Re: errors with fm?

[jerry and judy <jerbidoc@zianet.com>]

>jerry and judy wrote:
>>
>> My replies to this group used
>>  to be automatic (uhh... automated, never automatic! ;-))
>>
>> But now I have to paste in the address everytime.  And I get an error that
>> comes back, but I think my doggerel is getting into the group.  (I guess I
>> won't know unless someone answers this.}
>>
>> I know, I have such! big! problems in my life!!  :-)
>>
>> Anyone?  Did I miss something?
>>
>> >In article <jerbidoc-1203981902000001@lc356.zianet.com> you write:
>> >]> >
>> >> Well probably not a virtuoso, that's an extreme case, but playing the
>> >> piano for *therapy* is very big satisfaction and easily attainable with
>> >>a few >> pointers
>> >
>> > Yeah ? Such as ..?
>> >
>> >> and alot of self-motivation.
>>
>> Well, I've never attempted teach away from the piano, but I was referring
>> to the very few bits of information that are needed to get started (2
>> examples: instructions on the reading of notes in the treble and the
>> formulae for building chords).  Whether your final goal is playing pop
>> music from melody and chords or reading piano scores with arrangements
>> written out, the first step is to quickly get started playing with both
>>hands
>> (above all, to avoid boredom and to overcome the initial inevitable sense
>> of inadequacy).  Your brain needs new wiring and it's *painful*, that's
>> why the younger the better but not much you do about that...
>> Anyway, once you learn, your body never
>> completely forgets (it's more like riding a bicycle and less like learning
>> a new language).
>>
>> I never had a teacher, just a few pointers (inspiration) and the formulae
>> from friends, so I guess I could teach someone how to play the piano over
>> email, if they are as motivated as I was.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Jerry
>>
>> By the way, I don't want to leave the wrong impression, even though I can
>> now play some 80% of the baroque and classical literature etc. by sight, I
>> still wish I had had a teacher! ("accrued bad habits" ya know).
>>
>> Glenn Gould remarked once to the effect, if I remember, that he could
>> delineate "how" to play the piano as "he did" in the span of an afternoon,
>> but the hard part was actually doing it!
>
>
>I actually believe that everything you need to know about how to play
>the piano can be taught in a matter of just few hours, if not in few
>minutes.  But personally, I would never teach that to anyone because
>that is just too much responsibility for one human being.

Interesting, I think I feel that way too.  Of course, I didn't when I was
eleven or twelve.  I slowly realized what a good teacher could do only a
decade or so later.  There's no substitute for that good foundation, but
latter on, when I recognized that fact, then until now, I had and I have no
excuse not to concentrate on the elements that I had never
incorporated/mastered early on.  I'm still working on them, I'll probably
always need to work on them, the damage has been done.  Artur Rubenstein
inspired me! Just kidding, just kidding!  He attacked pianistic problems
that I'll never have to address at my amateur level of playing, but oh boy!
can I appreciate them! (in Chopin alone!).  It's hard work! (building new
brain connections to pre-empt/usurp the undesirable ones, at my age).

>  Also, knowing
>what to do is entirely different from actually doing it.  Even Gould, a
>pianist who undoubtedly knew what he wanted to do with the piece he was
>recording, he didn't always achieve or "do" what he wanted to do with
>it.  A good example of that is the final fugue from the art of
>fugue(excuse my redundancy) that he played for a tv program by CBC just
>a few years before his death.  Knowing, or assuming that this was a
>summation of Bach's entire artistic life, Gould seemed to want to take
>it as slow as he could allow himself to, but as a whole, it was not a
>complete success in that it totally lacked the propensity to move on
>forward, which caused a series of aesthetic complications that he
>decided to resolve by simply changing the camera angles.

