Playing the violin without a chinrest: one solution

I was surprised to see the concertmaster in this Vivaldi Lute Concerto video has a white scarf tied around his neck and through the top of the tailpiece of his violin. I don't think I would ever try this myself, but it is an interesting solution to keeping the fiddle in place without a chinrest.



Tags: violin playing, playing without a chinrest

thoughts about music from a shrub

Does anyone have any idea why people applauded when he made that stupid response to what was a perfectly good question that should have been easy to answer? Is the audience as musically clueless or musically phobic as the president? I don't get it.

The Right Notes

When I was a teenager I read The Tenants by Bernard Malamud. As I remember there were some heavy-handed elements in the novel, but I really enjoyed reading it. What I enjoyed most, though, was a phrase by Coleridge that one of the characters quoted:

Nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise.

Before the days of the internet I searched for it in every bit of Coleridge I could get my teenage hands on. I eventually gave up the search, imagining that maybe it was just something Malamud attributed to Coleridge, but only today I discovered that it is from Chapter XIV of his Biographia Literaria.

I had my brother translate it into Latin, and I used to keep it in my flute case, written in my teenage calligraphy. When I stopped playing the flute those words remained etched in my brain.

The right notes are the ones that are there because they are the best notes for the purpose at hand. The best composers always used the right notes. One thing that puts Mozart in the highest compositional echelon for me is the fact that you just can't make anything he wrote "better." If you play a wrong note, even if it is in the chord, even if it is the same pitch but in a different register, it is never as good as the one that Mozart picked for that musical moment. When you come across something strange in a piece of Bach, the solution that follows always makes the moment that was strange make sense. It always shows why it is so and not otherwise.

Dames du Bois de Boulogne

Jean-Jacques Grunewald's title music for Robert Bresson's 1945 film Dames du Bois de Boulogne seems to be an exact hybrid (if an exact hybrid is possible) between the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and David Raksin's music for the 1945 film Laura. I really enjoyed watching the film (it is part of the Criterion Collection), particularly because of the music.

The plot is not simple, but to simplify it (without "spoiling" it) I will say that it includes two people: one is evil, and the other is naive. A remarkable scene begins with the evil one playing a fugue on the piano, which happens before you (or me--the viewer) realize that she is indeed weaving an evil web around the naive one. As each voice enters, the web becomes clearer and clearer. The evil one talks while she plays, but the fugue says it all. When the subject of the fugue returns as wedding music for the naive one, it is clear that the wedding is riddled with "webbing."

Eyes that hear, ears that see

I always tell my students (violin, viola, recorder, and flute) that musicians have eyes that hear and ears that see. We forge unusual cross-sensual connections when we practice, and we often use our "mind's eye" to "see" our fingers and hands in relation to the instrument we are playing.

Developing a visual sense of the piano keyboard is hard and takes time and "brain space," especially for someone like me who only started trying to do it properly in her forties. Unfortunately the forties are the years when our eyes change. I have always been nearsighted, but I had to start wearing double-duty lenses a few years ago. I have progressive lenses, and boy do they mess me up when I'm trying to play the piano. The brain has to direct the eye to the "sweet spot" in the lenses, and I guess it must take a lot of brain power to do it. It takes a lot of the fun out of playing, and tends to create a lot of tension for me in my back and my jaw.

So today, on a whim, for the first time in my glasses-wearing life, I played the piano without glasses, and it felt fantastic. Without dealing with the changes in focus that the progressive forces me to make, it felt like I had a whole bunch of brain space to spare. My interior visual imagination had space to move around, and I could actually see a whole page of music without having to fuss and fidget. I also didn't get lost while looking for stuff with my ears, or if I had to (yes, I have to ) look at the keyboard. I could even listen better.

Tags: Progressive lenses, reading music, piano

A Sense of Place

This morning while I was listening to Richard Tauber sing "I'm in Love with Vienna" in English, I believed him when he sang "I was born in Vienna," though I learned from reading the liner notes that came with the recording that he was born in Linz. I believe every word that Tauber sings, because he believes every word he sings. Of course Richard Tauber could not stay in Vienna because of the Nazis, so he started a whole new career in England, singing mainly in English.

This started me on a train of thought about place. Growing up outside of Boston I always felt like an outsider because I spoke like a person from the midwest, and try as I did, I could never even imitate a Boston accent. I was born in Cleveland, and when I was growing up I always held some kind of mythological connection to Cleveland in my heart. As a young adult I sought out friends from Cleveland. I guess it was from one of them that I heard that the street that held my home from birth to four-and-a-half was demolished in order to put in a highway or something.

