Saturday, December 29, 2012
The True Confessions of a [Justified] Self-Deprecater
I feel that one of the reasons I become so depressed when I perform or record is that I teach myself to ignore certain mistakes when learning the notes to begin with; those rose-colored glasses are then stripped off once I am aware that people are listening critically to me. Then I run back to the shelter of my practice room and try to play the piece; I am shocked; I hold the fragments of a shattered masterpiece; the optimism is gone; I wonder what happened; all enjoyment found in playing the piece is lost. I try in vain to correct one problem - if I could only play that one measure right! But my patience is too short-lived and I leave the practice room to go for a walk.
I have two options at this point to overcome this temporary aural trauma and move on. First, I can remove or lower my self-determined standards, turn off my ears when I go before an audience or a microphone, and simply play without allowing myself to feel disappointment or disgust at the result: it is what it is. This option sickens me - it seems contrary to the fundamental principles of art. The second option is to open my ears still wider in the practice room and expose myself to the painful realities of all my technical and musical shortcomings from the very beginning. I am not perfect, but I do not allow myself to be content with imperfection; I assess where I am, and I set attainable goals for that day's practice session.
This negative experience happens less and less frequently these days, thankfully. Partly I'm developing the instincts to predict what will fall apart in performance and how to prevent it, but mostly I'm just focusing on smaller segments of music and playing them precisely from the get-go. I'm learning that there is a feeling of total control and comfort that fills up the hands when you really get a piece under your fingers; you feel that everything you do is intentional; silly mistakes, fobbles, and wrong notes don't scare you, because you're still in control. Having gotten a glimpse of what that feels like, I now strive to attain that within the first weeks rather than two years down the line with a piece.
Today is an excellent example. It was a remarkably productive practice session, despite some rather uncomfortable interruptions. I spent a little over an hour on the A section of variation 1 of the Goldbergs, just looping it a little under tempo. It's about a 45 second section. I find more and more that it doesn't matter how I practice, but rather that I am focused. I can control the piece well enough that if I fumbled a little or played a wrong not, I kept going and when I got around to the section again, I corrected it. Each time I played through the section I set a different goal and gradually worked the entire piece up by degrees. About 40 minutes in I experienced the major crash in finger coordination, dreams about which happening on stage wake you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat! So I stopped, slowed significantly down, and worked out the finger movements again from about 40 beats per minute all the way back up to about 90. And now, with minimal upkeep, I can keep that section from ever going haywire again.
After the incident I took up looping that section again until playing it gave me that feeling of total control I desire. Of course, I only achieved 95% of the feeling I was looking for, but the last 5% will take another few months to settle in. Sadly, that's the way it works. Now that I know what that feels like, however, I will not perform unless I experience that total relaxation and freedom when I play my program. It's dangerous to do otherwise; why would I go into the lion's cage not having mastered the whip I'm wielding against the beast?
This seems unrelated, but it's the first step to becoming more confident and overcoming the shock of hearing yourself perform or record in a positive way.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
"Let me try this out on you..."
As any of us could have predicted, it was a trainwreck.
I've thought more and more lately about why we as humans can play something so well when it's just us around and totally blow it the moment others show up. It's not always the case, and in fact (I'm only speaking for myself on this one) I observe that the trainwreck is worst on the first run and aligns to what I do alone in the practice room more and more as I play the piece more.
This is all very obvious, still. Let's get down to some deeper thought here. Identify the problem and the answer will resolve itself 9 times out of 10. What exactly happens?
- First, those repeated notes at the beginning were starting to sound like something out of a Dusapin etude... impossibly erratic, never more than 3 out of every 4 notes sounding, as many different dynamics and tone qualities as there were notes.
- It was at least 20% faster than I have practiced it. Some parts were probably even faster than I intend to ever perform them in concert.
- There were innumerable wrong notes, particularly when the hands are crossed or on top of one another (which is, to my great frustration, more than half of this piece).
- I got lost twice, had to backtrack a measure or two, and keep going.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
The Doldrums
I learn the notes, and if I'm smart about it (and patient, which isn't frequent), I'll work through the piece at a slower pace but focus not only on the notes but also on developing a good structure, developing a rich sound that is appropriate to the piece, and resolving technical problems right when I first meet with them.
