Ambushing the Rules / Angriff auf die Regeln

It’s about 3:40, and the community piano recital is well on its way. I’m sitting in the back of the hall by the door, to distribute programs and usher in late comers. The door opens, a man comes in with a teenage student. She looks like she might be one of the performers, who were still missing when we started shortly after 3 pm. 

I get up and approach the girl: “Hi, are you one of the performers?,” I whisper. She nods. “There’s a seat up front for you. It has a program with your name on it, you’ll find it easily.” She walks to the front, and the man who is with her comments on the score she holds in her hands: “It’s simply not working from memory. She’ll just put the music flat on the music stand.” 

“Oh, ok,” I say. I have no idea who the man is, the father, the teacher... ? At the piano the program continues, and this is clearly not the moment for a discussion.

Playing from memory is one of the rules for participating in the community recital. It is a joint recital for piano students who live in the community. It was initiated by local piano teachers, and each teacher can send up to five students. All students have to audition in advance, and there’s a mandatory rehearsal at the venue two days before the event. 

She must have performed from memory when she auditioned, I think. I wonder what happened. Everybody who’s ever performed knows about last minute panic, and the girl has my heartfelt sympathies. Briefly, the thought strikes me whether playing with the music is ok with the chairperson and the other teachers. And how will it come across to the other students, who have all memorized their music? 

The girl’s turn comes. She puts up the music stand, and plays from the score. She plays beautifully, very expressive, her performance is one of the best in the program. 

After the recital, I join some of my colleagues, who are supervising procedures at the snack table, while listening to someone elaborate about the irrationality of requiring students to play from memory.  Recitals like this should be about sharing beautiful music, not about playing from memory. Even professional pianists increasingly use the score these days. He’s a professional musician himself, plays in an orchestra, and just last night the pianist performed the Poulenc concerto with the music. I finally recognize the speaker as the father of the student, who used the score in the recital.

It’s a controversial issue. Arguments go this way and that. We teachers agree that there is no point in trying to force students to play from memory, and we don’t do it in our studios. We all look a bit defensive and uncomfortable.

The issue that’s really at stake here doesn’t hit me until later. This is not about playing from memory or not, this is about playing by the rules. The people in charge may decide to change them. Until that happens, though, they’re in effect, and participating performers must be expected to respect them. 

Es ist 15:40, und das Gemeindekonzert ist in vollem Gange. Ich sitze ganz hinten im Saal an der Tür, um Programme auszuteilen und verspäteten Zuhörern einen Platz zuzuweisen. Die Tür geht auf, ein Mann kommt herein und ein junges Mädchen. Sie sieht aus als könnte sie eine der Spielerinnen sein, die noch nicht da waren, als das Konzert kurz nach drei anfing. 

Ich stehe auf und gehe auf das Mädchen zu. “Hallo, spielst Du im Konzert?” flüstere ich. Sie nickt. “Dein Platz ist vorne, ein Programm mit Deinem Namen liegt auf dem Stuhl, Du findest es leicht.” Sie geht nach vorne, und der Mann macht eine Bemerkung zu den Noten, die sie in der Hand hält. “Es geht einfach nicht auswendig. Sie wird die Noten flach aufs Notenpult legen wenn sie spielt.” “Oh, ok,” sage ich. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wer der Mann ist, der Vater, der Lehrer...? Vorne am Flügel geht das Programm weiter, dies ist nicht der richtige Moment für eine Diskussion. 

Auswendig spielen ist eine der Regeln für die Teilnahme am Gemeindekonzert. Es ist ein gemeinsames Konzert für Klavierschüler, die hier am Ort wohnen, initiiert von den Klavierlehrern. Jeder Lehrer kann maximal fünf Schüler schicken. Alle müssen vorspielen, um sich zu qualifizieren, und die Teilnahme an einer Probe in der Woche vor dem Konzert ist verpflichtend. 

