Life lessons 'n shit (or, a little late night pedagogical musing)...

I teach a lot of F*@&ing piano lessons every week. This week has seemed particularly long (which is probably why I used the F word to describe piano lessons...wonder how often that's been done...hm...)

Anyway, I was reminded today of something my piano pedagogy professor used to say in graduate school: "Always remember that you are not teaching piano, you are teaching people." He reiterated the same sentiment by telling us to, "teach the child first, music second, and the instrument third."

Like so much one learns in school, this is a concept that made sense to me in the abstract while I was sitting in the classroom but has become increasingly practical in the day-to-day grind of teaching.

There are days when teaching music history or teaching piano really is less about the subject or the instrument and more about the person sitting in front of me. Piano students have parents who get divorced and death touches everyone - regardless of age. College students raise children on their own while trying to put themselves through school. Some college kids even fight in wars - real ones - like, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And I find myself, in the midst of all the awful stuff that sometimes makes up people's lives, trying to convince a 19 year old that Baroque opera is worth a second listen or an 8 year old that articulation and the shape of a phrase matters.

I'm keenly aware that my role is that of music teacher not music therapist. There are brilliant music therapists in this world who are well-trained for that job. However, anyone who teaches music is mindful of the fact that because music is personal and because it so often elicits emotional responses, the teacher/therapist role is sometimes blurred. The only way around that reality, I'm convinced, would involve a dispassionate or clinical approach to one's students and one's subject.

I really have no conclusion or point to this little rant, except to say that this has been a long week. Oh, and that I think teaching music is important and that it makes a real difference in people's lives.

And one more thing...

I've been meaning to post the following quote from Alex Ross's insightful article from the New Yorker last month on fictional music/musicians in literature. Seems to fit here:

"When we listen deeply, we aren't simply registering music's ebb and flow; we are remaking music in our own image, investing minor details with private significance."

Investing minor details with private significance.

Exactly.

Lisztomania...

It's Cliburn time in Texas. Over on the Art and Seek blog Olin Chism reviews the contestants' repertoire choices and points out that there are no fewer than 36 potential performances of Liszt (not surprisingly, Chopin and Beethoven are tied for second with 34 potential performances each). For more on repertoire, read this post. Other Cliburn news/schedules are here.

I have mixed feelings about the Cliburn competition and piano competitions in general. Judging at this level is subjective (as is the nature of judging in the arts) and the outcome of the Cliburn competition is rarely a true measure or predictor of future success. Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News wrote a great piece on this topic. Read it here. To add to my mistrust of the Van Cliburn in particular, I was really surprised by the selections made for this year's competition. After watching the screening auditions in Fort Worth earlier this semester, I felt the judges chose personality and celebrity over musicality and technical ability. I was pretty shocked by the selection of performers who I felt gave clearly sub-par performances. It seemed apparent that judges had favorites going in, and did not judge solely on the audition.

That said, it seems appropriate to listen to this today:


(Van Cliburn playing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12)

And in related news, I can't help but love this song. I tried to resist, but it gets stuck in your head and it really isn't half bad. I'd say this is one of only a handful (if not the only) musicologically-themed music videos around. It's a band (black skinny jeans, shaggy hair and all) playing on the steps of Bayreuth and visiting the Liszt museum. Now THAT is a music video...

Piano Teacher Diaries (quote of the day)...

Student (age 7): "Miss Katie, guess what!? I practiced!! And I'm not even lying this time!"

Same student a little later: "Did you know today was Earth Day?"
Me: "Yes, I did. Did you do anything special to celebrate at school?"
Student: "No! It was awful. They made us pick up trash off the ground!! It was disgusting. I picked up gum that was already chewed up. And then we all had to wash our hands again. I'm exhausted."

A slice of rural American pie...

Thanks to facebook and status updates from high school acquaintances, I happened upon this week's edition of my home town's local newspaper. Goldmine! I spent a considerable amount of time tonight reading about a fire in an old municipal building downtown that brought "hundreds of people" into the streets (the news story that was the genesis of my initial inquiry) and catching up on small town politics (um, can we say drama?!). I also came across the video below. The musical excerpt at the beginning of the clip - a rather fabulous bluesy/gospel keyboard introduction to a hymn played by an off-camera musician - is of some ethnomusicological interest. On a more personal level, it brought back memories of my piano lessons as a kid in which one lesson a month was spent learning how to embellish hymns (it worked, btw, i can embellish a hymn like you wouldn't believe).



*Note the confederate flag in the background of the pictures at the end of the video. You just can't make this stuff up.

fyi, here is another post about Erwin with pics

March Madness (in April)...

On my mind: thesis revisions, piano lessons, i need to grade essays, thesis revisions, beethoven sonatas, basketball (go Heels!), i need to do laundry, and going home to NC this weekend(!!).

Or, to put all that musically via youtube...

Andras says (quote of the day)...

This whole article (mentioned in post below) really is a good read. Make sure to click on the audio clips on the left side of the page to hear Schiff on several topics (they are short excerpts...just a couple minutes each). This quote is from "I Don't Like the Piano:"

"I don't play the piano because I like the instrument so much. I don't. Because, there are instruments I much prefer...the cello is the first one that comes to mind. I play the piano because it has the most wonderful repertoire. I wouldn't give it up for anything...."

Mr. Schiff, I couldn't agree more.

From Beethoven to curly fries and back to Beethoven...

Last night I attended a concert at my alma mater billed as a "Distinguished Artist Concert" featuring Guest Pianist in Residence, Jerome Rose, performing works by Beethoven, Schumman, and Liszt.