In a piece like Gaspard, however, the problems I face require me to develop new technique in addition to implementing the skills I have already acquired. This means I cannot resolve the technical problems in the piece as quickly as I can learn the notes. And as I am forging through entire oceans full of physical challenges, that is exactly when the engines give out, my excitement at learning the piece leaves me, and I find myself in all-too-familiar doldrums: able to sloppily plow through the majority of a movement at half-tempo with no motivation to do what it takes to play better.
I hit this point with "Scarbo" about a week and a half ago. I would run through the piece twice and then call it quits, moving on to something new and exciting or something I can already play smoothly. Last night it came to a head as I resolved to select a couple of specific spots in the 400+ measures I have already learned and "woodshed" them, as Rombach says. The first was the fast repeated notes at the beginning of the movement, and the second was the return of one of the themes in mm. 256-312. I had the time to spend two or three hours on them, at the end of which I felt productive, rewarded, and satisfied.
To be clear about my practice methods, I do not condone pure repetition as a means of acquiring technique and certainly not as a means of learning a piece of music. Every time I run through a section, when there is no way to learn it except by repetition, no matter if it is five notes or five hundred measures, I intentionally focus on something different each time; it must be interesting. I also find that sometimes it is helpful to clarify to myself exactly what I am trying to accomplish rather than just telling myself, "it's not right yet. It's not right yet." So I will write down my goals or simply say them out loud. It forces the brain to recognize completely what it is I am working out.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
The arpeggio
Having very successfully performed Ondine Tuesday evening having picked it up less than three weeks beforehand after several months' hiatus, I undertook Scarbo Wednesday morning. I've never even sightread through it before, so this has been a challenge. So far, since I haven't had anything major going on Wednesday through today (except Thanksgiving, when I didn't play the piano at all, thank God), I've moved relatively quickly through it. I have the first 435 measures of the 627 measure piece more or less learned. Today, I thought I would devote a post to a specific passage that is troubling me.
Every time I listen to this piece, the moment that overwhelms me is the arpeggio in mm. 228-234 (pictured) and its sequence transposed down a fourth in mm. 249-255. A perfectly-executed diminuendo as it flies up literally the entire span of the keyboard sends chills down my spine again and again. Needless to say, I have a sense of responsibility to pass that impression on to my audience. When I first arrived at that moment in learning the piece, Wednesday (day 1), I worked at it two hours at a stretch. It's Saturday and I am only slightly less dissatisfied.
The principal issue is that the arpeggio is simply awkward to play. It fits too well into the hand in some places, and once it comes time to shift up to the next octave, there is nothing natural about the movement. Furthermore, Ravel has both hands shifting up together, landing in the new position on each beat. This makes it easy to have a pulsing effect rather than a gentle "whoosh" up to the pianississimo A7.
A second main issue is that the forte D#1 at the bottom of the arpeggio doesn't decay quickly enough for the arpeggio to be heard in the last two octaves. This means that this already-awkward arpeggio must be playable completely smoothly with no pedal at all. Then I can clear the pedal after, say, C#5 and have the control over the sound I need to finish effectively.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Ondine's Return
- Rachmaninoff, Variations on a Theme of Corelli. I performed the majority of this work in 2007 or 2008. I did a horrible job, and I am grateful that no one remembers my performance anymore. Nowadays, however, I am much better-equipped to tackle such a piece and perform confidently, comfortably, safely, and musically.
- Beethoven, God Save the King Variations. A really fun little piece of music. Like everything Beethoven wrote, it's brilliant and fits the piano. Unlike most of what Beethoven wrote, it's short enough to be played as an encore, weighing in at about 4 1/2 minutes without repeats.
- Bach, Art of Fugue. Not the whole thing, probably, but certainly a large chunk thereof. I never cease to be amazed by what Bach is capable of.
- Beethoven, Piano Sonata in A, Op. 101
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Living Music?
I've spent the majority of the last two months of silence reflecting on how to make my performances still deeper. I want to deal with the same life issues that the composer dealt with while and by writing the music. I listened to a friend of mine playing a piece of Mozart awhile back, and all I recall thinking at that performance was that everything was very beautifully played, but it had no life. Instead, I saw lots of visual expression. He moved a lot. Once I closed my eyes, the life seemed to flee.
What puts life into the music? My piano teacher tells me about crescendi and diminuendi and pedaling and creating a good sound, but I feel like these aspects of performance, while important, only serve to be successively thicker layers of sophistication heaped upon the piece, further disguising the basic lifelessness of the pianist.