Sie muss auswendig vorgespielt haben, denke ich, was mag wohl passiert sein? Wer je vorgespielt hat, kennt die Panik, die einen in letzter Minute ergreifen kann, und das Mädchen hat mein tiefstes Mitgefühl. Ganz kurz kommt mir der Gedanke in den Sinn, ob die Vorsitzende des Komitees wohl damit einverstanden ist, wenn die Schülerin mit Noten spielt. Wie mögen die anderen Lehrer darüber denken, und die anderen Schüler, die alle ihre Stücke auswendig gelernt haben? 

Die Schülerin ist an der Reihe.Sie stellt das Notenpult auf, und spielt mit Noten, wunderschön, sehr ausdrucksvoll. Ihr Spiel ist einer der besten Beiträge zum Programm. 

Nach dem Konzert geselle ich mich zu einigen Kolleginnen, die die Vorgänge am Tisch mit Getränken und Plätzchen im Auge behalten, und gleichzeitig jemandem zuhören, der sich über Sinn und Unsinn des Auswendigspielens ereifert. Im Mittelpunkt von Schülerkonzerten sollte die Schönheit der Musik stehen, nicht die Tatsache, ob jemand auswendig spielt oder nicht. Sogar professionelle Pianisten stellen immer öfter die Noten aufs Pult. Er ist selber Berufsmusiker und spielt im Orchester, gerade gestern Abend hat ein Pianist das Poulenc Konzert mit Noten gespielt. Mir wird langsam klar, dass der Vater der Schülerin spricht, die die Noten aufs Klavier gestellt hat.

Das Thema ist kontrovers. Argumente gehen hin und her. Wir Lehrer sind uns einig, dass es sinnlos ist, Schüler zum Auswendigspielen zu zwingen, und wir tun es in unseren Studios nicht. Wir stehen alle ein bischen defensiv und kleinlaut da.

Das Thema, das hier wirklich auf dem Spiel steht, wird mir erst später klar. Hier geht es nicht darum, ob jemand mit oder ohne Noten spielt, sondern ob er sich an die Regeln hält. Vielleicht wird man beschliessen, die Regeln zu ändern, aber bis das passiert, müssen sie von allen Teilnehmern respektiert werden. 

Bach's Birthday / Bachs Geburtstag

Bach’s Birthday

My friend Holly and I had hatched the plan at Christmas - “Oh, this is a beautiful piano,” I said, after trying out the upright in her apartment, and she replied: “Do you think we could have a house concert here?” During the past couple of years, I’ve learnt quite a few Preludes and Fugues from Book II of the Well -Tempered Clavier and performed some of them.  

I had also caught fire for some Romantic repertoire and was working on Chopin’s Ballade in F-major, and I was getting ready to revisit Schumann’s g-minor Sonata, which I never got to a point where I could perform it.

In the middle of all that emotional upheaval, returning to the world of the Preludes and Fugues suddenly seemed like a comforting idea. I figured I could probably pull a program together by the time of Bach’s birthday on April 21st. Holly loves the Preludes and Fugues, she says they give her peace of mind. It turns out that my world isn’t whole without Bach’s music, either. 

Not that it’s not emotional, on the contrary. “Bach is the most romantic of all composers” - to quote Seymour Bernstein, quoting Leschetizky. In Bach’s own time, a performer who did not manage to move the audience had missed the point and failed his mission.   The entire range of human emotion can be found in Bach’s music, from the greatest joy to the deepest despair. The music expresses it, and transcends it at the same time. 

Bach’s “Music of many voices” reminds me of human communication, especially the Inventions and the Fugues. Someone states a topic. Someone else picks it up, in the timbre of his or her own voice, elaborates it further, moves it on. Somebody turns the statement upside down, somebody else got the idea backwards. New ideas come up and find their way into the conversation. The dissonances that result from the different characters making music together are sometimes hair-raising, but in a miraculous way, they always find their way through the conflict towards a resolution at the end. 

For the performer, it’s a daunting task to shape and articulate each voice individually, to take care that each voice is heard, to decide who is leading and who follows in different sections of the piece, and to figure out how to make it work technically as well. More than ever, attention to detail is required, but as a fan of intricate cross-stitch and knitting patterns, I’m used to that. It’s a real challenge for your fine-motor skills - another reason why Bach is so hard to memorize, apart from the complexity of the music. I’ve stopped trying to perform it from memory, there is simply no point.

