Alicia de Larrocha

The first recording I ever owned, when I was about seven years old, was of Alicia de Larrocha playing Mozart's concertos 9 and 21 with the English Chamber Orchestra.  Over the years, I have owned at least three copies of that recording because I keep wearing it out. To this day, it is the one piece of music for which I am always in the mood. I can always count on it to lift my spirits and rekindle my love for music. Listening to that record always cheers me up, even in my darkest times.

The first time I listened to that recording was one of the most powerful musical experiences of my life. At the beginning, I thought it was only the instrument that had that effect on me, it was the first time I had even heard a piano properly played. After that, I saved up my allowance for months until I had enough to get one of those boxed sets of "Great Piano Concertos" which you can find lying around really cheap in most bargain bins. Those discs were the first time I listened to Rachmaninov's second concerto, the Tchaikovsky concerto, Beethoven's Emperor... it also included a version of Mozart's 21st Concerto. I remember only ever listening to it once, and not getting all the way to the end. After listening to Alicia de Larrocha for such long time, this other version felt wrong to me, it didn't make me happy.

For years, every time I saved up enough money, I would buy an Alicia de Larrocha record. She was the only pianist I knew by name. The next recording I got was of a Mozart recital, then some more Mozart piano concerti and, after that, her recording of the Khatchaturian piano concerto. Every single one of those recordings had the same effect on me; they felt fresh every time I listened. Listening to her made me ecstatic, I couldn't explain why; her recordings made me want to dance and jump around, there was always something so beautiful about that sound, so round and full. It made me want to play the piano, or just go out and make music in any way I could.

My collection of recordings continued to grow over the years and every single piano recording in it was by Alicia de Larrocha. I had no idea who she was, where she came from, or what she was best known for, all I knew was that something in her playing spoke to me on a deeper level; it reached out to me in a way that other recordings didn't. In my eight year old mind, she attained a mythical status, some kind of piano God with powers beyond mere mortals. Ironically, the one recording I never heard was her landmark rendition of Iberia. When asked who my favorite pianist was, I'd always answer: "Alicia de Larrocha" without the slightest idea that she was really good with music from Spain. It wasn't until years later, when I was a teenager that I was completely blown away by her recordings of Albeniz, Granados, Soler and Falla.

Alicia de Larrocha is the reason I fell in love with music, and especially with the piano. In many ways, she represents for me an ideal of what a musician should try to be. Today I was greatly saddened when I heard that she passed away at 86 years of age. I felt as if a big piece of my childhood had passed away. I know that her recordings will be rediscovered by generations to come, as it happened to me. It's a playing that is unmistakable, of such individuality and so full of life that no one can listen to it for the very first time and remain untouched.

Bach does Arnstadt. The most metal of composers.

Johann Sebastian Bach was not a boring person. Considering that eighteenth century Germany was extremely conservative and that musicians in his situation depended almost entirely on the patronage of the church, Bach had a surprising disregard for authority and for society's conventions. During his life, he produced some of the finest music the world has ever known while being a constant source of problems for his employers. The picture that is often painted of Bach is that of a dour personality concerned only with a higher calling. Bach's first job in Arnstadt shows him in a completely new way; young Bach was surprisingly metal.

The pipe organ of the eighteenth century ranks as the most complex piece of machinery that the world would see until the industrial age. Although there is no record of how Bach acquired his knowledge, by the time he was 18 years old he was an expert in its workings and was in high demand by organ makers and churches to test and certify new organs. When testing an organ at St. Boniface, in Arnstadt, his knowledge combined with the sheer virtuosity of his playing prompted the church to fire the organist they already had and hire Bach in his place. Adding insult to injury, they payed him a sum of money unheard of for someone so young (especially considering that St. Boniface was a very poor church). Even so, in the years that followed he bickered constantly with the officials about the nature of his duties and the sum of money he was being paid--- although realistically speaking, can you really pay J. S. Bach too much?

In the few years Bach spent in Arnstadt, he was summoned many times by the Consistory (a board of clerics that made sure that everyone working for them was behaving properly.)  He was constantly getting into arguments with his musicians and he was continually reprimanded for not paying any attention to the boys' choir. Bach would argue that his contract only required him to play and maintain the organ and that they should hire a choir director to which the church would reply that they were paying him so bloody much that they couldn't afford to hire anyone else.

In one of his arguments, he called one of his bassoon players, a certain Geyersbach, a Zippel-Fagottist (goat-bassoonist). Later that day, while Bach was out taking a stroll with his cousin Barbara, goat-bassoonist showed up with a walking stick demanding satisfaction. Bach repeatedly refused to apologize and goat-bassoonist attacked him. Bach pulled out his sword and proceeded to put goat-bassoonist in his proper place (which begs the question, why is a church organist carrying around a sword?) The Consistory was definitely not pleased.

Only a couple of months after the sword incident, Bach asked for permission to visit Lübeck, home of the legendary organist Dietrich Buxtehude. He was granted four weeks. Not being one to waste money on such unmanly matters as transportation, Bach walked the whole way covering 250 miles in under ten days. Apart from his desire to listen to Buxtehude play, Bach was also there for another reason: to check out Buxtehude's unmarried daughter. Buxtehude had a very lucrative position in Lübeck and he was quite old. By common practice, the person that would would take his job would have to marry Buxtehude's daughter. Several other prominent musicians of the day (including Handel) had already made the journey with similar intentions. Bach definitely did not like what he saw because he returned to Arnstadt and immediately married his cousin Barbara--- seeing Bach draw his sword on goat-bassoonist would probably have been enough to make any woman fall at his feet. Bach's little four week trip to Lübeck ended up lasting almost four months. Needless to say, the Consistory was not pleased with Bach's trip.

The congregation of the church was also quite confused with the way Bach would accompany the chorales during the services. He would play highly ornamented versions of the choral music which, while amazing, were too complicated for the people to follow. Bach was also reprimanded for allowing a "stranger maiden" to show herself and make music. It was not customary to allow women to sing in church and the "stranger maiden" was probably Barbara.

In at least three different occasions in the months that followed, Bach had to appear before the Consistory for neglecting the boy's choir and for letting Barbara sing in church. The people in Arnstad were in awe of Bach and amazed at his ability but it was always an awkward relationship. The authorities were always patient with young Bach, but I'm sure there was a collective sigh of relief when Bach decided to leave the town.

Bach's short time in Arnstadt would set the tone for what was to come. In the years that followed, while writing some of the greatest music the world has known,  Bach managed to get himself thrown into jail for refusing to continue working for duke Wilhelm, remarried to a woman that was half his age, had 20 children and also adopted the four children of a man with whom he had a bitter rivalry, made one of the most renowned organists of his time chicken out of an organ duel, grabbed and threw people's wigs, and wrote a full cantata with the only intent of selling coffee (the Coffee Cantata might be the world's longest and most complicated commercial jingle.)

Bach's music is often associated with mathematical complexity and an expression of his deep-seated Lutheran faith. Another side to his music which is sometimes overlooked has to do with the sheer force of his character, which is apparent in the way he lived his life. For me, the work that best embodies this is the fifth Brandenburg concerto.

Throughout the concerto, the harpsichord constantly erupts into virtuoso scales and trills all over the keyboard until finally, much like Bach's peers, the rest of the instruments simply cannot keep up. Then follows a harpsichord cadenza that is unique among the music of its time. I like to imagine Bach playing it for the first time; wig askew, sweat pouring; while the rest of the people in the room watch in complete shock as the little pudgy man goes crazy (like The Who breaking their instruments on stage or Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth). It has scales up and down, all manners of trills and diabolic ornamentation, it has the left hand leaping around in octaves (which in baroque music is amazing in itself), it has the theme jumping around from voice to voice--- it's practically Liszt at his most diabolical.

Here is the complete first movement of the concerto:

Here is Gustav Leonhardt playing the cadenza. The playing is amazing although dressing up in wigs and tights for a concert isn't really my kind of thing:

And here is Glenn Gould playing the cadenza on the piano:

Building webs instead of chains.

What is the meaning of a piece of music?