My friend felt the music very deeply, but that feeling was not transferred into the music. I would even say he understood the music deeply, but he failed to convey that understanding to me.
What I consider to be great composers are the ones who deal with serious issues of life with their music (of course, there is still a prerequisite level of skill to be attained): take Beethoven, for example. The last five piano sonatas are perhaps his most profound response to the difficulties of life, and one can certainly not convey that meaning in the music without first dealing with the same issues (real or imagined) and, as they say in the theatre world, becoming Beethoven.
I can't speak for how well my friend did this with his Mozart sonata. I don't know if "being" is all there is to it, but it seems to be a major part of imbuing life into the music.
I'm going to stop there, let it soak into my own soul for a few more years, and then maybe I'll have an idea of the next step to take.
Friday, August 10, 2012
The Dilemma of Balance
Friday, August 3, 2012
Repeat after me: "aahh mooo shaaah raahhh taaah kaaahhh. Foosa, semiminim, counterpoint." There. Problem solved.
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me how to practice, I could start my own conservatory. How do I answer? "I really don't know." People think this is silly... It probably is. There really are certain guidelines for practice, which I always make sure to mention after my initial answer, but a universal practice theory is a surprisingly well-kept secret; or, perhaps, no one really knows how we learn as musicians and the great pianists are only so by chance.
The people who ask me that question obviously ask it because they believe it can be answered in words. Can it? One who has never heard the cello before can know that a cello is a musical instrument in the string family; that it has four strings tuned to C2, G2, D3, and A3; that it is the instrument closest in range and resonance to the human voice; one may even be able to express the importance of the exact shape of the f-holes and the difference between a snakewood bow and any other kind of bow... What is the difference between that person and the person who, knowing nothing about the cello, enters a concert hall and is captivated by the beautiful sound of Rostropovich playing the Haydn C major Cello Concerto? Which one knows the cello better? Those who understand music understand it by experience only.
When you have practiced well, you have experienced good practice. I feel that trying to put labels on it gives the wrong impression.
When I practice (I have no idea if this is a detrimental strategy or a useful one. You decide), it seems that the task of learning a piece of music is divided into two separate goals: notes and everything else. Learning the notes is the most analytical and in some cases is quite a challenge. It is easier, for example, to learn the notes to the first Mozart piano sonata than to learn the notes to Lemma-Icon-Epigram by Brian Ferneyhough. There are two strategies that I have tried, and both work. One is to learn one page at a time and perfect it before moving on. At the suggestion of a blog by one of Sviataslov Richter's friend, I did this with the middle movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto. It was a challenge to my patience to only learn two pages per day but certainly rewarding once I learnt the last page and could suddenly play an entire movement. The emphasis is on learning everything correctly at the outset to cut down on time spent undoing badly learnt passages later. Artur Rubinstein, on the other hand, recommended learning an entire work all at once and memorizing it as quickly as possible. Why? To get a grasp of the entire work right from the outset. This, I feel is a strategy to adopt later on once a pianist is more mature.
The main obstacle I see in making progress toward understanding something more of the way we should practice is that people need to practice differently at different stages of their musical growth; which means that the only people who have been dealing with this issue long enough to come to a good answer can only answer the question for themselves, at their level of advanced maturity. For the younger pianist, things are more or less uncharted.
A major difference between a mature musician and a novice is the finger technique.... How to play octaves, thirds, scales, arpeggios, awkward chords, use the arm, and everything else contained in Liszt's book of technical exercises. If you have all of that stuff down, the much of the rest is often a piece of cake. Even if it's not easy, it's fun.
Studies show that people who sightread daily learn and memorize music more easily than those who do not. So, the first steps toward a great practice experience is to work through technical exercises such as the Liszt exercises and sightread every day. The most productive sightreading practice I have ever had has been reading through the Well-Tempered Clavier on my own and through the concerto literature with another pianist.
Obviously learning the notes is just the beginning; the daunting and all-inclusive "everything else" yet remains. In the beginning, a young pianist is most aware if the notes. As time progresses, he begins to notice the difference between the so-called "musical" playing and its opposite. There is a slowly increasing awareness of what a "good sound" is and how to create it. Over the years, the "learn the notes" and the "everything else" combine into one single task. As the pianist matures, he automatically plays with a good sound and with more and more ease of expression.
