tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34690908214136519192024-03-13T17:12:37.592+01:00The Blue Note: A Classical Piano BlogDwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-41123011545512682192014-06-02T15:22:00.001+02:002014-06-02T15:22:38.147+02:00Quotes (#1) "A good sight-reader's skill is not the ability to read more notes than everyone else, but to read fewer."*<br />
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In a not-so-distant past I myself was given to marveling at how great sight-readers could see so many notes at once <i>and</i> play in tempo. <i>How was that possible? </i>In short: It's not.<br />
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An accomplished sight-reader does <i>not</i> see all the notes. Through experience and practice he or she has assimilated a body of skills and knowledge -- in music theory, analysis, style, piano technique -- such that allow them to infer learned patterns and make assumptions based on sparse indications (key notes and other markers) in the score.<br />
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A parallel can be made with an average literate adult. A person who can fluently read this blog post isn't so much someone that's particularly talented at seeing a lot of letters, as someone who has learned to instantly recognize and make sense of the patterns of written language.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* Pascal Le Corre in <i>La Magie du Déchiffrage</i>, p.97. "<i>La compétence d'un bon lecteur n'est pas de lire plus de notes que tout le monde mais, en réalité, d'en lire moins !"</i></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-86405503852909543822014-05-20T14:54:00.001+02:002014-05-25T18:23:59.860+02:00Opus 10, no.1<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I could chart the inevitable emotional stages of learning a new and difficult piece of music. When you’re a young inexperienced squirt, blindly passionate about your art and (in retrospect) embarrassingly confident about your international career prospects, the emotional reverberations that each stage provokes tend to be somewhat bulimic in nature: each new revelation or set-back, each good or bad performance, each success or failure, praise or critique is alternately confirmation of your superior talent, or that you suck and never should have learned the piano in the first place.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US">And so sitting before a new piece and facing new challenges has its emotional hazards. <span lang="EN-US">I'm not embarassed to admit that up to and through undergraduate school I was quite prone to those sorts of emotional fluctuations. </span></span><span lang="EN-US">Fortunately experience – or rather, the confidence that results from it – levels the emotional rollercoaster. </span><span lang="EN-US">However even today I have my teary-eyed, WTF, throw-the-score-across-the-room moments. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Need I specify that said score is an edition of the Chopin Etudes? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">Neither is it probably necessary to mention that the very first étude, opus 10 n.1, has been the source of much, much, <i>much</i> frustration on the part of this humble pianist. While it seems straight-forward -- C major, simple left-hand, repeated chordal patterns -- i</span></span>t's arguably one of the most inaccessible of all the études. <i>Hélas</i>, I 'm not the first or the last pianist to be whipped into whimpering submission by it. </span></div>
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(For the ambitious pianist this frustration can be compounded by the fact that the Chopin Études have long been held up, not just as a rite of passage, but as a measuring tape of pianistic worthiness, a haunting view exemplified by Monique Déchaussées in her <i>Frédéric Chopin: 24 Études -- Vers une interprétation</i> : "I think that any professional pianist worthy of the name should be capable of playing the 24 Études back-to-back (<i>enchaînées</i>), without feeling any physical or muscular fatigue.") </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />Happily my own tears of frustration have mostly dried up. I've come to realize that with patience, an open mind, and conscientious work, success and satisfactory performance of the piece is within the grasp of most any advanced pianist with a well-developped and healthy technique -- even those who might never have thought it possible. </span><br />
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In that spirit, I'd like to extend some words of advice -- observations, really -- to my fellow Brothers and Sisters in pianism, to all my keyboard comrades who have decided (or will decide) to just go for it, to jump in the arena, to grab the beast by the horns, to join the club of Chopin Étude survivors. <i>Veni, vidi, vici</i>. While the hazing is harsh (yes, you too will probably cry for your mommy), the rewards are worth it. </span><br />
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Of course the first step to solving any problem is identifying what the problem is in the first place. So what precisely are the problems, or difficulties, of o<span lang="EN-US">pus 10 n.1</span>?</span><br />
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Let's take the bar one arpeggio figure as a model for the entire étude since the primary technical difficulty of the work as a whole is contained in this fragment. As Victor Hugo says about Notre Dame cathedral in Paris: <i>Et ce que nous disons ici de la façade, il faut le dire de l'église entière .... Mesurer l'orteil du pied, c'est mesurer le géant</i>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><i>Primo</i>, the right-hand sixteenth-note arpeggios require constant lateral movement over a large range of the keyboard. <i>Secundo</i>, the extended right-hand figures demand uncomfortable extensions between adjacent fingers which risks destabilizing the hand and causing excessive tension. <i>Tertio</i>, these first two difficulties render the third seemingly insurmountable: that is, playing the étude as indicated, <i>allegro </i>and <i>forte</i>.</span> </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Walk the fingers<i> </i></span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Generally speaking, healthy finger technique dictates that you should avoid playing in an extended position, which would otherwise destabilize the hand and arm, rob you of force and agility, degrade tone quality, provoke excessive tension. To deal with the extensions in 10/1, the whole notion of extension must be eliminated all together. But how do you do that in real physical terms? The answer is effective weight transfer, one of the basic tenets of piano technique.</span><br />
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Monique Deschaussées says it better than I ever will, so let me quote her here: </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">"You can eliminate the feeling of distance by shifting weight from one finger to the next, by instantaneously closing the hand and by emptying the palm of all tension; each finger must be absolutely balanced, the arch of the hand closed under the finger's starting point. In a very slow tempo, work on achieving this sensation of weight transfer from one finger to the next, playing all the notes including those of the thumb. It's the same sensation as when you walk, transferring weight from one foot to the other in the most natural way. We <i>walk </i>on the keyboard with ten fingers; each finger empties out completely on to the next. This gives a marvelous sensation of muscular facility." (1)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Learn to walk the fingers, first with simple melodies and five-finger patterns, then scales, then arpeggios ("extended scales"), then opus 10/1 ("extended arpeggios").</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Understand (and master) lateral movement</span></b></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Why do students play scales? To learn the keys? Yes. To work finger technique? Yes. To master the thumb and second finger passage? Yes, yes and yes. But they're also a means to learning and perfecting lateral movement. The problem of lateral movement isn't just gliding your arm sideways (easy enough indeed), but rather gliding from the upper arm while the wrist and forearm stay empty of tension and the fingers play as naturally and tension free as in a fixed position. In other words, there continues to be an uninterrupted sense of weight transfer.</span><br />
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Opus 10/1 exacerbates this difficulty by extending the range and incessantly repeating the lateral movement. There should never be the feeling that the hand moves up off the keyboard and comes back down for the next group of notes. In fact, there is no "next group of notes" in any physical sense. There is a single smooth movement for a single string of notes, going up, coming back down.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Think small</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While physically or audibly there may not be "groups of notes", there <i>are</i> mental groups. To be more precise, we group notes together to form coherent wholes like we do letters to form words and words to form sentences. There are two points I'd like to make here.</span><br />