Yes, the tempo is slow, but I actually prefer that he gave us this solemn
version because I can better hear his phenomenal control of all the
separate voices and his *voicings* for each. Amazing articulation!  I would
have liked to ask him though, why he chose staccato for some phrases in
some voices but not others. Does anyone know what his theory was??  Maybe
staccato is the wrong word for what he does here?  Yes, I do get the
feeling that GG was overly reverential until the crescendos at about
measure 37 or so, but it's far preferable to the overt disdain he showed
for assorted major piano works by Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin!  ;-)

>  But, Gould at
>least knew what he wanted to do and actually tried to do it.  In the
>case of the final fugue, even though it was not successful, he had
>nothing to be ashamed of; it was probably the most difficult piece, in
>terms of aesthetics, he ever attempted all his life. I don't think that
>even as of today, there is still not one successful recording of this
>piece by anyone, and remember, people have been now recording music for
>about a hundred years.

I wouldn't characterize his recording as unsuccessful.  In what specific
way is it unsuccessful?  It's gorgeous, but maybe it's not authentic
enough, too varied in approach, (maybe he tried to hard?) or maybe a
*better* version was recorded, but he had a bad day (i.e. in a
idiosyncratic mood) in the studio and choose the *wrong* take(s).  Anyway,
I've told you why I like it, my *fillips* are usually more scholarly, but
maybe my unconscious knows that you're right. See below.
    Interesting that you think that there's not one successful recording of
this fugue.  I've toyed with the idea for many years that maybe some works
should remain only on paper because that's the highest form!  Only a few
people would be able to appreciate them fully, but performances are usually
distractingly unsatisfying and almost embarrassing for the performer.
Beethoven spent much of his productive life in this world of ideal
conception! and I have argued that it made him a greater composer.  He was
more easily able to achieve the necessary level of desire, will and
concentration etc. than he otherwise would have been capable of, unlike
Bach and Brahms, Wagner.  Of course, we'll never know for sure how lucky we
are that he was *handicapped* early on!


> The sender also mentioned that he/she now can
>play  most of baroque and classical lit by sight.  While that is
>admirable, I think it is a disaster from a point of view of a student of
>music.  The process of deconstruction and reconstruction needs to be
>repeated many times for the formulation of an "idea."  For example, one
>needs to take apart the entire fugue if he/she wants to learn the entire
>thematic and harmpnic implications of every entrance.  This you cannot
>possibly do by sight.

Oh I agree!
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that I could play any piece (within my
limited technical (muscle) skills) having never previously heard or studied
it.  I agree that that would probably be quite unproductive musically.  Of
course, there always has to be a first runthrough of a piece that you don't
have a recording of, for example.  Liszt was said to have been able to play
very difficult works (and new music of the time!) which were totally
unknown to him and play them convincingly well!  He must of had a "good
foundation"!  :-)
 I'm only an amateur and I keep plugging away at an extensive collection of
works (I can't think of any piece for solo piano that I don't have by Bach,
Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin and many others. I bought them
long ago when they were much less expensive than they are today, even
"relatively" cheaper, seems to me).  As long as I feel that I'm still
improving, and I can satisfyingly play more and more difficult repertoire
at my age, I'm lucky and that's all that I can hope for!
You mention the process for the formulation of the "idea" of a piece, and I


agree that this takes studying and living with a piece or more usually a
set of related pieces.  Gustav Leonhardt said something on the "Sunday"
radio program that struck me as a little untoward and unsettling at the
time.  He said something to the effect that teachers cannot truly teach
anything (in music).
Well I guess, if teachers could truly teach what music offers then we
wouldn't *need* music and/or if we didn't "have" music we wouldn't need to
try to *teach* music, but wouldn't we still need to try to teach what music
offers?   Anyway that's probably not what he meant, I believe he meant that
if a student can't feel the way a piece should be played or experienced
then a teacher surely can't teach *that* to the student.
After you go through your first ten years in music "playing" the pieces
("the highest form of play" as Berstein lectured) and then you finally "get
it"! and there's a breakthrough in understanding that you'll never forget.
At that point, the "idea" of these works becomes more important than any
one performance, and that's the way it should be.

>Never mind.  It's just one man's opinion.  Didn't
>mean to rag.
>Sorry for awkward English(second language).

On the contrary, I'm sure!

And thanks for the quick reply to this.
 Curious, I didn't get the server(?) error this time!

Jerry
Amateur pianist
Part time piano tuner
Retired meteorologist