When I left Boston for New York, Boston felt like "home" for the first time, but only for a year or two, and only when I wasn't there. It also began to change, and it is no longer the place I remember. I used to feel at home at Tanglewood, and then it changed. When I lived in New York, I never quite felt like a New Yorker (that pesky midwestern accent again), but I felt somewhat comfortable in a place that was filled with a lot of misplaced people and a lot of history. I also had good friends. I felt out of place in Schladming, the town in Austria where I lived for a year, but I felt at home in Vienna. Unfortunately I didn't have a real place to live in Vienna, and I couldn't find any work. It is not surprising that I never felt at home in Hong Kong.

It is surprising that I really don't feel at home in the little town in the midwest where I have lived for the last 22 years. Most of the things I have liked about it in years past are no longer here, and so many of the people I have grown close to have either moved away or died. Once I felt like a vital part of the musical life in town, and now I feel like a stranger, or maybe a guest. Sometimes I even feel like a ghost.

Oddly I always feel at "home" sitting in an orchestra--anywhere. I always feel "at home" going through stage doors. I have always been able to go to any stage door and walk into the hall. For some reason I look like I belong there: people have even told me so. (I have gotten into a lot of concerts for free that way.) I feel at home in my house with my family, and I feel at home when I'm teaching, when I'm playing chamber music, and when I'm practicing.

Today I started working on the Bach B-flat Partita (on the piano), and I felt oddly "at home." My younger brother used to practice it when we were kids, and I always wanted to be able to play it. I think that music, particularly Bach, is a wonderful constant to have, especially in a world where there are so many physical changes that rob us of continuity and mess around with our memories and our sense of place in the world.

Life and Death

I got the news about Luciano Pavarotti and David Hobbs dying at around the same time. It is really funny how the death and very public grieving over the death of a musician who lived musical life in a big way (perhaps the biggest way) pales to the deep sadness that comes with the death of a musician who lived his musical life primarily in the service of helping others achieve their musical goals.

David Hobbs was a piano professor at Eastern Illinois University, the university in the town where I live. He was a wonderful man: always excited to talk about nearly anything, able to gossip without maligning anyone, and always interested in everything musical. I feel very fortunate that, in addition to knowing David as a person, I was able to know him as a teacher. As an adult without childhood piano lessons I always thought that playing the piano was just one of those things I would never be able to do. David removed the mystery from the process, and now I can play the piano (not well enough to perform, mind you, but well enough to play for myself). Through lessons with David I began to understand more about the violin, and more about chordal and polyphonic playing in general.

I feel grateful for the friendship we had over the past 15 or so years. I feel fortunate to have had to the chance to work with him as a colleague, and to hear him play. I feel fortunate to have heard his consistently excellent (especially after a few years with him) students play over the years. I feel fortunate to have know such a truly good person.

Pavarotti's death at 71 from cancer is very sad. I enjoyed hearing his lovely voice and exquisite diction from a great distance, both in time and in space. David Hobbs' death from cancer at 53 is more than sad. This disease he had (and it went into remission for a time before the final assault) took away one of the finest human beings I have ever known. A great tenor voice like Pavarotti's is rare. A great human being like David is just as rare, and being one of the lucky people to have known him as a friend is a great gift.

Gravity

Roger Bourland writes:

"One of the most important patterns there is in the universe is gravity. Gravity manifests itself on a physical level in that we are all pulled to the center of the earth, which is pulled toward the sun, which is pulled toward the enter of the galaxy, which is pulled toward the center of a cluster of galaxies. Likewise, there is gravity in people, where “birds of a feather” will flock together. When a chorus works together for a year or season, there is a gravity that brings them together. If that gravity is working, the audience taps into this circuit and a wonderful spiritual and biochemical experience takes place. Therefore, music can bring people together. In that sense it reflects nature and society-working together toward a similar goal of trying to communicate a piece to an audience."

Janet Baker Singing Dido's Lament

The Full Monteverdi

I just came across this trailer for a film that seems to be set to (or is the proper term against?) music from Monteverdi's Fourth Madrigal book. Boy, do I wish I could go to its preview screening next week.

Overtone Excitement!

I was practicing thirds on the violin in E minor this morning, and I noticed when I played (in first position and in tune) a D sharp on the A string and an F sharp on the E string, clearly by all measurements making the interval a minor third, it sounded strangely major. Then I moved my third finger down to the position of D natural, making what would, by all measurements be a major third--and a really "normal" one at that, and it sounded minor in relation to the previous interval.

I pondered this for a long time, and then I finally realized that the whole major-minor flip thing happened because of the excitement of a low B that happens in that register on the violin when the interval is really in tune, which made the minor third between D sharp and F sharp the upper minor third of a B major chord, and the major third between D natural and F sharp the upper major third of a B minor chord.

Overtone excitement is one of the perks of playing in tune.