The music is like a fabric. You miss something, or your fingers get tangled up between the voices, and everything starts to unravel. It’s like a stitch sliding from your knitting needles. The music never stops. One disaster easily leads to the next, and you can’t just jump over the hole to the beginning of the next section - or at least, it’s very difficult.

All that put aside, it’s worth the trouble and I find that it is some of the most rewarding music to play. The audience found it worth listening, and Holly suggested we make it an annual event. As far as I’m concerned, we’re booked - the event will keep me inspired to continue the journey through the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

My Cat Cappuccina, resting comfortably after having a go at the b-flat minor Fugue.

Bachs Geburtstag

Meine Freundin Holly und ich hatten den Plan zu Weihnachten ausgeheckt - “Oh, das ist aber ein schönes Klavier,” hatte ich gesagt, nachdem ich das Instrument in ihrer Wohnung ausprobiert hatte. “Meinst Du, wir könnten hier wohl ein Hauskonzert veranstalten?” hatte sie geantwortet. Während der letzten Jahre hatte ich eine Reihe der Präludien und Fugen aus dem 2. Band des Wohltemperierten Klaviers gelernt, und einige davon aufgeführt.

Aussderdem hatte ich Feuer für einige Werke der Romantik gefangen. Ich arbeitete an Chopins Ballade in F- Dur und wollte mich wieder mit Schumann’s g-moll Sonate befassen, die ich nie bis zur Aufführung gebracht hatte.

Mitten in diesem emotionalen Aufruhr schien die Rückkehr in die Welt der Präludien und Fugen auf einmal wie eine beruhigende Idee. Ich dachte mir, ich könnte wohl bis zu Bachs Geburtstag am 21. April ein Programm zusammenstellen. Holly mag die Präludien und Fugen sehr, und meine Welt ist ohne Bachs Musik auch nicht vollständig.

Nicht das die Musik nicht emotional wäre, im Gegenteil. “Bach ist der romantischste aller Komponisten” so zitierte Seymour Bernstein Leschetizky. Zu Bachs Zeit war es unbestritten, dass ein Künstler, dem es nicht gelang, die Gefühle des Publikums anzusprechen, seine Mission nicht erfüllt hatte. In Bachs Musik kommt die ganze Bandbreite menschlichen Gefühls zum Ausdruck, von der überschwenglichsten Freude bis zur tiefsten Verzweiflung. Die Musik bringt all das zum Ausdruck, und gleichzeitig führt sie darüber hinaus. 

Bachs “Musik der vielen Stimmen” erinnert mich an menschliche Komunikation, besonders in den Inventionen und in den Fugen. Jemand spricht ein Thema an. Jemand anders erwidert es, in der Klangfarbe seiner eigenen Stimme, entwickelt es und führt es weiter. Wieder jemand anders stellt die Behauptung auf den Kopf, der nächste rollt die Angelegenheit vom Ende her auf. Jemand hat eine neue Idee, und sie findet ihren Weg in die Diskussion. Die Dissonanzen, die im Verlauf des “Gesprächs” entstehen, sind manchmal haarsträubend, aber auf wunderbare und oft erstaunliche Weise findet sich immer ein Weg durch den Konflikt zu einem guten Ende.

Für den Spieler ist es eine grosse Herausforderung, jede einzelne Stimme individuell zu gestalten und zu artikulieren; dafür zu sorgen, dass jede Stimme zu hören ist; zu entscheiden, wer wo führt und wer sich zurückhält. Schliesslich ist noch das Problem zu lösen wie man das alles technisch ausführen soll. Als Fan komplizierter Strick- und Kreuzstichmuster liegt mir allerdings das Tüfteln. Der Teufel steckt im Detail, und die Feinmotorik ist gefordert. Neben der Komplexität der Musik ist das ein weiterer Grund, warum es so schwierig ist, sie auswendig zu spielen. Ich habe es aufgegeben, das in Konzerten zu versuchen, es macht einfach keinen Sinn.