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The first is that, as what you play with your fingers should first pass through your mind, how you group notes mentally can, and often does, have physical implications. Thus it helps to think in terms of smaller intervals (i.e. definitely <i>not</i> the tenth -- C to E -- in bar 1). The second point has to do with notes that provide bearings in rapid execution. Déchaussées writes in her book (see footnote) that the second finger will determine the failure or success of this étude. In the first arpeggio, that's the G. The G is the guide, the note that provides your bearings.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yet I would argue that the guide note is actually a pair of notes (and not the easiest ones to grasp either): the two notes of every ascending arpeggio that fall at the change of position, which happen to be the same that form the very first interval of each rising arpeggio, played with the 1st and 2nd fingers:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The principle of "non-transposition"</span></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Along with the preceding E, (5th - thumb - 2nd finger) I like to think of this part of the figure as the link or interchange, the place where the hand changes position. It finds its equivalent in the delicate thumb - 2nd finger passage when playing scales. Despite the awkwardness, it should not feel like you're changing positions, but should feel essentially no different than if you were playing 5 - 1 - 2 in a fixed five-finger position (i.e. C major: G - C - D).</span><br />
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This is what I call <i>non-transposition</i> and is at the heart of virtuosity itself. Non-transposition is kinesthetic. It makes no difference whether you're playing white keys or black, adjacent notes or ones separated by larger intervals, moving up or down the keyboard laterally: the basic feeling is no different than if your were playing with those same fingers at a fixed, white-key five-finger position.</span><br />
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And so A:</span><br />
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shouldn't feel fundamentally different from B:</span><br />
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Likewise, if you can't play B evenly and without tension, you can forget about A. Assuming you <i>can</i> play B perfectly fine, search relentlessly for the feeling of non-transposition in all the arpeggio figures.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Know your fingers (and their roles)</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This étude has led me to think of the weaknesses and individual needs of each of the fingers. Or rather, all except the third (which shouldn't need much attention). Let's take them in turn. I've already mentioned the thumb and the 2nd finger working as a pair, embracing the bearing notes. The thumb requires special attention. It must remain light, empty of tension, and extremely quick in coming back to the hand after playing it's note, staying at the surface of the keys.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The second finger guides of course, but just as it is about to play </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">during the interchange</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, it should also stay as close as is reasonably possible to the keys. Nor should it "grab" or "stab" at its note; it should come down as naturally and easily as it would in example B above. (If you've never thought much about it, pay attention to how your 2nd finger moves when you play scales over several octaves.)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lastly, the 4th and 5th fingers. Here is where the complementariness of the études comes into play, as opus 10/2 addresses exactly this issue. The problem is how to become comfortable on and articulate with these fingers. There are numerous exercises, from Hanon to Alfred Cortot's<i> Principles rationnels de la technique pianistique </i>to the opus 10/2 étude. Even -- or perhaps especially -- in opus 10/1 the so-called weak fingers should be independent enough to be forgotten. The 4th should have a quick release of its note, and the hand should not roll towards the 4th and 5th when they play, as this puts the thumb at a disadvantage.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Put the bone to the tone</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is a phrase my esteemed former teacher, the wonderful Mary Ann Knight, used to pound into my head. I've never forgotten it. Regretfully, it was only years later that I fully understood its meaning. Bone to the tone is not simply a way of invoking a full rounded tone, a fun way of saying 'play louder', but corresponds to an actual physical reality. I've heard it referred to as proper bone or skeletal alignment. Seymour<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> Fink talks about this in his article "Biomechanics of healthy pianistic movement" : </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">"One should take maximal mechanical advantage of the skeletal structures so that the tensile strength of bones, rather than energy-consuming muscle power, carries the brunt of the load."</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Allowing the weight of the arm to pour into the keyboard and feeling the bone to the tone is the only way you'll be able to play this étude forte <i>and</i> allegro. (Thank you Mrs. Knight!)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Comments and suggestions welcome. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span> <i>Frédéric Chopin : 24 Etudes – Vers une interprétation</i>, p.26. <i>On parviendra à la suppression de l’écart par le transport du poids d’un doigt sur le suivant, en refermant instantanément la main et en sentant se vider la paume ; chaque doigt doit être très en équilibre, la voûte de la main bien refermée sous le point de départ du doigt. Travailler alors dans un </i>tempo<i> très lent cette sensation de transport de poids d’un doigt sur l’autre, en jouant toutes les notes, y compris les pouces. La sensation est la même que lorsqu’on marche en transportant le poids d’un pied sur l’autre, tout naturellement. On </i>marche <i>dans le clavier avec dix doigts : chaque doigt se vide sur le suivant sans rien garder en lui. Cela donne une merveilleuse impression de facilité sur le plan musculaire.</i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-32873530233276479232013-11-11T21:08:00.002+01:002013-11-19T14:56:03.791+01:00Lessons learned (#2)A few months back, New Yorker magazine ran an article about an infamous, and still-controversial, prep-school English teacher named Robert Berman. In it, the author relates his own experience in Mr. Berman's literature class, describing his first day:<br />
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<i>"We waited in silence as he sat at his desk, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges cigarettes and watching us from behind his dark glasses. Finally, Mr. Berman stood up, took a fresh stick of chalk, climbed onto his chair, and reached above the blackboard to draw a horizontal line on the paint. "This," he said, after a theatrical pause, "is Milton." He let his hand fall a few inches, drew another line, and said, "This is Shakespeare." Another line, lower, on the blackboard: "This is Mahler." And, just below, "Here is Browning." Then he took a long drag on his cigarette, dropped the chalk onto the floor, and, using the heel of his black leather loafer, ground it into the wooden floorboards. "And this, gentlemen," he said, "is you." </i></div>
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Now let it be said from the start that there's something very wrong -- even slightly criminal -- about the indoctrinatory way in which Berman, the figure of authority on such matters, decrees to his students an established hierarchy between Milton, Shakespeare and Mahler. </div>
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Nevertheless, this anecdote spoke to me as both a teacher and (perpetual) student.</div>
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Firstly, his approach is full of paradoxes. It's at once funny (the type of naïve, over-confident, wanna-be writers Mr. Berman was addressing probably needed to be put in their places) and harsh (it willfully tries to break down his students' self-esteem), fair (students of the arts need to know that, like everyone before them, they're starting from zero and have everything to prove) and unfair (it's a blanket indictment of each student's unworthiness). </div>
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It illustrates a kind of a polarity inherent to teaching: the need to counterbalance, on the one hand, encouragement and confidence in a student's abilities and potential with, on the other, keeping his feet on the ground, preparing the way so to speak for that inevitable and devastating moment when he's faced with his own limitations.</div>
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Secondly (and more important still), whatever your feelings about Berman's humbling approach, it contains an important implication: To learn, one must have a certain degree of humility. Humility is receptivity, and receptivity is an open-mindedness that the person in front of you can teach you something. If you're convinced that you have nothing to learn, you probably won't. In all probability, Mr. Berman -- like most good teachers -- understood that humility is a prerequisite to learning. </div>