Is it the quality that lets us recognize it upon hearing it? Does it lie in the ability to play the notes or understanding what is going in the composition? Is the meaning of a work in the emotional connection you have with it? Even then, if you are not the composer, can you ever really know the true meaning of a piece of music?

To know a piece of information and to have the ability to extract  meaning from it are two very different things. A computer can know millions of variables, but it derives no meaning to itself from that information. What something means really has to do with the ways it connects to all the other things we know. The more such links, the more that thing will mean to us. Looking for one "true" meaning for anything in particular is futile. If something had only one meaning it would only be connected with one thing in our minds and would hardly mean anything at all.

Understanding this is very important for a musician. It affects the way we try to learn our music and how we try teach our students.

The worst teaching tries to shape concepts into a tower or a chain instead of trying to build cross-connected webs. The problem with chains is that they will break at their weakest links and towers easily topple. That's what happens when our mind, or a child's, wanders for just a moment.

As a way of reaching a useful conclusion, for a mathematician or a philosopher, simple straight lines are best. What we must realise is that our purpose is not the same. We need our ideas to be as cross-connected as possible if we wish to have any hope of retaining them. We think that we are helping our students effectively by showing them a simple single path and hammering away at it, but instead we are making things worse most of the time. The focus should be on building robust networks in our students' heads.

This is the problem with the so-called "miracle methods" of teaching. There is no magic shortcut to being a musician. Music comes with time, and it comes as a result of a whole organic process in which we integrate the entirety of our experience. We can help this process by helping our students look at the music from all possible angles.

We can apply this to our own practice. The greatest advantage of learning through webs of concepts instead of chains of reasoning is that the knowledge gained is long-lasting and almost impossible to forget. That should be the biggest selling point for any performing musician, since a typical fear is forgetting the music while performing in public.

Practically speaking, this concept is easy to apply. When teaching or practicing a piece, instead of following the same tired route of "learn one hand, learn the other, play both hands together and speed it up" try a more roundabout way of learning it. Start by reading up on the piece and the composer. Learn only the rhythm and clap it out. Sing all the intervals. Try playing the melody with different hands and changing the harmony. Play everything in octaves. Play everything with one hand. Play everything at half the tempo. Play with both hands what a single hand would play. Break it up into phrases and only play one phrase at a time. Play all the phrases backwards. Play it in a different key. Don't play the music, play around with the music.

The best teaching and learning needs variety. By observing all the different meanings that something has and could have, we are building webs instead of chains and ensuring that the whole thing won't come down in pieces when a single link breaks.

You need to say "Yes."

Last year I was invited to play Shostakovitch's second piano concerto. The orchestra was doing a programme of classical music used in the movies, with half of it dedicated to Disney's original Fantasia and the 2000 version. About a month before the concert, the conductor called me up.

Due to that concert being done by a guest conductor, there were going to be some changes to the programme. "Can you play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue?" he said. I had never played the Rhapsody before, but back in high school I'd played around with the score a few times. I was pretty sure that I could learn it in five weeks, before the rehearsals with the orchestra started, but I decided it was better to make sure and play through the score once. "I'm not sure," I said, "let me look at the score and I'll get back to you in about an hour."

I sat down and played through it, didn't find anything that was really hard to play and saw it was pretty straightforward to memorize. Most of it is also played solo and very improvisatory, so there was a lot of freedom to move around. Just as I suspected, I could easily play it by then. I called the conductor back in 40 minutes to tell him that, only to have him say: "Oh, I'm sorry, we already got another pianist to play it. We'll do Shostakovitch with you next season."

This is a very competitive field. I was lucky to get a shot at playing it and forgot that there were a dozen other pianists ready to play it in case I wasn't; and that's just locally. Two weeks later I got another invitation to play Rhapsody in Blue with even less time to learn it. I said "Yes. No problem." on the spot. I did what I had to do to get the piece ready and a couple of suitable encores (I prepared Gershwin's Lullaby in Blue and a short piece by Kapustin) and the concert and rehearsals went very well.

If you are one of those pianists that always says "I'm not sure," "Maybe," "Who knows" in answer to the question: "Can you play this?" you need to learn to say: "Yes" or "No" because it is nobody's problem but your own whether you can learn a piece on time or not. I've written about this before on this page: one of the most important things a musician must have is a realistic view of what he can and can't do.

As a student, a lot of the repertoire we play is designed to overcome hurdles, to learn to do things we hadn't done before. Our attitude when faced with a new piece is usually one of "I'm not sure if I'll be able to play this."  Because of this, it's easy to fall into the habit of prefacing everything we do with an excuse. Excuses are just a projection of our own insecurity. They can ruin your performance because you end up sounding as if you are apologizing for playing. The "student" attitude also can be terrible for your own self-worth. As we gain maturity and technical mastery, that attitude has to change. When learning a new piece it's not about whether you can or can't play it, it's about when. You have to do what you can to make it good, and that is nobody's problem but your own.

The manager, the concert promoter, the conductor, the old lady from the music society that hired you to play the recital, the people in the audience; they don't care how much you had to practice-- or how little-- or whether its the first time you play it, or if you get nervous in public, or if you don't play the really hard passage in measure 243 perfectly clean. All they want is to hear a piece of music. To be, for a moment, lifted from every day's routine by art, beauty and emotion.

Don't give excuses.

Just say "Yes, absolutely," or don't do it at all.

Fearless

There is a quality in each person's playing that is completely unique. An approach to music that is completely our own, that comes from within and which is part of a personal quality that has been there from the very beginning. It can't be taught and it can't be learned; I think it is something that has to be remembered.

When I work with children approaching the piano for the very first time, I get a glimpse of it. In the very enjoyment and curiosity that a child displays when doing everything for the first time-- his first song, his first time playing with both hands together, the first time he actually sits down and presses a key-- there is an unimpeded deliberation. A sense of  doing and being that gets lost over time with all the "what ifs" and the "should haves" and the "would haves" the fill up our mind almost immediately after we start.

This quality is stifled by fear and soon forgotten. Over our lives as we learn to make music, our own mind works against us in subtle ways. Before a musician makes that big step from being a student to being a professional, it is important that he deals with his own demons and emotional baggage.  I experienced a kind of release-- of shedding away some unwanted load-- before I started feeling a bit more comfortable with my own playing. While building up all the necessary skills and knowledge we need to be musicians, we also must experience an intense personal search of ourselves. Our goal: to play-- in the broader definition of the word.

Some people physically exhaust themselves trying to reach that goal, playing everything in a million different ways, practicing hours and hours; through constant repetition and hard physical labor, they bang their head over and over again on a brick wall hoping to make a dent. Other people analyse every single aspect and possibility that the task at hand offers, they read every single book there is about technique and spend hours just thinking; by arming themselves with knowledge, they try to outsmart the wall. Both of these ways eventually reach a point of saturation either by complete physical exhaustion-- repetition until the task loses all meaning-- or information overload in which our knowledge reaches a point of impracticability.

At that moment,  a release comes and when it does, the wall is gone.  It's fear; fear of what we are. Once the fear is gone, we are free to play as we played that very first time we sat at the piano; but knowing what we're doing this time.

That is what I admire most in the small children I teach for the first time. Their complete fearlessness. It is a fragile thing, but as a teacher, I try to help them hold on to it as long as they can. Hopefully, it'll be that much easier to remember once the time comes.

Walking on clouds of melody.

I've been pretty busy lately and the "Daily Piano Tips" haven't been as "daily" as they should be. I've been filling in for our local orchestra's pianist, who is still incapacitated from a bad fall she had a couple of months ago. For the past two weeks, I've been immersed in Puccini (I've been playing the celesta, organ and some piano parts). The orchestra played a programme with scenes from Tosca, Bohéme and Butterfly as well as some of his orchestral intermezzi and most famous arias.