Die Musik ist wie ein Gewebe. Man vergisst etwas, die Finger verheddern sich zwischen den Stimmen, und im Nu ist alles in Auflösung begriffen, wie bei einer Masche, die von der Stricknadel rutscht. Die Musik geht unerbittlich weiter. Eine Katastrophe führt leicht zur nächsten, und man kann nicht einfach über das Loch zum Beginn des folgenden Abschnitts springen - zumindesten ist es äusserst schwierig.

Von alledem abgesehen, lohnt sich die Mühe, und ich bekomme einfach nie genug von der Musik. Dem Publikum ging es genauso, und Holly schlug vor, dass wir Bachs Geburtstagskonzert zur jährlichen Veranstaltung machen. Was mich angeht, ist das abgemacht, und noch ein Grund mehr, die Entdeckungsreise durch den 2. Band des Wohltemperierten Klaviers fortzusetzen.

Music or Memory IV - looking back

The last note of “Liebestraum” faded, and Natalie and I made our last bow, exactly at 3:30 last Sunday. We hadn’t timed our program of Folk Tales from the Rhineland and Romantic Piano Music exactly, and we were both a little nervous about that. But it had come out perfectly, and we were looking at a lot of applause and smiling faces, in spite of the grim spectres the stories had conjured up, as would be appropriate for Halloween . Several residents of Amsterdam House talked to us and asked us to come back; one of the visitors even summarized her impressions in the following lovely note:

“Ladies,

What a wonderful afternoon! You both work beautifully together. I’m here to visit my husband. The stories were absorbing - what a good actress - speaker you are! And the classical music so enjoyable.....

Thank you for everything. You are appreciated.”

In spite of that, I was completely exhausted after the concert. It’s not just the playing that counts, but the circumstances as well. Taking the bus at 10:30, to allow for plenty of time, in case we hit traffic on the road. Picking up some lunch on the way, then heading for the venue, to have enough time to set up, do a sound check with the microphone, get used to the piano. 

Visiting a retirement home naturally means to touch base with declining health and the last stage of life. The kind of energy you sense is very different from that of a concert hall, and the perspective of an approaching performance heightens sensitivity, making the impressions even stronger. 

The “Green Room” was the best ever: trees and fresh air, and what a view!

View of the Cathedral of St John the Divine from the garden at Amsterdam House

I was glad that I had visited the premises before, and tried the piano so I knew what I was getting into. I knew I would have to sit higher than I usually do - but I didn’t remember it was that high! The restless spirit of a long deceased piano tuner must have visited the venue well in advance and screwed up the lowest c- octave - the lowest note was about a fourth of a step off. I needed it repeatedly, and it added a real touch of Halloween to the sound. 

Fortunately, I was ready for that.  Spending an hour trying to coax sounds out of an instrument that aren’t really there made me even more grateful for the instrument I have at home, and wonder whether the pianists who play in concert halls on beautiful concert grands appreciate the luxury they are enjoying. 

Under these circumstances, I was glad to play from the score, to have something outside myself to hang on to, and it helped me to stay focussed.

And yet, the next day, it was the greatest relief to put the music away and play the repertoire from memory. It adds a touch of freedom I’ve rarely been able to achieve when playing with the score. Something shifts in my brain the moment I take my eyes off the score and look at the keyboard, with nothing to follow but the music I hear in my mind.     

Music or Memory III - Transcending the Score

“ I think you are onto something.”, my friend Gladys Odegard commented on my last blog entry - she lives in Canada and has been teaching and performing for many years. “ The immense amount of time and energy it takes to commit a score to memory is beyond belief and the older you get the harder it is.  Why not be happy to perform with a safety net and know when you are looking and when you are not.  Anxiety severs all connections with the music.”

“The score can do that, too,” I want to add. As a child and as a teenager, I never played from memory. I didn’t start it until I was in college, and playing from memory was required. Nobody really told me how to approach the task, so, at some point, I would just put away the music, see how far I got, and the rest was a lot of repeats. I managed (with a few exceptions, Bach among them), and memory slips were not a big issue. Since I didn’t know how it worked, though, I was terrified. I knew one thing: the moment I looked down at the keyboard, I had a good chance to crash.