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One thing <i>I've </i>learned is that an attitude of humility becomes more and more pervasive with experience. In fact, no matter how accomplished one is as a musician, there is always reason to be humble -- as the adage goes, <i>The more you learn, the more you learn how little you know</i>. </div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-87210077961288765582013-09-19T14:33:00.000+02:002013-10-20T11:59:44.530+02:00Chopin, Opus 10/2: The answer is in the palm of your hand...If you really wanted to simplify the matter, you could consider there to be two broad categories of movement (or <i>techniques</i>) in piano playing: those of the arms and those of the fingers. These compliment and re-enforce each other; and although such a distinction can be misleading, I <i>do</i> think that talking about them separately can be constructive.<br />
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Rapid trills of neighboring notes, for example, depend more on factors involving the fingers (clear articulation and proper alignment) than the arms. Trills therefore, can -- and in my view, should (though there are those who will disagree with me on this) -- be treated as a function of finger technique. Conversely, large rolled chords, such as can be found in Chopin's étude op. 10/11, generally call for more active participation of the arm as weight is rolled, so to speak, over passive but firm fingers. Arm technique.<br />
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Five-finger figures, repeated notes, mordants, and (to a lesser degree) scales and arpeggios are all more or less functions of finger technique; while octaves, chords, tremolos of all types, repeated chords, and glissandi are of arm movement.<br />
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To say nothing of how to move in an efficient and coordinated way, perhaps the most basic prerequisite to successful execution is identifying (instinctively for some) which technique is best suited to a given musical trait.* </div>
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This brings me to Chopin's flighty <i>a minor</i> étude. As anyone who has played the piece knows, the first difficulty to overcome is the continuous right-hand chromatic scale. It's difficult enough to learn to "run" on the keys as it is; here it has to be done with the weak fingers (the linked 3rd and 4th, and the stunted 5th). Opus 10 n.2 is thus a work aimed at developing finger dexterity in the most unequal of fingers. <br />
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Now the easy part's done...<br />
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Fast single-note chromatic scales are a function of finger technique. Fine. But how<i> </i>do you play one with the weak fingers? There's no quick nor fully sufficient answer. It's like explaining what music is, or why your water glass, fresh from the dishwasher, smells like wet dog.<br />
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Still, there are answers to be had. In part, it's a matter of simply getting in the habit of using the weak fingers, in scale patterns or trill exercises. Also, of getting used to the overlapping feel of the chromatic scale. Beyond that, I've found that certain general notions, central to any effective finger technique, regardless of the fingers used, can be quite helpful. <br />
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The first of these, I would say, is more psychological in nature. Namely, that finger movement is principally a downward action -- and should be thought of that way. Since the unplayed key is already elevated vis-à-vis the played key, it's entirely possible (though not recommended) to play an entire piece without any upward movement of the fingers at all. While finger lift is necessary, it's never a finality in itself. As with walking, you don't lift your foot for its own sake, but rather to put it back down on the ground again to continue forward.<br />
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A good way to improve finger technique then is to gain an understanding and awareness of how to lower your fingers.<br />
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And that's the second notion. In so far as pure finger technique is concerned (if such a thing really exists), the fingers should be activated from their departure points under the knuckles. I've come across this idea expressed in a variety of ways.<br />
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Seymour Fink uses the term "finger snaps" to describe going from a relaxed hand position to what he calls "palm position" where all fingers are extended forward (imagine making an alligator shadow puppet with your hand, mouth closed). Paul Barton, who has a popular Youtube channel, talks in one of his tutorials about an exercise he once learned of playing a note, then rubbing the finger back towards the front edge of the key, effectively bringing the hand into Fink's palm position. Finally -- to cite just these three pianists -- the French pedagogue Monique Déchaussées talks about awakening the sensation of the finger's base in the palm of the hand (<i>Pour la technique de doigts, il est donc avant tout nécessaire de réveiller cette sensation de départ du doigt dans la paume.</i>). </div>
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In her book <i>L'homme et le piano</i>,<i> </i>Déchaussées talks about the necessity of developing speed in the lift and fall of the finger from this point. But what I've found most helpful is her imagery of <i>la voûte</i> (or arch) of the hand, calling to mind the structural strength of a vaulted cathedral ceiling.<i> </i><br />
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Acquiring these two sensations -- of activating the finger from its base and of a solid arch -- goes a long way in resolving what I've come to think of as The plight of the Pinky (indulge me, please), so central to our Chopin étude.<br />
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The pinky's problem is principally due to its shortness compared with the other fingers; cause for instability, tension and/or weak tone quality. Because of its size, compensation has to happen on some level. It can happen in the arm position (i.e. Alfred Cortot's <i>mouvement tiroir </i>where the hand and arm travel on a horizontal plane to the back or front of the keys like a drawer opening and closing) or in the wrist (which can change its angle to accommodate the 5th finger). Yet as a general rule -- and especially in the case of our étude in which the 5th falls almost exclusively on white keys -- the <i>angle</i> of the pinky itself at the moment of attack must compensate for what it lacks in length.<br />
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Its attack is more frank and direct. In other words, steeper -- almost vertical -- and more fully extended than the other fingers. As long as the nail joint (the one closest to the tip) doesn't collapse, this assures solid tone quality without strain (the bottom of the key might otherwise feel too "deep" and difficult to reach). Because of this, it ends up closer to the edge of the keyboard than the other fingers. </div>
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This becomes especially clear in these stills of three pianists -- Valentina Lisitsa, Evgeny Kissin and Ingolf Wunder -- playing this very étude: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRwM-SnteBASmwFPYXWhDhHLjgZBGklrhfkOyPSoQXxDbYv_pz-nI73br7CGPlFvccXS2EIGqrUx58jQZ8qMDOLOfEg6XHiWhfQXT2ncpYE1E0jRXVhcSz39Jy89PRMjzh8AM8lwzPee0/s1600/straight_5.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRwM-SnteBASmwFPYXWhDhHLjgZBGklrhfkOyPSoQXxDbYv_pz-nI73br7CGPlFvccXS2EIGqrUx58jQZ8qMDOLOfEg6XHiWhfQXT2ncpYE1E0jRXVhcSz39Jy89PRMjzh8AM8lwzPee0/s320/straight_5.jpg" width="290" /></a></div>
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Incidentally, the arch has broader implications, as it also applies to octaves, among other things. Only in this case there are two important structural arches, one from the thumb to the 5th or 4th, and another under the wrist, both of which are sometimes accentuated by raising the wrists:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tucrdygfyL2Nt7Qs7PSNrhFWQqT1BeOSxFSsvO7ssPZjmG-GY3xG_ub9hWV67s-Es9r6xd6cQMzCY2Go5SFJYpWoia1YRyUJu8wCyGynsbgzQMcUgtlyOCrgLoa3wuZwqIJdLldpfYI/s1600/lisitsaoctaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tucrdygfyL2Nt7Qs7PSNrhFWQqT1BeOSxFSsvO7ssPZjmG-GY3xG_ub9hWV67s-Es9r6xd6cQMzCY2Go5SFJYpWoia1YRyUJu8wCyGynsbgzQMcUgtlyOCrgLoa3wuZwqIJdLldpfYI/s320/lisitsaoctaves.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But I'm getting off track... <br />
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I'll sum up with this. To successfully manage the chromatic scale in the op10/2 étude it's important to be aware of how the fingers -- the 5th above all -- move, how they strike the keys and how to compensate for their differing lengths all the while navigating the uneven topography of the keyboard.<br />
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The next technical hurdle is playing the chromatic scale in the same hand as the accompaniment. Two roles roles in one hand.<br />
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That's for another post.<br />
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* Factors such as tempo, dynamics, character and time period (the role of the arm is much more pronounced in late romantic and contemporary works than in Baroque or Classical ones) are also important in deciding which "technique" is the most effective. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-73374415282060927632013-08-21T12:04:00.000+02:002013-08-22T12:19:46.916+02:00Piano Techniques: A (very) short history of how we talk about techniqueI've had, for about seven years now, a debate friend. We meet and argue everything from politics and philosophy to the relative merits of cold breakfast cereals. We once debated for almost two hours the meaning of the word fable<i>.</i>* Whatever the subject, however insignificant it may be, there's always at least one -- usually nitpicky -- point of contention. Yet the slow process, played out over the course of a discussion, of finding the right words to explain our ideas to each other, sometimes reveal that we are actually arguing the <i>same</i> opinion.<br />