[caption id="attachment_578" align="alignright" width="238" caption="Carissima mía, you have to walk on clouds of melody."][/caption]

Shostakovitch once said that Puccini wrote horrible music and great operas. It's easy to get that reaction, considering that for the past hundred years, almost every musical has been a reworking of Puccini's greatest hits--- Andrew Lloyd Weber is particularly guilty of that. In my opinion, Puccini's melodies are amazing in every sense. He is reputed as saying "you have to walk on clouds of melody" to one of his singers. I've grown to love his music; he left us with a whole heaven of melody on which to walk. Some composers--- Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Wolf--- had that gift for melody which, for some reason,  made them looked down upon by many in the musical community. Even so, their music strikes something deep within the listener which transcends the snobbery. It can be kitsch, but it has a kind of sincerity, of emotional honesty, that makes the music great.

Talking about that sort of music, I get to play the celesta in the Nutcracker suite ten times in the next two weeks! Can someone get tired of the Sugar Plum Fairy? I'm about to find out, first hand. I'll also be playing some harpsichord with Corelli's christmas concerto, but I can change it up a bit each time we play it.

In any case, sorry about the lack of updates, right now. My students are playing a concert, I'm applying end of the year exams and I'm playing concerts almost daily, either with the orchestra, or accompanying students from the school, or going out and playing recitals (mostly with singers). Regular updates will come soon (once the school year and the concert season is over), but for now the daily piano tips will be "daily" in Pluto days.

In the meantime listen to a lot of Puccini; and sing along, if no one is watching.

Getting high on Beethoven.

Just thought I'd share this. Seems I should add "Beethoven is better than any psychedelic drug" to my list of things we can learn from Schroeder:

The Unconsoled

A couple of years ago, while browsing through a used book store, a particular book caught my eye. The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I had no idea about who the author was, or his particular style. The book wasn´t  even all that cheap--- but I took it. I took it because, according to the back cover, the main character was a concert pianist.

The Unconsoled turned out to be a thoroughly confusing book, not only for the reader, but for the main character (who has no idea of what is going on, most of the time). The town where it takes place seems to exist in some kind of alternate universe where time has no meaning at all. The book is the kind of book that English majors love to dissect, spending hours talking about what the author actually meant to say and about the symbolism of the book, and its similarities to Kafka or eastern philosophy. I see that side of the book but, what made the most impact with me after reading it was its satirical portrayal of classical music and the virtuoso.

Almost all composition students I meet complain about today's audience. They whine about how people's ears must be first educated before they can begin to appreciate new music, how traditional musical education prevents interpreters from understanding their new music. One thing that made me laugh out loud in The Unconsoled was how, in that universe, people would actually be excited about Mullery's "Verticality" or Kazan's "Glass Passions" to the point of discussing the music's significance and philosophies in the pub or in the schoolyard. The idea just has something inherently silly about it, which says a lot about the great majority of modern music.

Another thing I loved about the book was the exasperating way every single person the main character met asked him (pretty forcefully, most of the time) for a favor, or an opinion about something. The way they kept expecting the main character to solve their problems reminded me of the strange sense of responsibility one feels when playing. All performing artists, regardless of their fame, have a public life of sorts. As soon as you decide to play for an audience, you are immediately taking on a responsibility, you take on yourself people's expectations; most of them complete strangers. That same sensation is what I get from this book, all of these people, strangers to the main character, asking favors of him which he cannot refuse because of a sense of responsibility to society.

And in the end everyone, including the reader, is unconsoled. That is what struck a chord with me the most, that sense of the futility of it all, after all the build up to the great concert that was supposed to save the town in some way. Sometimes I feel that after a concert, after all the preparation and work that was put into it, the horrible pressure put on the performer in the moment, and then... well, it's done; it's gone and it won't come back.

The Unconsoled is long and confusing and in the end, fulfilment hardly comes from the book, it comes from within. It is well worth the read, and maybe a musician will read more into it than most.

Noche de los Mayas

I'm posting from a hotel lobby, a couple of hours before tonight's presentation. We will be starting the concert  with Noche de los Mayas, by Silvestre Revueltas. The other half of the concert is standard Mexican orchestral repertoire, including the ever-present Huapango by Moncayo (covered in my previous post, Viva Mexico!).

I had never played Noche de los Mayas before. It is a lot of fun to play, the piano only plays in the very last movement, a series of variations with lots of percussion. Silvestre Revueltas is considered a sort of Latin American Stravinsky. In my opinion, that is only on the surface due to his similar use of the orchestra. His is more like Bartok in his use of elements from Mexican folk music. He is also capable of music that is stunning in its originality and ahead of its time in many respects.

What I love most about Revuelta's music is how it is Mexican to the core. There is an element in his music that embodies perfectly the soul of this country, completely beyond the hemiolas or ending melodies in a descending major third (although he does both constantly). When listening to Noche de los Mayas, I hear the cadences of the Mexican spoken language (especially the rough falling-down-drunk way of talking that Revueltas was known for himself), the characteristic sing-song quality (although not in a pretty way) of the speech of people from Mexico City, and, most of all, a sense of magic and majesty. His music evokes a pre-hispanic Mexico, a culture of transcendental ideas that went beyond every day life. A culture with a rough and brutal side (like Revueltas) but with the dignity and majesty of a civilization convinced of being the center and focus of the universe and the gods.

Here is a video I found on YouTube, the background music is a fragment of the last movement of Noche de los Mayas. It has a huge percussion section, and the last movement is noisy, wild music. When played in Mexico, following the example from Revueltas' premiere of the work, it is traditional to let the percussionists take turns improvising solos in the ad libitum at the end of the first variation of the last movement; I haven't seen it done elsewhere.

Finding the right teacher.

This is one of the first articles I published on this site. It is still one of the most popular and the one I get the most comments about from friends and colleagues. English is not my first language, so I sometimes have a hard time with basic grammar and composition. A friend (name not mentioned until he says it's alright) offered to do some basic-copy editing on some of my writing, so as to help me improve gradually. Here is a new version of "Finding the right teacher" that won't make English majors want to claw their eyes out.

Assuming a piano student has support from his family and considers music a possible career, his teacher is probably the single greatest influence on his development. The wrong teacher can severely cripple a musician's future prospects.

A good teacher will develop the love for music in a child, and will prevent the formation of bad habits from the very beginning. He will help an older student make the difficult transition towards an increasingly professional musical sensibility. He will provide the foundation for a good, flexible technique and introduce the different elements of style and interpretation. The end result is an independent student who knows how to practice and solve problems, with the sufficient knowledge to correctly understand a score, including all the stylistic and emotional that are often in-between the lines. Furthermore, a great teacher will help a student understand and express his personality through his music. Unfortunately, without experience, it is quite hard to gauge the quality of teachers; bad teaching is often only apparent after the damage has already been done.

Parents looking for a teacher will tend to rely on superficial considerations, like how the teacher dresses, what rates he charges, and how smoothly he talks, without realizing that many so-called teachers out there prey on these tendencies like slick used-car salesmen. They butter up the parents with their oily talk, making up fake qualifications and exaggerating their praise for the little kids at every turn, all while the children develop an ever more deformed technique and an aversion to music.

Older students looking for a teacher tend to fall into the peer pressure trap. They go with the teacher that all their friends are studying with, usually being talked down to by the other students (and often ex-students turned into teachers) until they finally cave in and join the clique. Young teenage students tend to have big expectations, and many teachers out there will prey on that, promising them the world but failing to deliver. Even when all the students have obvious common flaws (all of them the result of bad teaching), the teacher will heap on the praise. At this stage, teenagers and young adults are usually afraid to acknowledge a wrong decision (especially in conflict with the rest of the group), so they tend to idolize their teacher. The bad teacher will take advantage of that and go as far as to call other teachers complete garbage. Outside opinion is this teacher's enemy, and he will try to isolate the students from other musicians. The only yardstick the students have left to measure their progress is their teacher's opinion and their peers' progress. They are good because teacher said so, all objectivity lost in the constant reinforcement from their friends.

In order to find the right teacher, you have to examine the short- and long-term goals you want to meet at different points in your development. Understand what kind of teacher you need, and find the very best teacher for that level in your area.

In a child's case, motivation is crucial. When working with young children, the best teachers are those who manage to keep the child motivated, and prevent the child from acquiring bad habits.