Seymour Bernstein was the first teacher who invited me to look at the keyboard, e.g. when we changed hand divisions. Then, one day while I was memorizing, I realized that all I needed to do was visually memorize the patterns of black and white keys, and see them pass in my mind’s eye like a movie. The method has proved reliable, and, at this point, even replaces the image of the score which I used to see in my mind. Of course, keyboard patterns do not replace either aural - , or motor-memory, they only support it - but the beautiful thing is: they allow me to be “in the music”, while the score used to bring up a lot of unwelcome “thought” distractions. 

My musician friends have often reacted slightly puzzled and confused, when I reported this experience. The first person who understood what I was talking about was my writer friend, Mary Ashcliffe. Like me, Mary is a fan of intricate knitting patterns. She called my attention to the fact that pattern memory or memory of images is a right-brain activity, while, at least for me, decoding a score is a left brain activity, involving a lot of analysis and "thinking" - or that’s how it used to be.

During the summer, when I was practicing Preludes and Fugues, which I don’t usually memorize, I suddenly discovered that I was able to do this without falling back into “thinking” - as if something “clicked” and said : “These are just signs for sounds! Stop thinking, you know the piece, all you have to do is play and listen - or, more precise, listen, and play.” 

At about the same time, I noticed that I was finally able to transpose by ear. I memorized one of the Czerny 8-bar exercises op. 821 every day and transposed it into all 12 keys. Of course, it’s not perfect, and I don’t know if I could still do it if someone was watching me, but by myself, I can do it, just listening to the sound in my mind, and imagining what it looks like on the keyboard. I had tried to do this about 5 years ago, and found it almost impossible. It was like pulling teeth, and eventually, I gave up - I simply didn’t have the time. 

In order to play successfully with the score and “be in the music”, you have to be able to transcend the score, get past the “decoding” of symbols, the playing instructions. The score becomes nothing but a written representation of the sound. While I’ve always been a good “reader”  and sightreader, it has taken me until now to “transcend” the score.

I have the impression that it takes most students a long time to come to the point where they can “transcend” the score - if they get there at all. Once you know the piece, it can be a lot easier to put the score away and trust your keyboard orientation. Black and white keys are what they are, they never change names or places, and in that respect, they are a lot more reliable than musical notation. 

Just this week, I had a discussion about that with one of my adult students, who is a very good “ear-player”. She had observed that it is very hard for her to play with the music, and “hear” and “feel” it as intensely as she does when she plays from memory. We simply agreed that she is going to perform from memory for the time being, but if we are going to approach the issue from both ends, and she also practices playing with the music, eventually, the ends will come together.

Having observed many students, I am quite convinced that the people who are more comfortable playing by ear than with the music intuitively “organize” the keyboard visually. They may not even be conscious of that themselves. 

When I teach young beginners, we usually start off playing familiar tunes by ear, on the black keys - or in B - major, F-sharp - or is it G-flat major? , at first with one finger. Who cares how it’s written! It is important to me that they hear and find their way around the keyboard before they start to read, in order to prevent the reading from being mechanical, without connection to the ear.

When I started to play the piano, I was not taught that way. My mother had apparently taught me to play songs since a very young age, but once lessons started, I never ever played anything by ear again, or improvised, or played without music. While I have no memory of my very early experiences at the piano, I do remember very well that having to play without looking at the keyboard and my hands felt as if someone had pulled the rug from under my feet. At that time, I started “thinking” while I played, and after a while, I got so used to it that I couldn’t stop it any more.

It seems to me that many adult players have been taught like that as children, in order to develop their feeling for the keyboard early on. While some people have that skill naturally, most have to train it. Since pianists have to read a lot of notes, it is an important skill, but “keyboard” skills have to be developed along with it, if not earlier. Otherwise, chances are that the result is a “deaf reader”, feeling his or her way around the keyboard, but disconnected from the music, sometimes to an extent that makes the music sound as if it were a foreign language a person can read, but not understand.  