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The misunderstanding comes from how we expressed ourselves (i.e. careless choice of words); or from not asking the right questions; from getting hung up in the minor details; or from entering the conversation with contrary assumptions and prejudices. <br />
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An obvious parallel can be made with piano technique. The innumerable disagreements that still exist today about piano study (take the question of Hanon, for example) conceal the fact that there is basic consensus on the core principles of healthy technique.<br />
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I've often wondered about the various schools of playing that have arisen since the development of the modern piano. And how technique has evolved, if at all, since Chopin's day.<br />
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After all, modern piano action is heavier than that of mid-ninteenth century pianos, implying a different physical approach to the instrument. And then there are those perplexing pieces of advice passed down by some of the most eminent pianists of the time: instructions to lift the fingers as high as possible, or to keep the elbows tight and stationary near the body. Some of Liszt's advice to his students is almost comical, given how completely contrary it is to contemporary practices. Madame Boissier (one of his pupils) noted in her journal that the composer prescribed octave scales for two hours everyday in order to develop...wrist flexibility! Liszt furthermore explicitly recommended reading a book while practicing exercises in order to keep the mind occupied ("...<i>qu'on lise en même temps pour se distraire</i>.").<br />
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Apropos of reading, there is an interesting book on this very subject by Gerd Kaemper called <i>Techniques Pianistiques: L'évolution de la Technologie Pianistique</i>.** In it, Kaemper details how composers' and pianists' understanding of -- and way of speaking about -- technique has evolved over time.<br />
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If Liszt and his contemporaries were so verbally maladroit on the subject, it was only because the fathers of modern technique worked by instinct. Indeed, in the early to mid 19th century the very idea of technique was still a relatively new one.<br />
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Going back further in time, it has been noted that baroque harpsichord methods, such as Couperin's <i>L'art de toucher le clavecin</i>,<i> </i>are remarkably mute on technique (as we understand the term today), concentrating instead on general musical principles. The reason for this omission comes from the nature of the harpsichord itself: the smaller keyboard and individual keys mean problems relating to extension and force, central to pianoforte playing, are non-issues.<br />
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Furthermore, while the baroque harpsichordist was a well-rounded "generalist" musician (he had to be able to add harmonies and voices to a sparsely notated score, and deduce parameters such as tempo, character and expression without indications from the composer) the romantic-period pianist was increasingly a specialist who distinguished himself through technical prowess.<br />
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Thus the birth of the modern pianoforte, of the professional pianist-virtuoso, and of the preoccupation with technical virtuosity all happen more or less simultaneously with coming of age of Liszt and Co. Their intuitive understanding of technique simply didn't translate true understanding of the forces at work. Liszt and his confreres were reared by the masters of the transition period between the fortepiano and pianoforte -- Hummel, Czerny and the like -- for whom exercises <i>were</i> the source of technique.<br />
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It was only towards the turn of the twentieth century that technique, now a hard science, began to be thought of as the study of gestures. The history of technique followed then the most natural course imaginable: observation of the original masters (Liszt, Chopin, Thalberg, etc.), theorization (Tobias Matthay, Ludwig Deppe, Rudolf Breithaupt, Marie Jaëll, etc.), and finally application to pedagogy.<br />
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And it is to this later generation that pianists today owe a great debt of gratitude. For they are the ones who first theorized such fundamental concepts as free fall, transfer of weight, relaxation, momentum, anatomy and psychology as they relate to piano playing -- and thus, finally putting the right words to what technique feels like...<br />
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* N.B. to the friend in question: this was at the café Jolies mômes, corner of rue Condorcet and rue Turgot near Europa.<br />
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** The text, originally a doctoral thesis, was first published by the Éditions Musicales de la Schola Cantorum in 1965, and republished for the general public by Alphonse Leduc three years later.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-59178200058420352002013-06-26T22:26:00.000+02:002013-06-29T09:59:37.712+02:00Principles of sight-readingI like the French term for sight-reading : <i>le déchiffrage</i>. Related to the English "decipher", it seems so much more apt than sight-reading. <i>Déchiffrer</i>. It's a word that, like the English equivalent, means to reveal the meaning of an obscure, illegible or encoded text. The word itself says something about the person capable of doing it. It implies a certain esoteric ability.<br />
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Indeed, sight-reading mastery is a skill that escapes even a great number of advanced pianists. Why?<br />
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For starters, few or us have truly had good training in this area. Effective method books are quasi inexistent. And most pianists don't seem to know how to teach it. The few pieces of advice I had included such gems as: "You just have to force yourself to do it, and often." Or, "Read from the bottom up." Or, "Keep your eyes one step ahead of what you're playing."<br />
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None of which ever helped, because this type of advice doesn't teach you <i>how</i> to do these things. Reading ahead is certainly crucial to good sight reading; but such a directive doesn't take into account the complexity of it. It assumes that reading ahead is a simple action. It would be like telling a baby -- if he could understand you, that is -- that to walk all he needed to do was get up on his feet and move one in front of the other. But no! To walk you need to learn how to balance on your feet, to coordinate leg movements, to put the heel down first, and have sufficiently developed muscles to do it in succession.<br />
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Walking is a set of individual complexities. Likewise, sight-reading is not just a single skill but an amalgam of many onerously difficult ones. These can be divided into three broad categories: Tactile, theoretical, and visual skills -- each of which must be treated individually.<br />
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I'll take them in order.<br />
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Tactile skills are sometimes referred to as "knowledge of the keyboard", which involves having a feel for intervals, distances and the topography of white notes-black notes. In another words, having physical knowledge of what, say, an octave feels like in the hand; or the feel of parallel movement in thirds; of an ascending f minor scale; or the <i>relief</i> of an E-flat major chord in all its inversions.<br />
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Thus, an important concept is establishing the rapport between intervals on the page and the corresponding distances on the the keyboard and in your hands. The same can be said for contour (ascending/descending figures), and any number musical motifs and figures -- melodic and rhythmic -- that must become so well-known, so banal, that they are intuitively understood by the mind, intuitively translated by the hands.<br />
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The ultimate goal of tactile-skills training is to not feel lost when you're not looking down at your hands, in order to focus your attention on other, more important things. There are a number of sufficient methods available to help develop this blind trust. I currently use Odette Gartenlaub's <i>Le Déchiffrage par la découverte du clavier </i>with my students.<br />
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Knowledge of the mechanics and grammar of music comes next. That is, keys, chords, chord progressions, inversions, scales and modes, rhythmic structures, forms, etc, etc, etc. Needless for me to go on about how this is relevant to reading and understanding a text.<br />