You want a teacher with whom the kids are obviously having fun. A good teacher at this level leads to children eager to play their instrument, or more accurately play with their instrument. It's fun, not work. The teacher will keep the kids active and entertained-clapping, singing, and sometimes even coloring and playing games. But if that were the only necessary qualification, then any competent babysitter would be a great music teacher for children; a teacher who works with children should also have a complete practical knowledge of technique. Musicians who are great at playing their instruments, but who can't really explain how they do it, have no business teaching children how to play. A teacher at this level must be able to show a student how to hold and play the instrument, identify and correct bad habits, and explain to the student's parents clearly what to look for so that they can supervise their kid's practice time.

A sense of structure is important at this level. Students are motivated by recognizing their advancement through the ranks. We all remember looking with awe at the very last pieces in our beginner's books, full of strange symbols and notes way out of the range we were playing at the time. Having an outside source (a book, a website or even a guest teacher) to further clarify what the teacher is doing is also helpful. A clear lesson plan for each student is very important; unlike later in a musician's development, at this stage it is desirable for all students to follow the same road. They love to compare themselves to the other kids, and it gives their parents a clear idea of their progress.

At this level, the teacher should assign the student enough short easy pieces to avoid boredom, teaching the basics of sight-reading and music theory, and keeping the child eager for his next lesson. Music ideally should be a sort of game in which the child, the teacher, and the parents are all involved to some extent. There is no room for yelling and screaming from the teacher; if he loses his patience easily, he should not be working with children.

Warning signs at this level are: the child not wanting to take lessons anymore (which happens to all of us occasionally, but if the disinterest lasts too long, it's probably the teacher's fault) and unnatural playing. If a child complains of back, neck or tendon pains, there is something seriously wrong. In the case of the piano, playing with flat or excessively curved fingers, locked elbows or wrists, a hunched back, or hard, inflexible joints are all signs of deficient teaching.

Most importantly, remember that whatever the student's level, the musical result has to be as good as possible. Even if the child is playing very easy pieces, he should exhibit a steady rhythm, a good sound, intonation, and some elements of style. A lack of these is also a sign of a lazy or indifferent teacher.

Eventually it will be time to get a teacher more suited for an intermediate level; even some professionals are plagued by having switched too late. Remember the basics of teaching a child: motivation and the bases for good technique. If the kid's motivation is so strong that he wants to be a musician when he grows up, then he should switch to a more advanced teacher sooner rather than later.

Up until this point, music has essentially been a game. Now it's time to start "training," as if for a sport, and heading down the road towards being a professional. An intermediate teacher will challenge you, urging you to give the most you can. During this period, a musician needs a teacher he can respect. Teachers at this point come in all flavors: the crazy, screaming teachers who bang on the piano with their fists when they don't get their way, the motherly ones that will make you want to cry with just a sad look each time things don't work, maybe the friendly ones who will just shrug and kick you out. What you want at this point is someone who will nitpick at evert aspect of your playing and give you repertoire that will push you to your limits, but who has the knowledge necessary to show you how to exceed those limits.

He should push you to work as quickly and accurately as you can, always demanding perfection (even if what you are playing is something basic, like a Clementi sonatina). He has to cover all the bases-technique, interpretation and style.

A bad teacher at this point can do more damage than a buffalo in a china shop.

Recognizing a bad teacher at this stage is very important. Remember, you are looking to find the very best teacher you possible can within your area. Traveling is usually not ideal; there are bad teachers everywhere, and you could end up with one of them regardless of where you're looking.

The best way to judge a teacher is to analyze his students. Don't necessarily look for teachers with students who play very well; many teachers will just showcase a couple of really good students, usually self-made or the product of another teacher's work, while trying to hide the rest of them from view. Instead, judge a teacher by the majority or average of his students.

All teachers get one or two really bad students a year (whom they'll quickly get rid of), just as all teachers occasionally get a young talent. The rest of the students are the ones you need to be looking at. How do they measure up against the other teachers' average students? What level of repertoire do they play? What kind of progress have they made in the past year or so? How do his students perform at master classes? How do they do in competitions? Have any of them progressed to study at a higher level? Most importantly, is there some shared flaw between them?

If all the students have some kind of bad habit-raising their shoulders, clenching their jaws, playing out of tune or out of style-then these habits are probably the teacher's fault. Have they all suffered the same kind of music-related injury? If many of the students have had carpal tunnel syndrome or tendinitis at some point, then there might be a problem with the teacher. If the teacher says it's the weather's fault, or the students' fault for over-practicing in all those cases, then you can bet that he is definitely the cause of the problem.

Analyze your lessons. How much of your lesson do you spend just playing the piece over and over again? How much of your lesson does your teacher spend giving you information and criticism, and how much does he spend just complaining, wasting time and repeating himself? After the lesson, sit down and write down what you learned. Or, even better, record the lesson. Are you getting information from your teacher? Is he helping you solve your problems, or just yelling at you for having them? Have you had all your lessons?

Analyze his lesson plans. Are all of the students playing the same programme over time, or are the pieces individually tailored to match each student's needs? Unlike with children, having students play the same repertoire just denotes laziness or a lack of knowledge on the teacher's part. Look around, read some books, look at some websites, or attend some masterclasses. Is your teacher neglecting something essential? Is he flat-out telling you things that most people consider wrong? Can he play, or did he play once? Does he apply the things he teaches to his own playing? Is he teaching you one thing, but doing completely the opposite when he plays? Does it matter to him that you understand what you are doing and why you are doing it? When you ask him that, does he give you a straight answer?

Repertoire is also a big deal. Make sure that you understand the reason behind everything you play. Each new piece you play should help you improve or teach you about different styles and composers. Make sure that your teacher is assigning you music that is right for your level. Some teachers constantly make their students play things that are much too difficult to make themselves look good, so that they can make more money. This usually leads to the deterioration of a student's technique and quality of playing. At some point, the student will either get injured or find himself much worse off than when he started. Then those teachers will blame the student for everything and discard him. They'll get a bunch of naive young musicians and start the process again. Other teachers just make all their students play the same thing, because that's all they were taught and they're too lazy to do anything but repeat what they once heard from someone else.

Remember, the goal here is to get the student to teach himself. Progress is measured not only in technical achievements and difficulty of repertoire, but especially in independence. Being able to work out things for yourself; understanding how to fix problems, and having a big toolbox full of solutions for all the situations that might arise is what is most important. Independence ensures that you can continue to get better even if the teacher is not there.

Once students have reached this level of independence, it is time for an advanced teacher. A teacher at this level is your colleague (though a colleague with a much vaster experience than your own). A teacher at this point is more of a guide or an example than a trainer; someone who is actively playing or who has had a lot of experience forming good musicians is ideal.

From the moment a student starts with an intermediate teacher, he will be doing the bulk of the work. Teacher and student will build up the pieces together; the student working while the teacher pushes him. In a more advanced teaching relationship, the student will have done all the work and will ideally have the piece ready to play at his lessons. These lessons will focus more on interpretation; many times the student might disagree with the teacher, but the point of this level of development is contrasting different points of view to make your playing richer.

At this point in a student's development, the quality of teachers should be more obvious. The teacher's qualifications should be your most important consideration. Getting into a big-name school or "going to Europe" does not guarantee a good teacher at all.

Making sure that you have the ideal teacher for your level is essential. An intermediate-level teacher working with a child will discourage him and probably lead to bad habits. An advanced-level teacher is often useless at an intermediate or child's level, when a much more specific criticism or method is preferred, usually dealing with concepts too far advanced to be useful at that stage in a musician's development.

More than anything else, make sure that whatever you are playing-at whatever level you're playing it-is the very best you can do. You are your own teacher, and responsible for your own progress. You should read and listen to music, and attend conferences, masterclasses, and concerts. If you are stuck with a bad teacher and doing nothing about it, then it's your own damn fault.

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.

My developing musical taste; in cats.

I saw these .gifs at this blog the other day and really liked them. It seems the "Record Store Cats" have been out on the Internet for a while. Check them all out at this site.