I've been rambling awhile, I know. All this is to set up my theory of practice. Too many people think that if they just learn that one secret practice technique, the pianistic panacea, all their practice will be efficient and effective. Sure, certain techniques can be helpful for learning to play notes evenly or quietly or whatever (I only have one practice technique per se; I will talk about it in another post),but that's certainly not the case. The most important factor in accomplishing what you set out to do at the piano is total focus. Of course the young pianist will think he is focused when he isn't. Once he has experienced that total focus, he will realize with delight that he has been efficient and effective.
To tie this in with my somewhat-enigmatic post title, there is no magic spell that helps you practice. You find a routine that helps you focus; that is all that is important. Focusing well can shave hours and hours off of your necessary amount of practice time to get a piece performance-ready.
Focus is the key factor in understanding the piece you play. The ambiguous "everything else" is all of the phrasing, "structure", quality of sound, and dozens of other aspects of music I have yet to explore. This side of music, sadly starved by many people who can't seem to tap into their intuitive musical expression, is where the real art of pianism lies. You can only get to know someone by spending time with them. You can only get to know a piece of music by studying it, at and away from the piano, pondering on and puzzling over it, letting it astound and continually teach you, letting it speak to you, letting it grow with you. The goal of practice is to make the music become a part of you. When you understand this, practicing comes naturally.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The not-so-romantic-as-one-might-think life of the 21st century pianist.
It's a little after 10pm, and I'm here in one of the practice rooms at UNM playing bits and pieces of the 4th Chopin Ballade under tempo. I keep thinking, "why didn't I ever realize I was supposed to phrase it like this before?" It's amazing what preparing for a competition will do to you. I have learned more about phrasing on this piece in the last 12 hours that I've been here than in the last few months I've spent on the piece.
It's not my first competition, but it's my first international competition. I don't know that there's any real difference (MTNA pays more prize money by far, and it's a national competition) except that the word "international" attracts every little hotshot teenager within a few thousand miles to apply. It's the International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado. So far it seems to be well-organized and have a lot of community support (this is the first year for the competition). We'll see. I leave tomorrow for Colorado, and I'll have a day and a half to prepare there before I perform on Saturday. That word "international" also causes some sort of unusual stress to rise up in me... It's not like I'm going to be the shame of the piano world if I don't place. But I suppose I just want to connect with the judges. The networking is far more important to me than winning or losing, for which I feel I can hardly compete with the prodigies that also were accepted. I'm sure they are nervous too; they are probably all practicing right now too.
I haven't done much of anything with Ravel the last few days for obvious reasons. More on that Monday, probably. Wish me luck! And pray.
Well, back to practice. Goodnight.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Taking on Ravel
It's a composition by Maurice Ravel, about 30 minutes, I believe, written at least in part with the purpose of creating the most difficult piano piece yet. Balakirev's Islamey, the final revision having been published in 1902, was all the rage in European concert halls during the early years of the 20th century because it was considered (not without good reason) to be the hardest piece for piano. Ravel published his Gaspard de la Nuit in 1908. While it's tough to say definitively which pieces are the most technically challenging, you can still say with confidence that piano music doesn't get more difficult than Gaspard.
It's not performed often, except by teenage virtuosos from China. Other pieces that are supposed to be "the hardest ever", like Scriabin's 5th Sonata, the first Chopin Etude, or Beethoven's Sonata Appassionata are played much more frequently. I feel like the number of people who attempt a piece and then give up should be taken into account when determining something that is truly difficult. Then you also need to take into account the people who play a piece badly.
Enough of my rambling. These thoughts aren't unique; they're just wasting space on a hard drive somewhere in San Jose. But I want to lay out an overture to what my learning Gaspard de la Nuit will look like:
- Phase 1 - I'm not so sure about this. But Argerich learned it in 5 days... so maybe I can learn it in a month or so.
- Phase 2 - Hey! It's just scales and arpeggios! Easy! [where I am now, but only for the next couple of hours]
- Phase 3 - You know, playing a couple of these scales and arpeggios in a row isn't so easy...
- Phase 4 - %#&#@(*&!& RAVEL!!
- Phase 5 - Hey, this isn't so bad. I think I'm getting the hang of this. [this phase totally without warning and lasts only a few days]
- Phase 6 - Wait. This has to be musical? Crap.
- Phase 7 - %#&#@(*&!& RAVEL!! [the final phase]
Phase 1 - passed with ease. Josh-1, Ravel-0
Phase 2 - doing pretty well. I'm at the 2 yard line, 1st down.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, good night and good luck. We'll be seeing more of each other.