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Finally are the visual skills. These are perhaps the least understood and the least taught -- yet in the end, the most helpful in learning how to sight read!<br />
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When I say visual, I'm talking about how the eye moves about the score. There can be so many notes in a single measure: What exactly should you be looking at when sight-reading? The only method book I have ever found that goes to any lengths at all to train the eye in where and how it looks at the score as you play is called <i>La Magie du Déchiffrage</i>,<i> </i>by Pascal Le Corre.<br />
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In it, Le Corre starts with the basics: developing an awareness of the different fields of vision. At the center, the object you're fixating is clear. In the area around the center, your peripheral vision, things become progressively blurry. What Le Corre draws attention to is the broadness and utility of your peripheral vision; and how poor sight readers will have a tendency to look only through the center, effectively disregarding all of the valuable -- and surprisingly reliable -- information gained from the outer fields of vision.<br />
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While you may not be able to distinguish individual notes with precision, you <i>can</i> distinguish melodic contour for example; or rhythms; or even, when looking at the score on the stand, certain areas of the keyboard. Moral: Beware of tunnel vision.<br />
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Le Corre calls the fact of looking at something through the clear center part of your vision, a <i>fixation </i>(<i>fixer </i>in French is to look intently at something). Apart from keeping your eyes on the score, a key element in good sight reading is reducing the number of <i>fixations</i> per measure. Most people's natural tendency would be to read a bit like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8BejUMsz9O-G2UgOLBZnKy4jbJlx2BFwHxS_dZdeS7u0j8L4g5QAkBN0HvzjMzBsuOpCj_ctSgUHq-xZ24-EJLMwCN3knBVGzOSt-oU2V1DwtlpVusWbbfkeTNyFp89P21yr5Q_VJtw/s1600/mauvais_lecteur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8BejUMsz9O-G2UgOLBZnKy4jbJlx2BFwHxS_dZdeS7u0j8L4g5QAkBN0HvzjMzBsuOpCj_ctSgUHq-xZ24-EJLMwCN3knBVGzOSt-oU2V1DwtlpVusWbbfkeTNyFp89P21yr5Q_VJtw/s320/mauvais_lecteur.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Which effectively adds confusion to an already difficult task. Hence the need to train the eye in order to develop regular, linear, and rhythmic <i>fixations</i>. In other words, to simplify. To this end, Le Corre provides a series of fixation exercises in his workbook of which the unique goal is to learn to move your eye along efficiently and fluidly.<br />
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First, the measures of a piece of music have been separated by spaces, and a blue dot is placed at the center of each measure, between the treble and bass staves. In rhythm and in tempo, your eyes fixate the dots successively, taking in as much info as possible about the notes around it. These first exercises -- with one fixation (one dot) per measure -- are done at different tempi: at mm. 60, 100, then 160. In other words, with each tic of the metronome, the eye advances. The first attempts at advancing the eyes at a speed of 160 beats per minute can be trying.<br />
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In later exercises, the dots and spaces between the measures both are eliminated so the extracts appear as any normal score would. Finally, Le Corre instructs his reader to continue with any music they might have in their library, experimenting with two or more fixations per measure in pieces that contain a lot of short value notes (16ths, 32nds, etc.) or with longer time signatures (9/8, 12/8, etc.). With practice, this eye movement becomes second nature. The expected length of time to acquire these visual reflexes? Around six months. That's to say, six months of diligent practice.<br />
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(If six months seems long, it is. But consider it to be taking two steps back to better leap forward.)<br />
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Playing at the same time as reading follows. This too is treated progressively. A piece is taken at tempo (a <i>Valse Noble </i>by Schubert, mm. 138 = quarter note, is an example in the workbook). It's first read visually, one fixation per measure, in tempo. Then, while maintaining regular fixations as before, you play in tempo and in rhythm the first beats only of the left hand. The eyes are always a measure ahead. Next: same eye movement, always ahead, playing all the notes of the left hand. Next: left hand only, mentally hearing the right hand (melody and rhythm) and imagining the right hand playing. Next: left hand plus only the notes of the right that fall on the beat. Next: left hand plus all the melody notes of the right (i.e. only the upper line of the right). Next: play as written. And so on...<br />
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One valuable lesson learned by this method of working is to see the essential of a text, which in turn allows you to continue playing regardless of what happens.<br />
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There are many other things to be said. But this post has become quite long. I'll finish with this useful bit of info. When a pianist sight reads with ease, the following elements describe what he/she experiences internally (again, according to Le Corre):<br />
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1. The score is perceived as a whole.<br />
2. Musical instinct guides the fingers over the keyboard.<br />
3. The score is not only perceived as an ensemble of notes but also as a succession of harmonies, expressive moments, musical phrases, etc.<br />
4. The beats (<i>les</i> <i>pulsations</i>) are stable and even.<br />
5. The eye is naturally ahead of what's being played.<br />
6. The score is understood based on similarities with musical formulas and models that are already familiar. Attention is paid primarily to parts of the score that <i>diverge</i> from those established formulas and models.<br />
7. The act of reading absorbs the pianist completely. He/she is in the action, in the present moment.<br />
8. All critical judgment is suspended.<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-46478820650879870072013-06-16T14:52:00.001+02:002013-06-29T10:00:50.584+02:00This ain't your grandma's Mozart: thoughts on the classical music star machine When people I meet learn that I'm a pianist they often ask if I compose music. I don't. I interpret.<br />
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Sometimes they wonder then what that <i>means</i> exactly. What is there to interpret? After all, the the text is written out for you; all you need to do is play the notes, follow the instructions, so to speak. <br />
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That's when I deliver my ready-made "actor analogy": a classical musician does for a musical text what an actor does for scripted dialogue. Sure the notes are all there -- just like words in a script. But a lot of information is missing from the score, and so each pianist will play the same piece differently. It's like if you gave the same character's lines to George Clooney and Toby McGuire. Each would have a unique take on them. They would deliver the lines differently.<br />
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I always feel better after that one. It makes the point; and, by association, makes classical piano feel somehow more <i>in</i>.<br />
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Admittedly, I sometimes need reassurance on this last point. I've devoted a good part of my life to studying and playing music from the past few centuries, music that has in turn been played and replayed over and over -- and over -- again. It's all good and well to be the guardians of a long musical tradition. But I want to be reassured that classical music is not only relevant to the here and now, but is alive, fresh, dynamic, creative, and even new.<br />
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That's it: I like being reminded that there's still something new to be done with classical music.<br />
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Two recent concerts I attended did exactly that.<br />
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The first was given by the Turkish pianist Fazil Say at the Salle Gaveau.<br />
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A year ago I had never heard of Fazil Say. And yet, he'd been around for a while already. A German friend* gave me a few of his CDs last summer. In May, the same friend invited me to go with her to his concert (thanks again, Anna!). Say has an air about him. For starters, he was recently condemned to prison in his native Turkey for insulting Islam, a story picked up by papers all over, from the New York Times to Le Monde, conferring on him the aura of an international political martyr. Then, he has the slightly deranged look of an eccentric, insular genius -- which is great when you actually <i>are</i> an eccentric genius.<br />
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What more could a record label ask for?<br />
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Alone on stage, his presence is gravitational. He doesn't pull you into his world though; only to the edge of it. There's proximity. He speaks, we listen. He seems to forget we're there, and so you can never quite penetrate his world. <br />