It seems we all go through the same phases in classical musical taste; I remember going from Bach and Mozart to Chopin and Liszt to eventually discovering the whole spectrum of music out there.

Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach. The Brandenburg Concertos, the Well Tempered Clavier. Catchy melodies and music that makes you feel tingly all over. Beethoven as a gateway into the harder stuff out there. I remember owning a CD with Mozart concertos 9 and 21 by Alicia de la Rocha. I listened to it so many times it literally wore out from over-use. It was a simpler time then, going out to a record store and getting a "Greatest Classical Hits" CD guaranteed to contain Albinoni's adagio and a few of Vivaldi's seasons and Air on the G string and Pachelbel's cannon and probably Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I'd listen to all kinds of popular music (I am ashamed to admit to some of the albums I once owned) but classical music was a peaceful refuge.

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One day I went out and laid out a bunch of cash on an eight CD set called "The Great Piano Concertos". Mozart 21 and Beethoven "Emperor"; been there, done that. Then followed Brahms number 1... oh my God. Grieg. Rachmaninoff 2. Schumann. Liszt 1. Chopin 2.... TCHAIKOVSKY!! Forget Bach and Mozart and those guys, this music really moves! Are those things actually possible to do on a piano?! Does anyone remember that rush of adrenaline that comes the very first time you hear one of those things? The first time I listened to the third movement of Brahms number 1 it hit the very end and I pushed the rewind button immediately and heard it again. And again. And then once more. After hearing Grieg for the first time I was so full of energy that I was ready to go out into the street and punch someone in the groin, set things on fire. I remember that I was listening to it on my headphones while taking the dirty laundry to the washing room when I was a pre-teen. I must have been funny to look at because I was practically running there, jumping with every step; kicking things in my way, throwing the clothes around in the laundry room. This music was revolution, it practically begged me to go out and do something crazy.

After the initial shock, came a phase that most pianists will remember. The "I love Chopin" phase, followed by the Liszt and the Rachmaninoff phase. Every single piano student I've met goes through it eventually. Not only is the music amazing but the sheer virtuosity of it is shocking. I remember listening to Mazeppa for the first time with my mouth hanging open through the whole piece. Eventually you get used to the virtuosity  once you listen to the really ridiculous piano transcriptions out there. Then comes the emo phase; the I'm a misunderstood artist phase. Maybe some Mahler, some Scriabin. As the musical taste became more complex, some Debussy. If you're into opera, some heavy Verdi or some -ugh, shudder- Puccini. Everything is so dreamy, you are flying around on waves of melody in that complete corny artiness that only teenagers seem to have. I remember it so well.

Then came a day when someone let me borrow a Stravinsky CD. The Rites of Spring.

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Holy crap. What the hell? What instrument is that? Wait, a bassoon? Do they actually go that high? What time signature is this written in? Wait, what is going on? I don't understand anything. Oh, there's that bassoon again. Whoa, new movement. What's it called? Dance of the Adolescents? I'm head bangin'. I need a mosh pit! Boom, boom, boom, boom; clang, clang, whoosh... this is like a Star Wars sound track! (John Williams is guilty of a lot plagiarism by the way). Then some creepy stuff, then some more head banging. End of CD. Rewind. Start again.

That was my first experience with the Rites of Spring. Once you listen to that for the first time you can't go back to Chopin and enjoy it in the same way. Then I discovered that there was all kinds of piano music out there that was like this. Shostakovich, Bartok, Stravinsky himself. Ravel. Then I hit the mother-load: Prokofiev. His third piano concerto and then his piano sonatas. And then, everything else. Dissonant scrumptious music. After all that rubato and pretty melodies, these things have rhythm again. Music stops being so dreamy and artsy. Music is funky again. And no lack of virtuosity here, Liszt and Chopin seem tame after listening to Prokofiev's sixth sonata, or the Cadenza for the second piano concerto. How many pianos is this for again? Two? Three? There is no way that that is a single piano playing!

Martha Argerich's CD from the Phillips Great Pianists collection seems to be like a magnet for all those teenagers in this phase, searching out and devouring all this music that is new to their ears. Ravel's G major concerto, Gaspard de la Nuit, Bach's second Partita (that C minor seems to attract teenagers like flies to a garbage can) and Prokofiev's third concerto. I think at least half of my new students in the 15-17 age group list that as their favorite recording whenever I ask them what music they like. I know I was completely in love with that CD, until some heartless miscreant broke my wife's (then just a friend) car window and stole all her Cd's. I just hope somewhere out there, someone discovered they loved classical music- although all those Cd's probably ended up in a dumpster somewhere.

All the dissonance in that music builds up tolerance. You go on to Ligeti and then rediscover Alban Berg and Schoenberg and eventually, Messiaen and Lutowslawski. Over time, though, something seems to happen to the music. Those CD booklets are really interesting, and you look kind of cool to your friends listening to all this stuff nobody knows, but the actual music just becomes more and more difficult to digest.

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Holy crap. And not in a good way, like with Stravinsky. Xenakis, Boulez, Stockhausen, serialism and electronic music and weird stuff that is more about performance art than actual music. I play all that stuff, and I like a lot of it. I listen to it occasionally, when I am in the mood. But back then, when I first encountered it, it was so alien that it completely drove me away. It scared me, it was creepy as hell. If it did that to me, having loved music my whole life, what will it do to someone who rarely shows up at a concert hall and doesn't know what to expect? Lots of composers out there talk about how their music just needs more exposure and about things like "educating the public" and "expanding people's horizons". There's a reason why most of the people that were composing in these styles decades ago are now embracing a kind of neo-romanticism way of writing, or a funkier, more rhythmic style. It's because, while interesting on paper, most of that music was boring and unappealing to listen to. A concert wasn't a pleasurable experience anymore, it became more like getting mugged by a pack of people wielding musical instruments.

As with any other phase of musical history, the overwhelming majority of music being written is complete garbage. If history teaches us anything, it is that the people who are hailed today as the new great musical geniuses are not going to be the ones remembered in posterity. Who knows; maybe this age's Bach is living in complete poverty somewhere, his music only known to a handful of his friends or sitting- unlistened to- on a MySpace page somewhere.

I really tried to like this back then, but the more I listened to it, the more it drove me away. I tried to read some scores, and most of them were unreadable gibberish that had to be decoded before I could play a single note. Ironically, modern music is one of the styles I've been told that I play very well. My best performances have been as a pianist at a contemporary music festival, playing music I hate by new composers who, while dressed extravagantly and were full of delightful eccentricities, had no idea what they were doing. I've done a lot of performances with music by people like Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann (with rehearsals with him in person), Iannis Xenakis and all sorts of lesser known composers that sound pretty much like any of the above.

I've grown to like it but at the time, it drove me away from classical music from a while.

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That was my next phase. Screw all this. Let's see whats playing on the radio. Some Beatles, some Zeppelin... or I'll take out all my old Vivaldi records and start the whole cycle back up again.

Non-sense latin in Alexander Nevsky.

Composers can be petty too, as Prokofiev shows by having his rivalry with Stravinsky come through in his score for Eisenstein's movie Alexander Nevsky and the corresponding cantata. My school's choir and my wife's orchestra have now been rehearsing it for a while, so it has been on my mind lately.

If you have not seen the original film, here it is in its entirety (with a severely damaged audio track):

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3081784922766209878]

The choir part that accompanies the Teutons is supposedly a medieval pilgrim's chant, but it is really complete non-sense. Prokofiev searched in the Moscow conservatory library for medieval chants, but they sounded all pretty bland and boring in the context, so he decided to come up with something better. He used the Latin text: "Peregrinus expectavi, pedes meos in cymbalis" which could be translated as "We wanderers look forward to having our feet covered with cymbals". Morag G. Kerr, a soprano in the BBC Symphony Chorus found what I think is the real origin of this text: Prokofiev being petty and taking a jab at his rival, Stravinsky. Read all about it here.

