A decent lesson

Today's piano lesson was not too bad. At least I played more than I have at the others.

Now that I've been working on the first movement of the Beethoven Op. 31 No. 2 for a few weeks, it's getting back into my fingers. We started with my playing through it from the development to the end. It actually felt pretty solid, albeit with a few glitchy things. My teacher expressed great enthusiasm, and even said I sounded like a different person. Interesting to get that reaction; at least it shows I'm not consistently bad! (Playing on a good 9-foot piano in a big space helped. Last week's lesson was moved to a different room, so we were on a real PSO.*)

We then went back and went over sections in detail. We talked mainly about touch, and about shaping phrases, and about voicing. These were all helpful, I think. We'll see if any of it sticks.

One thing that helped me this week was thinking more about my ideal interpretation. To start with, I've been trying to get the whole "Tempest" idea out of my head. This fanciful title was not Beethoven's. According to Wikipedia:

The Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, was composed in 1801/02 by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is usually referred to as "The Tempest" (or Der Sturm in his native German), but this title was not given by him, or indeed referred to as such during his lifetime; instead, it comes from a claim by his associate Anton Schindler that the sonata was inspired by the Shakespeare play. However, much of Schindler's information is distrusted by classical music scholars. Renowned British music scholar, Donald Francis Tovey, in his authoritative book A Companion to Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas, states that "With all the tragic power of its first movement the D minor Sonata is, like Prospero, almost as far beyond tragedy as it is beyond mere foul weather. It will do you no harm to think of Miranda at bars 31-38 of the slow movement... but people who want to identify Ariel and Caliban and the castaways, good and villainous, may as well confine their attention to the exploits of Scarlet Pimpernel when the Eroica or the C minor Symphony is being played" (pg. 121).

What keeps coming to mind (though in a half-baked, fleeting fashion) when I play this piece is something more Gothic, like Washington Irving's Headless Horseman:

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance.... the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

—Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Anyway, I think it almost does not matter what one imagines in relation to a piece of music; music like this is only "about" itself. But attaching it to something verbal makes it easier to hang onto under the stress of performance, I've found. So I'll keep thinking about this.

*PSO = piano-shaped object.

Taubman workshop

Last month, when I started thinking more about tone production on the piano and how to go about improving it, I posted to Piano World with my questions and received some mixed responses. Several people recommended that I look into Taubman technique. I even got a private message from a very enthusiastic Taubman student ("It's truly absolutely amazing," this person said).

In a nutshell, this is an approach developed by Dorothy Taubman (who is now in her 90s) that is based on observed natural movements that best serve the techniques involved in playing the piano. It eschews a lot of the old standbys like very curved fingers, lifting fingers independently, sitting rigidly at the piano, and so on (all of which were part of how I was trained, btw).

So I did a web search, found the site for the Golandsky Institute, and noticed they were having a workshop on March 5 in Philadelphia at University of the Arts.

I quickly calculated: Philadelphia, only a few hours away; event on a Saturday when I had nothing else scheduled; cost, minimal. So I signed up.

When I was filling out the form online, there was a part asking if I'd be willing to play in a master class, so impulsively I checked "yes" and put down the Beethoven Op. 2 No. 3 as my piece. I received a quick reply noting that I had been scheduled to play on the afternoon master class. This was before my teacher gave up on teaching me this piece. After that lesson, I had a panic attack over it, so I e-mailed Robert Durso, the faculty member in charge of the workshop, and explained my situation (i.e., level of playing, experience, etc.), suggesting that if it didn't sound like it was going to be useful (for the listeners!) for me to play I would be happy just to observe. A few days later, he responded and said he had consulted with Edna Golandsky (the master teacher of this technique, who worked closely with Taubman and founded the current institute), and they had decided to move me to the morning session. He asked for some specific spots in the piece I would like help with, which I duly sent, and I was on.

The first session at 10:00 a.m. was a lecture by Durso ostensibly on octaves and chords, but it really was an outline of the entire history and philosophy behind Taubman technique and an explanation of how it is applied, so it was a great way to learn about it. Right after this was the seminar led by Golandsky. Five of us were scheduled in 15-minute blocks; I hesitate to say we "played," because the longest anyone actually played anything was maybe eight measures. Each person had chosen a small point that he or she was having difficulty with, and Golandsky demonstrated how one would go about solving the problem. So there was a snippet of a Schubert impromptu, a bit of a Chopin mazurka, and so on.