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Say was scheduled to play a four-hand transcription of the <i>Rite of Spring </i>on specially fitted piano, on which Say himself had recorded the accompanying part. Say and Say play four hands. When the piano got stuck in Vienna and was unable to be delivered to Paris, the program was changed -- mercifully -- to Mussorgsky's <i>Pictures at an Exhibition </i>and Beethoven's opus 111.<br />
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I won't go into details about the concert except to say that through all his humming and singing, hand waving and conducting, the performance was brilliant. And sometimes shocking. At one point he dampened the strings with his left hand in <i>Pictures </i>for no more than three or four notes.<i> </i>Such a small touch, but an inspired one. Tasteful yet ballsy.<br />
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Say's presence, his aura, and a handful of truly inspired moments like the one I just mentioned electrified the audience in a way you rarely experience. Rarer still, as encores he played his own compositions (including <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xavyhc_fazil-say-black-earth-kara-toprak_music#.Ub2O8GCRp3k"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>Black Earth</i></span></a>)<i> </i>and then...improvised...!<br />
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The second concert was given by Khatia Buniatishvili (Listz's second piano concerto). Buniatishvili doesn't have Say's air of an eccentric genius. She brings something else. She rather has the appeal of a young Argerich. She's young, sensual and prodigiously talented. She's multilingual. (Her French is as good as her English.) She plays with panache. She follows in a long line of distinctive pianists with distinctive hair -- Cortot, Argerich, Kissin... -- to the point where it has become, along with her arched posture, her mark of individuality. It's her brand.<br />
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In short she, like Fazil Say, is star material. She attracts the crowds. Her concert was broadcast live on at least three different platforms. As I was leaving her concert she was signing autographs before a dense crowd in the Salle Pleyel's lobby.<br />
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The star machine run by record labels and agents was clearly going full steam. Buniathishvili's success is no doubt a result of it. So much the better. These vedettes are a sign of a healthy industry, which is exactly what reassures me. Classical music culture is alive and well, young and surprising. Classical music still attracts the crowds.<br />
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How is this renewal accomplished? It's not just a question of new blood. Nor is it one of new interpretations. It has to do with the erosion and shifting of protocols and codes, of which the classical music world is rife. It also has to do with evolving perceptions of who classical musicians are, how they should act, what they should wear, where they should come from.<br />
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* I mention this friend's nationality only because Fazil Say had been popular in Germany for quite a while, given that he had once lived and studied there.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-20090515201515316082012-05-12T01:19:00.000+02:002013-06-29T10:01:05.998+02:00Lessons learned (#1)Repertoire guides are not the best judge of a piece's difficulty -- <i>you</i> are. Never give a student a piece that you haven't played yourself. Otherwise you risk setting that student up failure.<br />
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I recently made this mistake. I gave a student Chopin's <i>Fantaisie Impromptu</i>. He wanted to play it. I knew it, of course, but had never played it myself. So I gave it to him to learn. I had, in part, based my decision on the information given in a teacher's repertoire guide that I sometimes refer to, which placed it on the same level as Mozart's d minor <i>Fantasie</i>, and Brahms' <i>Intermezzo </i>opus 118, no.1 (both of which this student had played). As I learned the piece myself I realized that from a technical perspective, this is patently bogus. The Chopin presents numerous technical difficulties the others do not: the four-against-three rhythmic figures, the rapid tempo, the difficulty of playing on the black keys, the broken chords of the left hand. Alas, the piece turned out to be much too difficult for my student to handle successfully. It was an amateur mistake on my part --<br />
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but a lesson learned.<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-15194016441913949852012-04-20T18:49:00.001+02:002013-06-29T10:01:46.555+02:00The Chopin Études: Part Study, Part Art<div style="margin: 0px;">So let's pick up where I left off...</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">The handful of posts I've made thus far have been mere preludes to the main event. I've been warming up, if you will. But now it's time to get to the heart of the matter. You'll remember (or maybe you won't) that the declared aim<i> </i>of this blog is to transcribe into words an ordinary pianist's struggle with the Chopin Études. The ordinary pianist is Me, of course, and this blog is meant to last only as long as it takes to do an in-depth study of all the opus 10 and 25 pieces. </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">My use of the word <i>ordinary</i> is not a form of self-deprecation or false modesty. What I mean is, I'm a professional pianist without being Evgeny Kissin; a teacher without being<i> </i>Heinrich Neuhaus. Neither do I aspire to be a Kissin or a Neuhaus, but rather to arrive at the fullest possible understanding and mastery of my art. And what is the art of piano made of? Interpretive intuition, historical perspective, theoretical knowledge, familiarity with the mechanics of the piano itself...and technique in all its various facets, both mental and physical. At the risk of sounding mystical, I'm using the <i>Études</i> as a vector towards technical "enlightenment"; my passage through them a kind of pilgrimage. </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">I have no plan to perform the <i>Études</i> in public. And in any case, I have trouble fully enjoying some of them in concert programs because they feel, well, so "étude-ish". This is especially the case for opus 10 no.1. </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">Clearly, in any given <i>Étude</i> there's both étude (in the sterile, utilitarian sense of the word) and art (musical substance, poetic and aesthetic value); yet opus 10 no.1feels to me much heavier on the first. This is not a value judgement on my part, rather an observation that has lead me to consider its shallow musical virtues to be its very strength as a study piece. </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">In other words, it meets the criteria of an étude both in addressing a specific technical difficulty, and in eschewing the obstacles to learning the notes in the first readings. In the spirit of simplicity <i>à la </i>Hanon, opus 10 no.1 takes one rhythmic pattern and one motif, creating a uniform texture that extends from the first bar to the last, and resulting in a soft learning curve on the reading and memorizing end. The pianist's energies are thus free to confront the tremendous technical difficulties this work presents. </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px;">As you may suspect, the next post will discuss those very difficulties, and how they've very nearly brought me to tears on several occasions...</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-1442166357850718412011-08-14T19:41:00.000+02:002013-06-29T09:59:17.985+02:00Principles of physical piano techniqueCountless texts have been written on piano technique. Words are our primary means of describing the physical sensations of playing. They are, however, inadequate when it comes to conveying what we experience with our senses. Try for example describing the essence of a pear -- its taste, smell, texture -- to someone who has never had a pear before. Yann Martel does beautifully in <i>Beatrice and Virgil</i>, and yet...<br />
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This does not mean that putting words on sensations is totally pointless. On the contrary, describing personal experience solidifies understanding. I believe in fact (and there may be a lot of people who disagree with me) that a thing is fully understood only if it can be expressed in words. This is probably why teaching is such an effective way of learning -- the necessity of explaining your ideas to others forces you to clarify them. <br />
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One of the reasons I write is to untangle my thoughts, to figure out what the hell it is I really mean. Exploring is the word that comes to mind. When I write, I explore. I once read a particularly apt quote that went -- somewhat less clumsily -- <i>I don't write because I have something to say; I write because I don't know what I want to say</i>.<i> </i>(I don't remember precisely where I saw the quote I have in mind, but there are a number of authors who have said things along similar lines.) Naturally then, the written word has played a part in my coming to terms with Piano Technique. How can I describe the kinesthetic sensations in the arms, hands, fingers and joints when playing? How much of technique is a physical phenomenon, and how much mental? Can healthful piano technique be reduced to a handful of absolute, immutable laws?<br />