Tags: Overtones, violin playing

Being part of an audience for recitals

It is concert season again, and for those new to the experience, particularly people who live in university communities, and particulary students who are required to write papers for music appreciation classes, I would like to offer a few thoughts that might help make the experience less daunting and possibly easier to write about.

One of the most meaningful musical experiences for the new concertgoer is to go to a recital. Many recitals on university campuses are free, and those that are not free usually cost very little, especially with a student ID card.

If the concert is a recital given by an undergraduate student at a college or university, the music on the progam was very likely chosen by the student's teacher so that the student would be able to devote a period of serious study to the music on the program with a lot of help and coaching from the teacher and perhaps other members of the music faculty.

What you will hear will very likely be the "product" of hundreds of hours of work and study, not to mention years of developing technique on the instrument that the student is playing. It is a big moment for the person playing. Linear time is measured by the proximity of the date of the recital. ("my recital is three months from today," or "I can't believe my recital is next week," or "oh my god, my recital is tomorrow.") A recital is a central moment in the life of the person playing, and you, as a audience member unknown to the person playing, are a witness and a part of the event.

Some of the most exciting moments of music making come in the form of undergraduate student recitals.

If the concert is a graduate student recital or a doctoral recital, the music on the program is probably the choice of the graduate student. As a member of the audience you should expect professional level playing. The graduate student will still have been coached on the repertoire s/he is playing, but it is likely that many of his or her musical ideas will be personal. The person playing has at much at stake (or more) as the undergraduate student, and measures time the same way, but his or her standards are higher (or should be), and having had the experience of playing recitals in the past, she or he will be more comfortable with the timeline of the performance in relation to life.

The level of playing at a conservatory (if there is one in your city) might be higher on the undergraduate level or even the graduate level than the level of playing at a university or college, but since some universities and colleges have excellent music departments, it is not really possible or even fair to compare without specific "data." You can make the comparison yourself, in your own city.

If the concert is a recital by a visiting professional or a faculty member at a college or conservatory, you should expect something sensational. If you don't, the performer, who does this for a living, is not doing his or her part. Professionals are paid to play well even if they are sick, exhausted, or in emotional turmoil. As a member of an audience for a professional recital you should appreciate the fact that the person playing is sharing a great deal of experience and knowledge with the audience, in addition to hours and hours per day spent practicing. You should expect, as an audience member, to be emotionally involved in the music, and you should expect the professional to be even more emotionally involved than you are. I have found that the more successful the performance is, the more deep emotional involvement and sense of ultimate dedication you will find on the part of the performer.

Tags: Classical Concerts, recitals, concert report, student recitals

Practicing thoughts for the day

"Today while practicing some new repertoire, a new dimension of understanding concerning breath support opened to me. I realized I must love each and every single note which is sung while giving each and every note the room it needs to be comfortably and fully expressed. There can be no skimming over any note or combination of notes, there can be no notes which are more important than others. Each note must be allowed its full place and be offered, yes, full support according to its individual needs.

I can think of lots of parallels to everyday life, the most obvious being people. There is room for everybody on the planet (that includes all singers - there is indeed room for each and every singer and artist) and each person must have space and, ideally, room to grow and fulfill their personal potential. And it seems to me, no other person can give us that space because it is an internal one which we must make or take for ourselves. Support yourself and you can support the voice."

Wise words from Michelle Bennett

Understanding Music

That is the name of the course I teach, though I must admit that music is something I really don't claim to fully understand. I have been spending a lot of quality time (bordering on too much quality time) swimming around YouTube looking for performances to show to my classes. Rather than posting all the YouTube links I would love to share here, I'm posting a link to my nearly new finesclass blog for anyone who might be interested in enjoying the spoils of my "labor." Don't worry. You don't have to do any of the assignments.

Tags: teaching, understanding music

Perfect Pitch

I took (and failed) the test that was part of the study described in this article about perfect pitch being genetic. The tones that were generated were computer tones that were devoid of any kind of "color." Simple pitch recognition, or the ability to register the number of oscillations per second that a given pitch goes through, is what that study measured. Like most musicians, I have relative pitch. I can also identify pitches when they are played on any of the instruments I have spent a lot of physical time with: violin, viola, flute, and recorder in particular, because I respond to those instruments by physical sensation, but that's not perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is absolute pitch. The kind of pitch that I have tried to develop. The kind of pitch that my brothers were born with. The above article suggests that the ability to perceive pitch "goes sharp" when we get older. I don't think that a change in mental ability is the cause. I know of three older people who have complained that they hear pitches half a step sharp (one is my father--who only has the problem when listening to recordings, one is my friend's father, Louis Teicher, and one is Svatislov Richter). I imagine that there must be something physiological about the hearing mechanism that causes pitches to be heard sharper that comes with age. Only someone with perfect pitch would notice, though. Any thoughts?