All of a sudden, I am extremely worried about what other people think of how I play. I question the motives behind every compliment, or lack of. I become super-sensitive to all criticism.

Playing these monumental works of art does that to a person. I just want it to pass so I can get back to being myself again.

Bloody hormones.

Welcome.

Welcome to Allegro Molto.