I of course started with those first four awful measures in the Beethoven. I think I was the only person playing who had no experience with Taubman, so she gave me some general pointers. She said many people play those double thirds with two hands, but if one did play them with one hand, she recommended another fingering  in addition to using a combination of motions: hard to describe in words, but basically a sideways rotation of the wrist combined with a sort of in-and-out movement of the hand. We also covered a couple of other passages: the really difficult beginning of the development (which she recommended breaking between the hands -- and yes, I can see it will be much better doing it that way); the unison trills (which would be approached in the same way as the double thirds); and the broken octaves at the end of the development and the coda.

I had lunch with four other people from the workshop. Two were in their 20s, both studying with Durso in Philadelphia, and the other two were more in my age group and were piano teachers (and students! as one woman pointed out to me when I asked). One of the younger people was a jazz pianist. In the course of the conversation, I asked how long it takes for this technical approach to become ingrained. They all agreed that it starts very slowly, and there's a lot of playing one note at a time, with you thinking this can't possibly be working, but that one day it starts to click. It was actually very enlightening to hear this from this small sample of people, showing once again that there's more to learning something than sitting at the feet of a master.

The afternoon featured a master class by Danilo Perez, a jazz pianist. There seems to be a real effort to incorporate jazz into this approach -- or vice versa, perhaps. The University of the Arts has made jazz a big part of the music curriculum, which I think is great. The music schools I attended had a sharp divide between classical and jazz, with the latter being at best a poor stepchild, so it was nice to see the genres mixed up a bit. As for the last class with Golandsky, I am SO glad I followed up and did not play on it because it would have been awful. The two young women who performed were very good -- one played Chopin's Scherzo No. 1, and the other played a Ballade, and both were almost flawless. So me and my messed-up little bit of Beethoven would have been quite out of place.

So what was my take-away from all this?

There is a certain almost cultlike belief in this system among some, similar to what I have seen among Suzuki teachers and students. Like what is called "the Suzuki method," what is called "Taubman technique" is at heart simply a collection of useful ideas and approaches to learning music that good teachers and players have always used -- the one an overall method for learning, the other an approach to technique. (I noticed there was a session for string players at this workshop, which would have been interesting, but it was scheduled at the same time as our morning session so I couldn't check it out.)

What I liked about Suzuki, when I was involved with that, is that it provides a systematic way to break learning down into small, achievable bites. Students master one small part of technique or note reading or musicality at a time, but it's not boring because (1) they are playing real music; (2) there is always a goal (e.g., recital); and (3) there is the social element of playing with other students and, for children, of the parents being closely involved with lessons and practicing.

This brief exposure to Taubman technique gives me the impression that in the same way, there are points of piano technique that can be broken down into small elements. It is interesting that what my teacher has been saying is generally along the same lines as Taubman (particularly with respect to tone being related to the speed with which the key is depressed), which is why I had decided to continue with her despite the problems with her teaching method being so unsystematic. It's not that I am longing for some kind of militaristic regimen but rather for something in between that and randomness.

Anyway, at the least it was fun going back to school for a day.

How to get to Carnegie Hall

My husband has been saying for a long time that he would like to hear a really good orchestra (as opposed to the ones I generally play with!). We were in New York last week for a business meeting late on Tuesday afternoon, and the meeting was only a couple of blocks from Carnegie Hall, so we decided to go to the Philadelphia Orchestra concert that happened to be scheduled for that evening.

Now, I have been to Carnegie Hall and poked my head in the door but never heard a concert in the main venue there -- just in the recital hall upstairs. (Actually, I've even performed in the recital hall, with a chamber ensemble.) We got seats in the balcony, which is up many flights of stairs and much less expensive than seats lower down, but it was great up there. We had a panoramic view of the stage, and the sound was wonderful -- clear and warm.

The program was Berlioz, Beatrice and Benedict overture; a world premiere violin concerto by James MacMillan, with Vadim Repin; and Tchaikovsky, Fifth Symphony. After the overture, my husband whispered to me, "I can't believe how good they are." And of course it was all perfect -- perfectly together, perfectly in tune, perfect solos. An orchestra like this is like a jewel in a velvet box, like a priceless painting in a museum. All of its members -- cream of the crop, best of the best; talent plus years of lessons plus winning out in fierce competition to get there. And the hall a legend itself, a cozy, creamy, gilded, and red velvet nest in the middle of Manhattan, kept alive through corporate philanthropy. And yes, I enjoyed hearing this concert, but it also seemed like something unconnected with the real world. And I had no burning desire to play in a group like that. (A good thing, too, or I'd be living an extremely unhappy life.)