The Grandmaster Experiment

Playing a musical instrument is not innate, it is not a "gift"- it is the result of education and long hard work. Talent means nothing in the long run. Very early on, a musician running on talent alone, without the hard work to back it up, will hit a wall in his development. Barring any kind of crippling birth defect, mental retardation or physical deformity, anyone can play the piano on a professional level, provided they practice and study.

Today I was reading a very interesting article from 2005 on Psychology Today called "The Grandmaster Experiment". It is about how Laszlo Polgar, a Hungarian psychologist, set out to turn his children into prodigies of whatever they showed interest in, eventually succeeding in forming three female chess grandmasters. My respect for his teaching abilities couldn't be any greater. Lots of people talk, but Polgar announced that his daughters would be prodigies before they were even born and actually did it, also raising them to be happy well-adjusted individuals in the process. He turned them into three of the finest chess players the world has ever known. Now, don't get the wrong idea, I am not in favor of more crazy parents out there wanting their little kids to be the next Van Cliburn by chaining them to the piano and forcing them to practice grueling hours against their will. Notice how the article specifically shows how the three kids in question were having the time of their lives, how it was always fun for them and was integrated into their normal education. The ultimate goal here was to make the children happy with what they have achieved, not having them achieve the goals and dreams their parents were too daft to achieve for themselves.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Amazing Laszlo and his wife. In an alternate universe, this guy probably has three daughters who are the greatest female pianists or violinists of all time. "][/caption]

There were two paragraphs in the article that really caught my attention, because they strongly reflect some basic principles in the way I teach:

Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University, has found that people's beliefs about their abilities greatly influence their performance. When she praised children's intelligence after they succeeded at a nonverbal IQ test, they subsequently didn't want to take on a new challenge—they preferred to keep looking smart. When they were forced to complete a more difficult exercise, their performance plummeted. In contrast, some children were praised for "how" they did a task—for undergoing the process successfully. Most of the children in this group wanted to take on a tougher assignment afterward. Their performance improved for the most part, and when it didn't, they still enjoyed the experience.

Never ever tell a student that he is good. Things like "You are so talented!" or "You are the best in my class" do more damage than they do good. A quick boost in the student's self-esteem is not worth the fear of failure they acquire. Failure is an important part of the learning process, the very act of practicing involves trying out different ideas and discarding them through trial and error. Playing a musical instrument well involves a certain element of risk, telling a student that he is "the best", "really good", "amazing" and all that kind of stuff just takes away his focus from the music. He ends up more worried about what people think of him, of gaining praise from his teacher.

Instead of generalizing, it is better to as specific as possible with the compliments. It is also best to aim them at the work that the students did and the specific results, not praising the students' qualities but their acts. Whatever you do, the thing you must avoid at all costs is praising some kind of innate ability in the student. I wont go so far as to advocate completely doing away with complimenting students, but compliments from my teachers were always few and far far apart and I tend to be equally sparse with them.

"You played this piece very well, you are so talented" is complimenting a characteristic of the student that he supposedly already had- "You played this piece very well, you must have worked very hard" or "you must have found a really good way to practice this part" are much better because they are complimenting the strategy the student used in solving a problem and his effort to get around it; they compliment his growth.

Compare the two kinds of compliments:

By complimenting a student's talent or intelligence, you are creating a specific mindset; a mindset that if he fails, it is because he is stupid, or not talented enough. You are teaching him that if he shows that something is difficult for him, that it requires effort, it is indicative of that very same stupidity or lack of talent. You are encouraging him to be defensive about his mistakes in an effort to look smart, not admitting to himself or others when something goes wrong and responding to obstacles by actually working less, or avoiding them altogether in the long run. He will view performance as dependent on intelligence and talent, as something that is unchangable and depends on how good you are, he will tend to lie about his performance and be defensive about his defects, seeing as they reflect his own self-worth. Because of this, many students who have been constantly told, their whole lives, that they are the best of the very best are severely impaired after a bad performance, to the point of mental illness in the most extreme cases.

By complimenting a student's work or effort, you are creating a specific mindset as well; a mindset that if he fails, it is because he didn't work hard enough, or that he did not practice it in the right way. You are teaching him that effort and overcoming difficulties are what proves and uses intelligence effectively. He will be more open to feedback on his playing and will be more enthusiastic about overcoming challenges when he practices and he will be much better at getting up after a bad performance.

From the former we can conclude that compliments must never be aimed at people, but at what they do. Another thing that one really has to avoid with compliments is setting students up for competition. Things like "You are the best of my class" or "You play that piece so much better than [insert famous pianist in here]". The only healthy competition a student can have is with his own self.

With my piano students, I tend to reward hard work, over anything else. I have kicked out students with much more facility and capacity than their peers based completely on their lack of work and general laziness. On the other hand, I've kept students who practice constantly and make music part of their every day life even when they have severe problems that prevent them from playing effectively (most of the time the result of a very bad teacher). The reason for this is that practice makes musicians. Objectively speaking, whoever practices the most (considering a competent teacher in all cases) will generally play better. As taken from the article:

Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, argues that "extended deliberate practice" is the true, if banal, key to success. "Nothing shows that innate factors are a necessary prerequisite for expert-level mastery in most fields," he says. (The only exception he's found is the correlation between height and athletic achievement in sports, most clearly for basketball and volleyball.) His interviews with 78 German pianists and violinists revealed that by age 20, the best had spent an estimated 10,000 hours practicing, on average 5,000 hours more than a less accomplished group. Unless you're dealing with a cosmic anomaly like Mozart, he argues, an enormous amount of hard work is what makes a prodigy's performance look so effortless.

From my experience, and nothing has led me to believe anything different yet, good musicians spent a lot more time practicing than mediocre musicians. I know some people that don't practice much now and are amazing, but I know for a fact that they practiced a lot as children or teenagers. There are exceptions, but generally speaking it is no secret that the more you train, they better you get.

So, in short:

Stop telling your students they are good and make them practice as much as they can.

Seven things we can learn from Schroeder.

For many of us, Schultz' Peanuts cartoons were one of our first contacts with jazz music, with a great soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi. My favorite character is Schroeder. He brought classical music to the strip, usually playing music by his idol Beethoven but sometimes Chopin, Schubert and Brahms. I love the way he plays like a virtuoso on his little toy piano, and how it sounded like a Hammond organ in Charlie Brown's Christmas. Like many great virtuosos, he had his weird and eccentric side too; he kept a closet full of busts of Beethoven and, when he actually sits at a grand piano for the first time, he starts crying and doesn't want to play it. I love the way he tries to emulate Beethoven's lifelong bachelorhood and always ignores Lucy van Pelt. He is also one of the few characters on the strip that isn't mean to Charlie Brown, defending him when the others pick on him. Here are my favorite quotes from Schroeder, perhaps we can learn something from him:

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[caption id="attachment_303" align="alignleft" width="198" caption="His priorities are obvious, Beethoven before girls."][/caption]

Schroeder: Charlie Brown, let me give you a little advice. As long as you think only of yourself, you'll never find happiness. You've got to start thinking about others!
Charlie Brown: Others? What others? Who in the world am I supposed to think about?
Schroeder: Beethoven!
Charlie Brown: Oh good grief!

I can't agree more; to find happiness, you have to think of music and to think of others. Nihilism has a detrimental effect on a musician, and Schroeder clearly understands that. We can also learn from his enthusiasm in enlightening his uncultured bunch of friends by bringing Beethoven up as the answer to all of lifes troubles. If Beethoven doesn´t bring you happiness, then there's probably no hope for you. Not just Beethoven, which brings us to our next quote:

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Schroeder: Buying records cheers me up. Whenever I feel low I buy some new records. I was so depressed today I bought Mendelssohn's violin concerto and Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day.
Lucy: Wow! How depressed can you get!

Music is food for Schroeder's soul, he's not just a trained key-pushing monkey, he is an artist that needs his art the same way the rest of us need air or water. Notice how what he bought is not piano music. Not another record of the Rach 3 and Chopin's greatest hits; he is a musician, not a pianist.

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[caption id="attachment_301" align="alignright" width="144" caption="He had a closet full of these!"][/caption]

Schroeder: The joy is in the playing.