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Honestly, I don't think so. But there are some basic principles of physical technique that I've come by both through experience and various texts. One of the latter is called "Keeping It Simple" by Barbara Lister-Sink (from the collection <i>A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop the Mind and Body for Optimal Performance</i>) in which she proposes a definition of technique that "allows a maximum of artistic expression with a minimum of effort:<br />
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"Healthful piano technique occurs when there is good coordination of the whole body with the piano."<br />
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It's a very pretty definition. But what does it mean? Coordination is of course not only between the various parts of the playing mechanism (arms, hands, fingers, joints), but between the various skills (or principles) healthful technique implies.<br />
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Here are some of these principles, briefly described.<br />
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<b>1. Point Zéro</b>. The term is Monique Déchaussées' to describe a state of total body relaxation, the starting point (<i>point zéro</i>) from which the body is completely "available" to execute a given movement. "Relaxation does not allow one to play the piano," she says. "It constitutes the fundamental state on which technique is built." She explains how to achieve <i>point zéro</i>:<br />
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"Standing with arms hanging to your sides, free up the weight of the body. Little by little it will fall into the legs, your feet will begin to feel like they're sinking in sand. Wait silently and in total receptivity for the sensation of the vertebrae of the spine stacking naturally one on top of the other, the head resting on the neck, the trunk fitting into the pelvis. Then, perpendicular to the spine, feel the line of the shoulders which together form a T. The pianist is entirely built on this letter T. At the extremities imagine a hook on each, on which the arms hang, independent of the body. The arms become so heavy and alive that you begin to feel a tingling in the fingertips. In this position feel that the elbows and wrists are empty, free of all tension.Once you acquire this point of absolute relaxation, this <i>point zéro</i>, try to put it into practice in your every day life: can you open or close a door, take a shower, answer the phone, carry something heavy without ever losing this sense of relaxation, the feeling of emptiness in the elbows [and wrists]. <i>Living </i>in this state is indispensable for playing the piano without effort. One must <i>live </i>as a pianist and not incessantly ignore in everyday life the physical state of relaxation necessary for building great technique."<br />
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<b>2. Center-out approach</b>. As Abby Whiteside once said, The center controls the periphery. In other words, coordinated movement flows from the center (the trunk) outwards to the fingers. The arms lead and support the fingers. To quote Seymour Fink (Google him) from his article "Biomechanics of Healthy Pianistic Movement": <br />
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"It is an all-too-common mistake to isolate and exaggerate finger movement, to lift them unnecessarily high, or to stretch them laterally. When overactive fingers lead, they often confront reluctant arms encased in frozen shoulders. The result is strain, inferior alignments, and weakened playing. In a well-coordinated technique, fingers take their place as the last link in the chain, moving only after the upper arms are pre-positioned and primed to support them."<br />
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<b>3. Dissociation of parts</b><i style="font-weight: bold;">. </i>One must have sufficient control of the playing mechanism to move only the part that is needed to perform the action required, while the others remain relaxed. The key word is Independence. This is particularly the case with the fingers. For a long time my problem was a "sympathetic thumb" that tensed and moved out and up when the other fingers played.<br />
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<b>4. Free flow </b>of weight through the wrists, hands and fingers into the keys according to the degree needed. This sensation implies a proper level of awareness of and mastery (or at least control) over levels of tension in the playing apparatus.<br />
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<b>5. Natural practice</b>. which, according to Déchaussée, "does not alter the mobility or liberty of the joints and must avoid <i>forcing </i>the muscles into performing an action.<br />
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<b>6. Proper skeletal alignment</b>. This not only refers to posture (i.e. balanced shoulders and spine, the weight of which falls down into the seat) but of the finger bones in relation to the keys. According to Fink (from the same article as above), "One should take maximal mechanical advantage of the skeletal structures so that the tensile strength of bones, rather than energy-consuming muscle power, carries the brunt of the load."<br />
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As a post script, I would like to specify that I'm writing this not as an authority, but as a (perpetual) learner which I address to fellow learners. The list I've given contains what I see to be the underlying principles of a healthy and efficient technique without going into specific difficulties. There are pobably others that I've left out. Please feel free to leave comments with your own additions and ideas.<br />
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Look out for the next post, Principles of mental piano technique.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-31015023351605567952011-07-25T21:01:00.002+02:002013-06-29T10:02:46.751+02:00The blog problem (and how Alfred Cortot resolves it)<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">Blogs. On the one hand they’re great: cheap, easy to create, versatile, wide-reaching and egalitarian. Anyone can create a blog, about any subject imaginable, and actually find people to read it. Sometimes they actually make a difference, as in the Arab uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia this past spring. But blogs, especially amateur blogs, are also problematic precisely because of their good qualities. They tend to be carelessly written, messy and – how can I say this nicely? – useless. Their pages are all too often clogged with virtual bric-à-brac, their texts knotted with colored links – those unfortunate escape hatches and trap doors – that entice the impatient reader elsewhere. What’s more, depending on the aims of a given blog, the problem of the blogger’s credibility (or rather, lack of it) can come into play, even in the context of an opinion piece (which describes the nature of many, if not most blogs). With professional, corporate-sponsored blogs the credibility of the publication being written for vouches for the credibility of the writer. But there is no editorial standard to serve as a filter between an amateur blogger and his readers. </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">The problem of messy “bric-à-bracness” is easily enough solved (though not completely, as you can see looking around you); that of credibility and usefulness, less so. </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">Now this should in no way be taken as some sort of pompous auto-proclamation on the value the current blog. I make no claims. Of course I would like the Blue Note to be credible and useful; but if I say so too loudly I’ll have to live up to those standards. No. It’s better to not say anything at all. Instead, in light of my journey through the Chopin Etudes (which formally begins in September – after vacation, thank you), let’s consider this my way of introducing two important sources that </span><span lang="en-US"><i>are </i></span><span lang="en-US">soundly credible. And because one of these two references is not available in English, my referencing it may just lend a useful and interesting sheen to the blog. </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">The first reference is Alfred Cortot’s practice edition of the Etudes, published by Salabert. Cortot, it must be said, was one of those rare personages that sleep only on Sundays, who was at once a great </span><span lang="en-US"><i>interprète</i></span><span lang="en-US">,</span><span lang="en-US"><i> </i></span><span lang="en-US">dedicated pedagogue, music school founder (Ecole Normale de musique de Paris) and accomplished conductor – and who managed to keep the same haircut his entire life. (This last detail isn’t as irrelevant as it seems.) </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">The opening comments of the edition indicate the purpose: “…A rational work method based on carefully considered analyses of the technical difficulties. The basic law of this method is not to work on the difficult passage, but the difficulties contained in the passage.” To this end each Etude is prefaced by a set of preparatory exercises as well as an explanation of the progress to be expected and the difficulties to overcome. To top it off he gives extra exercises for the not-so-faint at heart, like the following apropos of opus 10 n° 1: “Excellent work consists of playing the Etude slowly transposed to all keys keeping the fingering for C major.” That would be twenty-four keys in all, to do in your spare time. </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="en-US">My