Lessons, continued

I had my first lesson on the school's 9-foot grand yesterday -- MUCH better. (I wonder how they got hold of such a thing? Donated, perhaps?) Though the ideal is to be able to make any piano sound good, it's hard to learn how to do it when the instrument is fighting you, and particularly when it's out of tune.

As for continuing the lessons, even though this teacher isn't exactly the right one for me (or doesn't feel that way, anyway), I decided that the best course of action given the circumstances is simply to go and get what I can out of them. Really, the most important aspect of playing is how, what, and how much one practices.

The real problem I'm having is my atavistic tendency to let things slide. I am wasting practice time flailing about, playing too fast, and so on, so when I get to the lessons, it seems I can hardly play a thing. It's something along the lines of my sleepwalking brain going, "Okay, what do I need to get done? Oh, right, we talked about that one section of the Beethoven, so that's all I need to practice." What I need to do instead, both to gain the most benefit from going to all this trouble to take lessons and to continue to progress in my playing, is to practice at least as well as I have been practicing all along while keeping in mind the ideas presented at the lessons. This may not be the most efficient way to go about it, but maybe there is no efficient way.

Not that my prelesson practice was exactly efficient in the sense of producing quick results. I have been learning in slow increments, hearing improvement only over many months of nibbling away at a piece. I don't know if learning quickly is a proper goal anyway. It's like losing weight: Anyone can crash-diet a lot of pounds off, but because this way of eating is unnatural and unsustainable, they generally come right back on when one starts eating normally again. Another analogy: cramming for a test. We've all brute-force memorized key facts or formulae at the last minute and regurgitated them well enough to pass, but a week or a month later, all is forgotten. In the same way, it's possible to woodshed one's way through a piece of music enough to be able to play it at a lesson or a concert, but my experience has always been that it's gone from my fingers in the same amount of time I spent learning it. On the other hand, slow, steady, careful, relaxed practice sticks a lot longer.

To her credit, this teacher is not saying I need to master everything in an instant. To the contrary, I feel I'm in the adult student ghetto, where much latitude is given and few results are expected. We're all supposed to be doing it "for fun." In a way, of course, that's right. But in another way, if we wanted pure fun we'd spend our free time riding roller coasters (I personally hate roller coasters, but you know what I mean). Or playing EZ arrangements that take 5 minutes to learn.

What bothers me most of all is that playing the piano is starting to seem overwhelmingly impossible. Yes, I would like to have a better touch and tone, but I'd like more to keep playing and not get bogged down in perfectionism. Is it an either/or proposition? Or is there such a thing as just a little perfectionism, now and then, when it adds value? Okay, that's a rhetorical question, because as I'm thinking about it now, that's EXACTLY how it should work. No one can be perfect; instead, one aims for the illusion of perfection, or what makes the art seem to be perfect, and gradually, over time, these areas of high achievement spread and overlap.

Quick note

I am feeling a little better about the whole lesson thing. I have to say, I am noticing that I'm really paying a lot more attention to sound quality and what my hands are doing, and the teacher's words are sticking with me. So perhaps there is more method to the madness than I was perceiving.

The question, though, is whether noticing these things actually improves my playing. I think improvement must come from a combination of noticing, knowing what to change and how, and then doing it.

Fourth lesson: Uh oh

The school where I'm taking these piano lessons has a policy that if, after three lessons, you feel it's not working out, you can cancel or ask for another teacher, but after the third lesson, you're stuck. I spent much of the past week wondering if I should cancel. But, I wondered, was I considering it because I was afraid of the challenge or because I had misgivings about the teacher? As usual, with difficult decisions, I went around and around about it. Should I face my fears? Would there be consequences (e.g., hurting people's feelings, getting a bad reputation as one of those "difficult" students)? Was I letting my cynical side take over? I squared my shoulders and went back in today.

I'm now feeling like this was a big mistake.

My issues:

I want to PLAY. I don't want to have too many discussions about things like what to do with my hands without actually doing them myself. It just feels like there is too much talking going on in these lessons. Also, everything is awfully free wheeling. It's not that I want my first teacher again, who wrote in my book every week exactly how many times I should play each thing, and at what metronome marking. But at least a little more organization might be good. Also some direction on technique -- scales and all that.  But, sadly, I think this person is not that type of teacher.