Music or Memory II - a Message from the Composer

First of all, I have to make a confession: Once I’ve memorized a piece, I don’t always follow the advice of people who are wiser than I am, and stay in touch with the score. I mainly use the score to learn the piece, but once that’s done, it tends to get in my way. I get easily distracted by the part of the music that is “playing instructions”, or by comments that I’ve written into the score, and find it much easier to focus on the sound looking at the keyboard and listening to the music in my mind.  

Of course, I have the music on the music stand when I practice - most of the time -, and I refer to it to verify details when I need to, but I hardly ever “read” the entire piece. Now, the decision to play the upcoming “Halloween Program” with the music requires me to do just that.

A week into the project, I’ve made an interesting discovery: The score is inviting me to experiment - with the polyphony in Schumann’s music, for example, trying out different ways to voice a theme, sometimes doing it differently each time I play the piece. I take more time with rubatos than I would dare, if I were relying on my memory alone. It’s almost like a fresh start. Of course, I also found the inevitable wrong notes...

I am beginning to realize that my playing from memory was “memory” in the literal sense - something from the past, that I relied on every time I played the piece. Going back to the score puts me back in touch with the composer, and I’m getting some interesting new ideas. 

Starting Points

There was a time when performing from memory scared me to death. I’m still not a person who “memorizes naturally”, but I’ve found a way to do it that works for me, and I feel comfortable with it. 

Having “Starting points” throughout the piece plays a major role in the system. Having to start over from the beginning if something throws you off ( and possibly getting stuck at the same place again) is a nightmare you don’t want to live through on stage. If you can start at your starting points in random order, you really know the piece- that’s what I always assumed and aimed for. 

Of course, you need to practice that, and it’s time consuming, but it’s also a way to explore the underlying structure of a piece. For me, it is a kind of “practical analysis”, and I also use it to draw “maps” and structural outlines of pieces. (For ideas on "maps" of pieces, check out "Mapping Music" by Rebecca Shockley) 

While this works for me, it doesn’t necessarily work for everybody. I learnt that recently at a seminar on memorization. Apparently, it can be very confusing for people who do not have visual memory and rely on their hearing only. I can well imagine that it is much easier to get lost if you don’t have the image of the score or a “map” in front of your mind’s eye.

There were a lot of inspiring ideas, but when I went back to my practice routine at home, I suddenly realized that my next recital is only three weeks away. I have tryouts before that, and there’s still work to do. This may not be the best time to change a plan that’s served me well so far. 

Somehow, exchanging ideas about memorization with other people had conjured up demons. Things started to happen that have never happened before, just because someone else had talked about them - losing your hearing while you play. Verbal thoughts intruding - I’ve had my share of that, and I can let go of them if I focus on my hearing, but “Story Lines” ( a story you make up to help you remember the music) don’t work for me. To tell the truth, they drive me nuts.

I’ve had students, though, who found them helpful. Emily Marsh, my former student in Concord once invented a story to help her remember a Ragtime, and she even drew a delightful cartoon to go with it.

I don’t find it so difficult to remember the sequence of the piece, but I can’t always trust my motor memory. Occasionally, I forget motions - I can hear the music in my mind and I know exactly where I am, but my hands have forgotten what to do. For this reason, I need special awareness of everything my hands are doing, learn hand divisions, the feeling of motions, the hand positions of chords. 

I also have a history of forgotten endings - of phrases as well as of pieces. That’s why I start learning and memorizing a piece in small sections from the end. It probably doesn’t work for everybody.

The one thing everybody seems to agree upon is that having starting points throughout the piece is very useful, unless you have every reason to trust that you always play perfectly.  Since you can’t rely on anything on stage that you haven’t practiced before, you have to PRACTICE starting at your starting points. I have found that many students are not aware of this. They think it’s enough to KNOW where the starting points are, but KNOWING is mental, and PLAYING is physical - occasionally, I tend to forget that myself. By the way, you also need starting points when you play with the music.

Beyond starting points, it seems to me that memorizing is a highly individual process. In my opinion, you have to experiment and rely on whatever works for you. Who is to say that in order to prove that you have learnt your piece perfectly you have to be able to write it down from memory, play it on the tabletop or see every note on the page in your mind’s eye?  The fact that some highly skilled and gifted musicians can actually do that does not imply that it is the ultimate and only way to memorize.