second source is a book written by one of Cortot’s disciples, Monique Déchaussées, called </span><span lang="en-US"><i>Frédérique Chopin : 24 Etudes, vers une interprétation</i></span><span lang="en-US">. It details each of the Etudes from a technical as well as interpretive angle, giving exercises and advice the Cortot edition does not. Déchaussées also describes in a magnificent way general technical considerations. I’ll talk about these in later posts. </span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3469090821413651919&postID=3101502335160556795" name="_GoBack"></a><span lang="en-US">I’ve found myself in the strange position of having read these texts before actually tackling the music at the keyboard. Such an unorthodox approach </span><span lang="en-US"><i>does</i></span><span lang="en-US"> has its advantages: namely, you’re not yet in the thick of it so to speak. You’re not on the ground and in the action, and you can still think theoretically. In the same way, learning the score away from the piano before playing a single note, thus temporarily avoiding tactile problems, is an unbelievable timesaver. Still, in both cases it’s a little like reading a book on parenting before becoming a parent; or a guide on writing novels before writing the first sentence of your story. Experience alone brings understanding – true understanding. It’s only after experience that a text such as Déchaussées' reveals its true value. </span></span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="en-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And so in summarizing and discussing these texts I hope to provide a solid complement to my own musings and personal experience.</span></span></div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-47343824160101500872011-07-09T15:28:00.001+02:002013-06-29T10:02:35.194+02:00The Joy of movement, or how I learned to love HanonWhen I moved to Paris in June 2006 I needed money, and I wasn't going to make it playing Bach fugues -- at least, that is, not enough to eat <i>and </i>pay rent <i>and </i>have electric lighting and hot showers (and a big, frosty Leffe every now and again). In the beginning I couldn't get by on piano lessons either. And so I fell in line and did what just about every young anglophone here does.<br />
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I'll skip my English teaching horror stories and go directly to the point: Teaching required English to engineering students -- for most of whom the language of Shakespeare, of Dickens, of Poe and Hemingway will never be anything but a plain necessity, a basic skill, a tool, a selling point on a resumé -- has predisposed me, in a manner of speaking, to embrace the muted and obscure beauty of Hanon's <i>Le Pianiste Virtuose</i>. For if the English language is infinitely richer than what the attitudes of my English students would admit, could Hanon's exerises not conceal qualities veiled by the prejudices of so many pianists and teachers?<br />
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Now, Hanon is pretty well dogged on. In The Art of Piano Playing, the great Heinrich Neuhaus calls <i>The Virtuoso Pianist</i> "dry-as-dust exercises", "mere handicraft", and describes them as part of a general downward regression in teaching aids. Ouch. Many a time I've heard them referred to as dangerous, or unhealthy, and at other times ignorantly likened to type-writer exercises.<br />
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Neuhaus' legitimate grievance with dry-as-dust exercises is their detachment from musical composition. In short, from art. In as far as Hanon's exercises lack musical value, Neuhaus is absolutely right: Hanon is not art. But art is not synonymous with <i>beauty</i>. Yes, all honest art is beautiful, even when it's ugly and violent and offensive. Yet how many unartistic things in this world are beautiful too: an architect's blueprints, a centuries-old Lebanese Cedar, the mecanism of a clock, your grandmother's pound cake...<br />
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Neuhaus was, just as my own teacher, a proponent of developping technique through pieces of music. The problem with <i>only</i> learning technique this way is that it often doesn't allow you to wholly isolate a given difficulty, even when a passage is taken out of context and worked at alone. The vital concern for making music, "respecting the composer's intentions" (a worn-out phrase, hence the quotes), hitting the right notes, getting the right rhythms is always present , hovering over your head, breathing down your neck; meanwhile your concentration is monopolized, and rightly so, by your critical, interpretive and aural faculites. These become obstacles that can ironically perpetuate faulty technique (I'm speaking from experience here). Unless you're Sviatoslav Richter, momentarily stripping away all such distractions is a strict necessity for expanding the limits of your inherent talent.<br />
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<i>The Virtuoso Pianist </i>does just this. Piano playing is both a physical and mental process, both theoretical and practical. All sides must be worked on with equal care. The simplicity of Hanon's text is its strength, allowing one to focus not on <i>what </i>they're playing,<i> </i>but <i>how -- </i>the ultimate truism of piano technique. That is to say, how to efficiently use more than just the fingers but the entire upper body, starting with the torso, ending at the distal phalanx (fancy talk for the fingertip segment), in order to produce a given result on the piano. In so doing you begin to think of your body as a dancer or athlete might, and take pleasure in mastering movement itself.<br />
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So while <i>Le Pianiste Virtuose </i>may be dry as dust in an artistic sense, it's nonetheless a work of practical and kinesthetic beauty, that, just to venture an intuitive guess, very few pianists actually master from beginning to end.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469090821413651919.post-59132270457018092032011-06-05T16:06:00.000+02:002013-06-29T10:03:12.079+02:00The Blue Note: Is that classical?Ah, the first post! I'm full of hope! But still, I'm sitting here wondering, Will this actually become something? Will it, on the one hand, become a worthwhile investment of time and brain power, perhaps lasting years to come? Will it bear even modest fruit? Will it lead to something else? Will it make me rich? Or on the other hand will it, after this first strong, inspired post, just fizzle out like my numerous unfinished novels? There's this nagging thought that must be the same for anyone who assumes the burden of an unnecessary artistic project: Why am I doing this? Who's gonna read this? In the present case the odds are stacked. This is a blog on classical piano. And who am I? Admittedly, I don't yet have the international pop star-like following that any self-respecting classical pianist knows and expects to be his one day -- but that'll come.<br />
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That last sentence was a joke.<br />
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But in all seriousness, I have hope. Another ressource that attempts to address the numerous difficulties and frustrations the modern pianist faces should always be welcome.<br />
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The idea for the blog came to me after the realization that there were holes in my pianistic abilities. These stemmed from a faulty and, above all, unreliable technique. After studying the Alexander Technique, I decided to embarque on a thourough study of piano technique. I read books, watched videos, picked apart Hanon, went back through the so-called easy repertoire. And now, without the pressure of performance, I have decided to study that monument of piano literature, the Chopin Etudes, and to document the perilous journey, making observations along the way. The idea, of course, is not to simply learn to play the notes quickly (anyone can do that), but to play them in a coordinated and, yes, natural way.<br />
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The title of the blog is not unrelated. "The Blue Note: A <i>Classical</i> Piano Blog" may seem contradictory to some, since the jazz world has so completely appropriated the term Blue Note. Though I'm a big fan of the genre, I'd like to reclaim the phrase in the name of classical music, for it was the French writer Georges Sand who coined it in describing Chopin's music. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><i class="spip"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">" Et puis la note bleue résonne et nous voilà dans l’azur de la nuit transparente..." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span></i></span>And then the blue note resonates and there you are, in the blue azur of a transparent night.<br />
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In addition to exploring the pianist's woes, I have two other main objectives: to keep up with new research on the piano, and to comment on the goings-on in the classical music world. <br />
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And so here's to the blue note every pianist is capable of, and to the success of this humble blog!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dwayne-Cannon-Professeur-de-piano-%C3%A0-Paris/205434889472793?sk=wall" width="400" show_faces="false" border_color="" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box></div>Dwayne Cannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239224803791113039noreply@blogger.com11