Because I'm a grown-up now, I just stop and ask questions and try to get answers: How do you do this? How do you practice it? So far, I have not gotten very useful responses. But am I expecting too much? I just don't know! I only feel that I'm not very sure what I'm supposed to do between lessons that's going to improve my playing.

It's also bothering me that this teacher can't seem to keep straight simple facts about me, or even what we agreed to work on last week (most of which she chose). Perhaps there is some problem with her that is beyond her control, in which case I'm sympathetic. But it's weirding me out.

And then, not her fault, there's the piano. It is just horrendous. It was supposed to have been tuned since last week, but honestly, I heard no difference. It was possibly even worse. It's just a twangy, awful-sounding thing, impossible to control. Okay, when she demonstrates stuff, she does make it sound a little better than I do, but only a little.

One positive development amongst all the excessive chit-chat today was that she offered to let me change my lesson time to an evening on a different day, when she teaches on the "good" piano that they use for concerts. I'm sure it's much better than the Yamaha from hell. However, my husband and I went to hear a concert in there last month, just before I signed up, with a very good concert pianist playing on that very same piano, and it also was pretty out of tune and not that great sounding, IMO. Maybe they just have a lousy piano tech. But I accepted the change. It certainly can't be worse. The other good thing about the switch is that it will interfere much less with my work hours.

So, I guess I made my wimp's bed and now must lie in it. Perhaps things will improve. Perhaps this will simply be another trial I have to get through in my musical education.

If all else fails, I can just quit, I suppose, and chalk it up to sunk cost + experience. But it's sad.

Third lesson: Discouragin'

I dropped the last "g" to show that I'm not quite 100% serious. But I did feel discouraged.

I spent the week hacking away at the Beethoven, trying to hack more gracefully, but still hacking. Got to the lesson, played a little bit of it, and then the teacher, trying very hard not to be negative, suggested that we put it aside and work on something easier.

Now, the main reasons I believe she did this are as follows:

1. I have a couple of performances planned in the near future. One is an AMSF recital and the other is a master class (more about that as the time approaches). Not that these are set in stone, by any means, but I did express the desire to perform. The music school also has some recitals that would be possible. She said she was worried that I would get out there and pound out a couple of clams on those first four awful measures and it would -- well, discourage me. (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)
2. I also explained to her that I did NOT want to get stuck in a rut of trying to play something too hard that would take too long to learn, or that I couldn't learn at all. This has been the story of my life as a pianist -- particularly when I've had teachers in the past. I've already spent a good 6 months on this sonata, and the rut potential is all too strong.
3. She has never played this piece or taught it. Not that she couldn't give me advice on it, but it wouldn't be from personal experience.


So although I've definitely learned a lot from working on this sonata, I'm not opposed to learning some more manageable pieces. The teacher had some specific recommendations ready: She thinks it would be good to work on something more soulful, and pulled out two Chopin pieces: the B major Nocturne  (Op. 32 No. 1) and the C sharp minor waltz (the one in Les Sylphides, Op. 64 No. 2). Since we had talked about doing some shorter pieces at the last lesson, I had brought along my James Friskin book of Scarlatti sonatas, and she pounced gratefully on the first sonata in the book. We also talked about perhaps another bigger sonata, and I mentioned that I had worked on the "Tempest" for a while. She liked that one, too! It's nowhere as technically difficult as the Op. 2 No. 3. And I do think it will probably come back fairly quickly, at least as far as I took it when I worked on it a couple of years ago. (I had memorized the first movement and some of the third.) All must be very familiar territory for her as a teacher of kids and adult amateurs.

I'm trying to look at this positively. I know there are lots of gaps in my piano education and that it's far better to fill them using material that is graciously written for the piano rather than stuff that fights it. It's worth spending these few months at least giving this approach a try. And anyway, I never intended to saddle myself with difficult pieces that I could never even begin to master -- I want to be able to PLAY. My weaknesses were on full display for the rest of the lesson, when, Op. 2 No. 3 banished, we worked on my current Bach prelude and fugue (WTC II/15 in G major). Now, talk about discouraging! For something I feel is coming along well when I practice it at home, it sure was a mess. I felt like what I am: a middle-aged amateur who only practices an hour a day. Quite a reality check.

So this definitely reinforced taking things in another direction.