More practice experiments: Woodshedding

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The term woodshedding came from the practice of taking children out back to administer some primitive discipline on them (try not to think about it too much, please). Musicians use it to describe giving the same treatment to recalcitrant notes. Faced with a page or two of 32nd notes in a sprightly tempo, woodshedding is what one inevitably must do.

The Tchaikovsky "Pezzo Capriccioso" is receiving some of this. I keep trying to come up with creative ways to train my hands to do what they need to do. I've done all of these:

• started very, very slowly with the metronome and moved it up a notch or two at a time, then moved it back down;
• played rhythms (dotted, triplets);
• emphasized a different note in each group; for example, I play the passage once with an accent on the first note in each group of four, then the second note, and so on; and
• played without any rhythm, just listening to tone and intonation.

The past couple of days, I've tried something else: I play a small group of notes up to tempo, then stop, repeat as needed (playing slower, with rhythms, etc.) until that group is clean, and then move to the next group. Then join two groups together. This is really effective, I'm finding. It forces me to listen to each note but also gives practice in playing up to tempo. It also pinpoints exactly which groups are most problematic.

As for the lyrical sections, I am working on being more elegant. What helps me with this kind of thing is imagining I'm playing the passage in a string quartet. Somehow, this grounds me in a way other ideas do not. Maybe it's because I've spent so many years of my life playing chamber music and living for those moments when the cello must shine -- instead of being frightened, I anticipate them eagerly.

So -- just some notes from the woodshed. Hope I don't end up with a bunch of sawdust at the end.

Practice experiments

Last night I tried something enabled by the magic of 20th-century technology (yes, we did have this back then, too). I recorded myself playing the Tchaikovsky and then played it back while accompanying softly on the piano (and, when it was too hard to hear that way, on the cello). This, I have found, is an excellent way to hear if my pacing and rubato and other tempo-related things are going to work, especially with orchestra. I found there are places I'm taking time where I shouldn't be. I also, of course, could hear where I need to work on my intonation.

A big issue was my unevenness of tempo in the 32nd-note sections. Tchaikovsky marked this "Non cambiare il tempo"; that is, whatever tempo you use to begin the tragic and lyrical opening of the piece needs to also work here. I began this section way too slowly (erring unpleasantly on the side of caution). I obviously I don't have the tempo set in my bones.

The other, and possibly most, annoying and boring thing I now hear that I've been doing is playing everything the same volume and timbre -- basically forte, and pressed. Got to let it breathe! It needs to have the gracefulness of "Variations on a Rococo Theme."

Ugh. Well, this is why we practice, isn't it?

Pezzo Capriccioso background

I just did a quick burst of 'net research and found this on Wikipedia:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Pezzo capriccioso, Op. 62, for cello and orchestra in a single week in August 1887. Belying its title, this work is written in the somber key of B minor, the same key as the Symphony No. 6 Pathétique. The Pezzo is not capricious in a lighthearted sense. The capriccioso aspect comes from Tchaikovsky's fanciful treatment of various aspects of the work's simple theme. Despite some rapid passages and a turn to the major key, Tchaikovsky preserves the basic pulse and sober mood throughout the piece.

Tchaikovsky (right) with Anatoliy Brandukov, to whom he dedicated the Pezzo capriccioso.

The sobriety was a result of Tchaikovsky's sufferings with his friend Nikolay Kondratyev. Kondratyev was in the final throes of syphilis. After a brief remission, he had been taken to Aachen, Germany, where his family hoped the mineral waters there would prolong his life at least a few months. Instead, Kondratyev had taken a turn for the worse. Moreover, he proved a highly unpredictable, volatile and demanding patient, which unnerved the already death-shy Tchaikovsky. A visit to see friends in Paris—among them cellist Anatoliy Brandukov—proved only a brief respite.
All this suffering poured through the music Tchaikovsky was writing, as well.

From here: Pezzo Capriccioso

Wasn't this supposed to be fun? Or, Wake me up when I'm better

At my first lesson with this new teacher, he asked me if the exercises he was assigning would take too much time. I said, "Oh, no; I think this is something I need to be doing." He said, "I think so, too."

So here it is a couple of months down the road. I've worked on this diligently, if not exhaustively. I've graduated from one-finger exercises to scales and arpeggios (two octaves, various rhythmically related uses of the wrist vs. fingers and arm, hands separate). We've worked on five Chopin preludes, my latest Bach set, and the Chopin Nocturne I was learning before I started the lessons.

The biggest emphasis has been on playing softer. I didn't really think of myself as a loud, banging pianist, but definitely did not have the ability to create varied colors, which maybe comes down to the same thing. For just about everything I play at my lessons, I get the same comment: "Too loud."

I'm not really complaining (I hope). This is extremely worthwhile. On the other hand, if it gets to be too much of a drag, I'm going to get discouraged. Right now I'm in the netherworld between my old enthusiastic "go for it" playing and being aware of the nuance that is missing, which is frustrating. And you know, I'm aware of the possibility that the nuance will never get there. Can my muscles even do this? But I sense that they can. And then the other thing is that it doesn't have to be 100% perfect. It's not like the nuance police are going to come and arrest me if I play like too much of an amateur. I still believe that it's better to do something, however short of the ideal, than to do nothing.