He understands that the actual physical act of playing is a pleasure in itself and connected intimately to the music. Music is not to be contemplated or to be kept on a shelf; the joy for an artist is sitting down and actually taking part in our art.

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Schroeder sees Lucy and Snoopy brawling: Fighting under the mistletoe? How unfeminine...how unromantic...how gauche!

An artist is an aesthete, with impeccable taste and an eye for what is beautiful or graceful. He is a gentleman and appreciates the finer things in life as well as the common things like playing baseball with Charlie Brown and hanging out with Snoopy and the gang. He is already a man and shows greater maturity than his peers, and he is not afraid to let them know when they are not acting in a proper manner to the occasion.

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Lucy asks if musicians make a lot of money: Who cares about money?! This is ART, you blockhead! This is great music I'm playing, and playing great music is an art! Do you hear me? An art! (pounding on piano) Art! Art! Art! Art! Art!"

As pianists, we are artists making great music. Money is not our concern, talking about money is even somewhat offensive. We are not running a butcher's or a sausage shop and the main point of what we are doing should not be getting payed. It is always about the art. Art! Art! Art! Art! Art!, as he puts it so clearly.

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Lucy asks him what the answer to life is: BEETHOVEN! Beethoven is IT, clear and simple!! Do you understand?

He can't be any more clear with this one, Beethoven is the answer to life. Life is music. As John Cage so aptly pointed out to everyone, everything is music.

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When Charlie Brown asks him how he's able to play such complicated pieces on his toy piano when the black keys are just painted on:

[matter-of-factly]

I practice a lot.

He makes no excuses, everything can be solved with hard work. With so many musicians out there blaming the piano, or the hall, or the weather every time something goes wrong it is refreshing to see him make great music with a toy piano, with no black keys. More than anything else, it teaches us about the power of our imagination and sheer force of will when making great music. He doesn't let his toy piano bum him out, he just takes it in stride and practices a lot. So should we all.

Viva México!

[caption id="attachment_269" align="aligncenter" width="395" caption="Viva México!"][/caption]

Tradition says that on the night of September 15th, almost before midnight, the reverend Miguel Hidalgo went up into his church steeple and rang the bells to call everyone to rise up and send the Spaniard imperialist dogs back home.  To mark this event, in every single plaza in all the towns in Mexico, at every single town hall, from the huge Zocalo in Mexico City, to tiny "Tanque de agua número 56" (Water tank number 56) in some remote corner of San Luis Potosi- that is an actual town, by the way- governors and mayors will ring the bells or shoot a gun, give a speech and yell "Viva México!" right at midnight. Lots of fireworks, drinking and food will follow and then everyone will gather, hung-over, on the 16th to watch the obnoxiously early military parade.

[caption id="attachment_270" align="alignright" width="236" caption="Mexican super-hero Miguel Hidalgo leads the revolt against the Spaniards. Not pictured: super-strength and laser beams shooting from his eyes."][/caption]

All over Mexico, orchestras annually present their "Mexican programme". Most of these will include either the Huapango, by José Pablo Moncayo or Danzón no. 2 by Arturo Marquez. Other works usually included are Chavez' Sinfonía India and Silvestre Revueltas' Sensemaya. The music of Silvestre Revueltas, is being rediscovered by the rest of the world and Sensemaya recently made a brief show in the pop culture scene when it was featured in the soundtrack of the movie Sin City.

There is some Mexican music out there that is immensely popular here in Mexico, but practically unknown in the rest of the world. The Huapango and Estrellita are probably as well known here as Beethoven's fifth and Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Here are three works that are very popular here in Mexico that are really worth knowing. While popular doesn't necessarily mean quality, the three composers behind these works are very good and these works are a good starting point to get to know the rest of what they wrote.

1. Huapango (1941), José Pablo Moncayo

This is a bright symphonic piece that is usually included in pop concerts of Latin American music. It was written by José Pablo Moncayo, an extremely talented pianist, composer and conductor who studied with Carlos Chavez and in Tanglewood with Copland and Bernstein. Here is a short video of pretty Mexican landscapes and Moncayo's Huapango:

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=cuOWF2OG3nE]

The great tragedy of Moncayo's life is that he is known best for one of his least accomplished works, made while he was a student while many of his masterpieces are completely unplayed, even in Mexico. His teacher, Carlos Chávez, sent Moncayo and Blas Galindo to Veracruz to study local folk music; much like Bartok and Kodaly did a few years earlier in the Balkans. The local music features the harp and constantly changing accentuation that is typical of Mexican music; a 6/8 measure that constantly turns into a 3/4 without changing speed, sometimes played one on top of the other. (You count ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six and also ONE-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six). This rhythmic phenomenon is called hemiola. Moncayo used three Huapanagos (the name of the local folk music genre) called El Siquisiri, El Balahu and El Gavilancito and made a symphonic work based on them, first exposing them as he originally heard them and then developing them and combining them according to his own taste.

In 1941, Chávez (who was directing the National Symphony Orchestra) replaced a potpourri of huapangos that was usually played every year with Moncayo's Huapango. The Huapango became a tradition. It is full of solos and it is a lot of fun to play for horn and harp players. It is not difficult and is constantly played by youth orchestras, and the constant infectious 6/8-3/4 rhythm has any audience tapping their feet along to the music immediately. 

Moncayo's life has not been studied in-depth and his important role as a conductor is not currently given the importance it deserved. While he was conducting, the national symphony orchestra gained international renown, and due to World War II in Europe, many great soloists brought their art to Mexico for the first time. As he grew older, his work fell out of fashion; composers abandoned the nationalist style of composition that included epic scale works featuring Mexican elements. His death marked the end of the nationalist era in Mexican music. Towards the end of his life, he was struggling with a bad political situation in Mexico and a difficult cultural environment. He died prematurely at 46, with the new generation of composers moving on towards serialism and a completely different school of thought.

If you like Moncayo's work, I highly recommend Amatzinac for flute and string quartet (1935); his Symphony (1944); Sinfonietta (1945); Tierra de Temporal (1949) and among his works for piano, Muros Verdes.

2. Danzón no. 2 (1994), Arturo Márquez

Along with the Huapango, Danzón no. 2 is practically the second national anthem of the Mexican people. It is based on a Cuban dance form that became very popular in a variant played mostly in the southern and south-eastern zones of Mexico since the end of the 19th century. Like the Huapango, rhythmic hemiola plays a big part in the danzón. In this case, the changes are in 8/8, changing from 4/4 to 3/8+3/8+2/8 constantly. The measure changes are complicated in this work, but the accentuation is much more important and remains constant throughout.

[caption id="attachment_271" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Arturo Marquez, a really cool laid-back guy."][/caption]

Arturo Márquez wrote a series of works based on the danzón, commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In these works, he explores a variety of ideas, using the language of danzón as a basis; these works include a guitar concerto (Danzón no. 3), a piece reminiscent of Tchaikowski's fifth symphony (Danzón no. 4), a saxophone quintet (Danzón no. 5) and a work modeled on Ravel's Bolero (Danzón no. 8); of all these, Danzón no. 2 gained international fame.

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=msogBMH6QM4]

Danzón no. 2 is a beautiful thing to watch in a concert hall; it has a lot of visual appeal. The violin and viola bows move hypnotically, reminding one of feathers swaying, of fish gliding through the water; whole sections of the orchestra jump in and out, dancing with every changing theme, built like a jigsaw puzzle out of danzón elements. The work has been played by many orchestras around the world, notably by the Berlin Philharmonic. I have yet to see a version I like by non-Mexican orchestras. Foreign versions I have heard tend to have too much piano and a percussion section that tends to be behind the beat

If you enjoy Danzón no. 2, Márquez has recently composed a series of works for solo piano that are beautiful and highly idiomatic to the instrument. My favorite in the danzon series is number eight, homage to Maurice. It is modeled after Ravel´s Bolero, featuring a conga line instead of the original snare drum and following the slow build-up of the Bolero. Here it is, played by the Silvestre Revueltas Youth Orchestra:

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=JdiVD5_QQdk]

I personally played the piano in the world premiere of his Cantata de los sueños (Cantata of dreams) in its version for choir, soloists, narrator, piano and percussion. Here is the final number from this work that is part cantata, part opera and part musical theatre and protest song. I am the pianist on the left, and my wife is sitting beside me turning the pages:

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=89lY8vcAfRw]

It was a lot of fun to play. It treats the piano as a percussion instrument integrated to the rest of the percussion ensemble. The music was very nice, but the subject matter was not so much to my taste. I tend to dislike music that features political content (the cantata talks about world peace, the internationalization of global resources, the decline of ethnic cultures and racism, among other current themes).