In a way, this is an excellent time for me to be working on this stuff because I also am practicing toward the performance of "Pezzo Capriccioso" in June, so having  more limited time to practice the piano is somewhat of a good thing. To put it another way, the relative dullness of the one is offset by the relative terror of the other.

My biggest fear about "Pezzo" is that I will get up there to play and find myself flailing around and making a big mess of it because such virtuosic tricks should not be attempted by someone who spends 8 hours a day sitting in front of a computer in an office. I really need to banish such thoughts entirely and focus on the positive. Such as:

• I can make a good sound on the cello. Most of this piece is more about that than about pyrotechnics.
• The piece is only four pages long and has a lot of repetition.
• Even in the fast sections, making up less than half of the piece, there are only about three places that are hair-raising.
• I have more than two months left to work on it, and I can already play it up to tempo, from memory. It just needs polishing.
• If I put my mind to it, I can do this AND have fun with it.

That last point probably holds true for the piano as well! So onward.

Reviving old times

I seem to have acquired a cello student. I spent some years teaching cello, though never many students at a time. I had a few students during my first stint in school, taught as part of my job in North Dakota, and then taught throughout the last stretch of graduate school (through the community music school at the conservatory and also as a teaching assistant for my teacher). I had a few students after that time, while I was working at my office job, but my heart wasn't in it at all. I finally just said the heck with it, I don't need this anymore, and quit teaching altogether.

I do kind of like teaching -- I mean, who doesn't like having people actually listen to what you have to say? --  but I haven't felt the world was burning to hear what I had to say about playing the cello. Also, at this point in my life, I'm more starved for time than money. So I haven't had a lot of motivation to get back into it.

A few months ago, I got an email from a violinist friend who had met an adult cellist who wanted to take lessons. So I sent the latter an email, explaining that I could teach her though I don't have a lot of time for it. After some more back and forth, we finally arranged a time for her to come to my house for an initial lesson.

It was weird, being in the teacher seat after all of my recent student experiences! But those experiences have really helped me understand what students want/need from a teacher. I'm afraid I was a little disorganized in that I didn't have any of my instructional stuff at hand, and also that I hadn't thought through how I would approach this. On the other hand, until you actually see and hear what someone is doing, you don't know what they are going to need, so maybe winging it a bit was okay. At least I know how to play, and I think I know how to explain it. Also, this was just supposed to be an informational meeting, and I didn't charge her for it. She must have felt it was worthwhile because she said she wanted to have regular lessons, so we set up a time for her to come back in two weeks. 

Pop-Up Pianos needs your help!

Image from Sing for Hope. © 2008-2012 by Sing for Hope

My Internet friend Nancy Williams sent me a message the other day about Pop-Up Pianos. It is an idealistic endeavor to put whimsically decorated pianos in public places and then donate them to worthy organizations. They had a successful beginning in 2011.

However, in brief, their original sponsor passed away, so they are in danger of having no funding for this year. They are asking for donations to fund this year's event, and Nancy is offering to match up to $1,000.

She describes it more eloquently than I can. Check out her posting:

Pop-Up Pianos

The Chopin Project

Last night, my husband and I heard a recital by the pianist Brian Ganz at Strathmore. Brian is doing a series of concerts over 10 years in which he will perform all of Chopin's works. The first concert was last year, and I was not on the ball enough to get tickets ahead of time, so I made sure to acquire some well in advance this time.

As I mentioned in some posts from 2010, I knew Brian way back when he was accompanying students at the University of Maryland 30 years ago. I was remembering last night that I actually had heard him a few years before that, when he must have been around 16. I briefly took lessons from his teacher, and she invited me to play at one of her "at homes," when she had all her students play for each other at her house. I was far and away the very worst player; Brian was the biggest star. I think he played Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Anyway, he has always been an amazing pianist and musician, full of intelligence and warmth but also seeming to have whatever technique was needed to convey the piece he was playing. My husband asked me what I thought made him special as a pianist, and I replied, "His emotional connection -- to the music and to the audience."

All of this was on display last night, when he not only played, brilliantly, some of Chopin's powerhouse pieces (including the two Op. 40 Polonaises, the Op. 49 F minor Fantaisie, and the Op. 61 Polonaise-Fantaisie, among others) but spoke to the audience between works with both thoughtfulness and humor. The theme of this particular concert was "Dances and Fantasies," and he covered some interesting material in his speeches in a way completely accessible to anyone. (He also stayed poised and relaxed even after someone decided it was a good idea to applaud in the middle of Op. 49, leading a good portion of the packed house to applaud as well; Brian just kept his hands on the keyboard and waited until they were done before proceeding.)

During one of his addresses to the audience, Brian mentioned an article from c. 1982 about Chopin by the academic Douglas R. Hofstadter. The article was an attempt to explore the secrets of Chopin's music by examining its structure and other elements. Yet its mysterious allure remains -- mysterious. Hofstadter closed with the following:

What is the secret magic of Chopin? I know of no more burning question.

--Metamagical Themas

As Brian pointed out, quite a statement for a scientist to make.