3. Estrellita (1912), Manuel M. Ponce

[caption id="attachment_272" align="alignleft" width="133" caption="Manuel María Ponce, along with Carlos Chávez, the grandfather of current Mexican music."][/caption]

I won't bore you with a biography of Manuel M. Ponce. His Wikipedia page is pretty complete and includes most of what you need to know about this man, one of the first Mexican composers to gain international recognition. His song Estrellita became very popular in the first part of the twentieth century. Along with Estrellita, it is practically impossible to attend a school recital in a Mexican conservatory where someone isn't playing Ponce's Intermezzo or his Scherzino Mexicano either on piano or guitar. Estrellita was also transcribed by Jascha Heifetz, and his version of this work for the violin is played by young would-be virtuosos around the world. His work also jumped to the international scene when Andrés Segovia played and recorded many of his works transcribed for guitar. His Concierto del Sur for guitar and orchestra is played by guitarists everywhere.

Here is Alfredo Kraus singing Estrellita, to the general swooning of all old ladies in the audience:

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot9FHZ8cgMI]

Here is Joshua Bell playing Heifetz' transcription of this work at the proms, to the general swooning of all teenage girl violinists in the audience. It is not easy to play at all, featuring very high positions, a constant vibrato and cantabile and lots and lots of accidentals.

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=pp-Gl-70dSo]

You can also listen to his two other most popular works, Intermezzo for piano and Scherzino Mexicano in transcription for guitar. You can find a ton of Mexican pianists playing the Intermezzo on Youtube. Here is a version of the Scherzino Mexicano played by John Williams on guitar:

[youtube=http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=T5LdFoSFfcI]

Even with its salon music writing and romantic turn of the century style, there is still a Mexican element to the writing. The hemiola is ever present even here and the bass line is very similar to mariachi playing. The endings of the phrases are also typically folksy.

Ponce's most famous works were in his salon music, romantic style. He later evolved into a quasi-impressionistic style and later adopted a more avant guarde nationalistic composition style. I highly recommend going through his catalogue, which includes such gems as the violin concerto, different poems for the piano and music based on the baroque and neo-classical styles.

Denial

Far too many pianists out there live in a fairy tale world. I have mentioned before that one of the key elements of getting over stage fright is being completely honest with oneself. If every time you play in public it is a complete mess, maybe it isn't just the nerves' fault. It might be that every time you play, you are making a complete mess but are only aware of it when you are in front of an audience and have no other option but to plod on and finish what you started- no second chances, no do-overs. It may be that you are living in denial.

The possibility for denial haunts musicians every day, all the time. The sources of self-delusion are many, including parents, friends and teachers.

Are you actually practicing, or are you just deluding yourself into thinking that you are practicing? Perhaps you are sitting in a small room with your instrument every day for hours on end without actually practicing, just playing over and over. Maybe instead of trying to make progress when you practice, you are just fulfilling a requirement, so you won't feel guilty at the end of the day, when you sit in front of the TV.

You kept stopping and hesitating at that recital, was it bad because of nerves, or uncomfortable shoes? Perhaps it was bad because even after months of practicing a piece, you never actually sat down and played it from top to bottom without stopping or repeating yourself.

Every single one of your students has carpal tunnel syndrome or tendinitis. Maybe it's that nasty cold wave we've been having? Maybe they practice too much. Perhaps there is a serious problem with the technique that you teach.

You practice hours on end and do everything your teacher tells you to do. Your teacher has a big name and everyone says he is good, he is intimidating in class and talks really big. Even so, it seems that your results at master-classes, auditions and competitions have been severely lacking since you started with him. Every time you get an outside opinion, they eat you alive! Maybe you are just stupid or slow, as your teacher keeps telling you. Perhaps your teacher isn't as good as your friends tell you. Maybe his fame comes from being related to a more accomplished musician, or because there simply isn't any competition in your area.

We tend to make excuses for ourselves and for our teachers. Identifying a problem is the first step towards solving it. Unfortunately, many of us tend to ignore the problem and live in denial. Convince ourselves that it is not there. All those recitals were a disaster because of the crying baby, or the stomach cramps. We carry around all sorts of impressive scores, that must mean that we actually play them well! The sheet music is full of scribbling in all sorts of pretty colors, that must mean that you really know the piece. And if you spend hours and hours locked in a room, that somehow means that you practice a lot and are doing your best.

Stop living in denial now.

There are three basic principles that can help you see behind all the smoke and mirrors that our mind creates.

The best way to judge something is by the end result. You are not a good musician because you practice ten hours a day. You are not a good teacher because you studied at the best possible school. The good pianist/violinist/conductor is the one that plays or conducts well. The good teacher is the one that produces good musicians. That's it. The same goes for methods. Comparing the '"Russian school'" vs the "German school"  vs the "Himalayan school" of piano has no point unless you are actually looking at the results each one gives. There are two kinds of teachers and methods. The ones that turn out good musicians, and the ones that don't, regardless of their origins, methodology, color, smell or taste.

Things don't happen without a reason. "Just because" is never an explanation. Every single note you play wrong, every single problem you have with a student or with an interpretation has a cause. There is no esoteric mystic cause to problems. If nerves constantly beat you when you play, than maybe you are not practicing how to play with nerves. Play for people, use your imagination and do some role-playing when you practice. Imagine the crowd, play from beginning to end, as if you were in the situation. If you sometimes mess up the same passage in a piece of music, maybe you are not understanding completely what is going on there, or you having trouble maintaining your concentration. In fact, if you are having trouble maintaining your concentration when you play, it might be because you practice with an unfocused mind, without paying attention. If your students are consistently messing something up, there is probably a problem with something that you are teaching them. Things happen for a reason, and one of the key elements of good practicing and good teaching is identifying the causes of each problem and solving them. Learning how to accurately solve problems is the goal of taking piano lessons, just remember that to prevent denial, Occam's Razor is your friend. The simplest most direct solution is usually the best. If three of your students have developed a strange painful bump on their wrists. Then it may be that one practices too much, the other practices too little and does not listen to you, and the other one was carrying heavy stuff and it's been very cold lately- or maybe you are just teaching them wrong. Specially if you've got those weird bumps yourself.

An objective observer is your best friend. Your grandma will tell you that you are her little Jascha Heifetz, your teacher might constantly heap on the praise in front of the other students, you might be the best kazoo player in the whole county (probably because you are the only one). In the end, the best thing you can do for your playing is to get as many outside informed opinions as you can. Attend masterclasses, conferences and competitions. Take an occasional lesson with other qualified teachers, or listen in ; if your teacher is really good, he should not object, provided you do so in a respectful manner to all involved and don't go sneaking around. You can be your own best judge, but it is almost impossible to be objective while you play. Record yourself, on video if you can, and sit down and listen. Criticize yourself. The first few times, I can guarantee that the results will be really bad, but over time you will get better. Most important of all, you will get to know yourself and have a real idea of your playing. That way, when you go out in public, it won't catch you by surprise.

Denial is a terrible thing. If you tend to cry after your recitals and be depressed about how terrible your playing was, or if you tend to run out of your recitals and don't actually even finish, you need to sit down and think. Exploring your own personality is as important as practicing for every musician. Just remember not to confuse being honest with yourself, with being nasty to yourself. Avoid negative thinking since it is also denial, but in the other direction. All you have to do is be honest with yourself when you do some self-examination and do everything that you can to get to the point at where you can be happy with the results.