Quit honestly, it was terrible. "Uninspired" is probably the best adjective to describe the performance. I know that the hall in which he performed (not to mention the piano on which he performed) is not ideal. I've played recitals in that hall and on that piano and know it is a challenge. However, I've also seen many, many recitals on said piano and in said room that were truly inspired and inspiring. Mr. Rose seemed bored and in a hurry to get through the performance - such a hurry, in fact, that he missed notes, rushed passages, and lacked dynamic sensibility. It was shockingly disappointing. In the program notes it mentioned that Mr. Rose has written a 4 volume book titled, "Becoming a Virtuoso." I do wonder how he found the time to both become a virtuoso and write four volumes on how to do so! Maybe he is too tired after all that virtuosic becoming and prolific bestowing of knowledge on virtuosic becoming, that he forgot how to play Beethoven's Op. 31 No. 3 virtuosically...

After the concert, my friend and I looked at each other and said simultaneously, "I need a drink." And so we drank...and then drank a little more...and then a tad more... Which led to me taking this photo on my phone at 2:28am (and to promptly devouring half a large order of curly fries and chicken tenders):

This morning I woke up a little pissed at Jerome Rose for directly causing me to get so drunk that I consumed precisely 8,672 calories and 9 million grams of fat (as well as 290 lbs. of grease) at 2:28am.

Goddamn him and his bad Beethoven.

But then I turned on my computer to find this article and this free recording of Andras Schiff's performance of Beethoven's final three sonatas live at Disney Hall in L.A. And there it was - Beethoven a la inspiration, passion, accuracy, a lovely piano, a grand hall, and dynamic sensibility on top of that!

And now I am going to eat a salad at an organic restaurant.

Thank you, Andras Schiff, for redeeming Beethoven, my weekend, my appetite, and pianistic virtuosity all at once. Well done.

P.S.
My favorite quote from the NPR article about Schiff's performance of all 32 Beethoven sonatas over the last two years is: "[Schiff has] gone through serious obsessions with Schubert, Schumann, Haydn, and Bartok, as well as major bouts of Bach and Mozart..." Which begs the question, what does cure a "major bout of Bach and Mozart?" Curly fries, perhaps?

"We're gonna make it, that's for sure..."

With one week left before spring break, I'm feeling a tad stressed. Just normal stuff...grading, writing midterm exams, preparing piano students for spring competitions, my own thesis deadlines, getting tax stuff together (argh!), blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on...

Shit just seems to always pile up by mid-March and I'm definitely ready for the break. So, until this Friday afternoon when my spring break officially begins, I'm going to keep reminding myself I'm not alone; Q-Tip, Phife, and Ali were also totally stressed out in the mid-90s, and (thank god), they wrote a song to remind me and you that they "really know how it feels to be stressed out, stressed out..."

Stressed Out - A Tribe Called Quest featuring Faith Evans & Raphael Saadiq

It's February. Hearts and roses and tea-stained sheet music and stuff...

Valentine's day is a week away. As I was perusing the interwebs this morning, I came across this photograph. If this isn't romance, I don't know what is...



Hungarian composer/pianist György Kurtág and his wife, Marta Kurtág during their New York debut in a concert of works by Mr. Kurtag and others at Zankel Hall on Feb. 1, 2009. They met in the 1940s when they were both studying at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.

I love this clip of the two of them performing his piece, Quarrel from the Jatekok:

The darndest things...

On Friday, one of my piano students was explaining to me that she had a long weekend coming up and wasn't going back to school until Wednesday. "Oh, really," I said, "That's pretty cool. Do you know why you are off school Monday?" "Um, well, Monday is Marthin...um...Marthin...um...I can't remember his last name, but it is his day. Not like, his birthday. It's not his birthday. It's just a day for him but it is pretty close to his birthday. Also, did you know that the president named Kennedy had a daughter and son and the son died and now the daughter is running for inauguration? Anyway, I get to have two sleep overs because of it."

All in all, I'd say she's pretty well informed about politics (if not also terribly confused) for a 6 year old.

5 unrelated but true things...

1. I made a kid cry in his piano lesson this week. Really, though, he needs to practice. Life lessons and shit.
2. My roommate and I thought there were mice in our walls for weeks. We figured out tonight the squeaking is just a tree branch that rubs against our window. Whew.
3. I think Fleet Foxes made the best album of the year. I was wavering, distracted by other worthy contenders. And then it got cold today and I listened to "Your Protector," "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," "Ragged Wood," and "Blue Ridge Mountains." The whole damn thing is brilliant. They are incredible live. Harmonies that fit like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Haunting lyrics ("Penniless and tired, with your hair grown long, I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong, Memory is a fickle siren song, I didn't understand"). And the beginning of "Your Protector" is reminiscent of Debussy (think Clair de lune). Need I say more?
4. I ate stale two-day-old homemade Ghirardelli chocolate brownies for lunch today. Gross. But also a little delicious. Except for the stale part. Whatevs.
5. I'm a little tipsy right now.

Night...

I don't really want one, but they sure are entertaining. Or, things kids say to me in piano lessons...

Some conversations I've had with my piano students this week:

Sara (age 5): "Miss Katie, how old are you again?"
Me: "25"
Sara: "REALLY!!! My Grandma is 25!!!!"

Me (to Meagan, age 8, whose mom recently began taking lessons from me): "So, what do you think about your mom taking piano, too?"
Meagan: "It's pretty cool. She told me it gave her a new lease on life or something like that."

A little later in the same lesson...

Meagan: "What are you going to be for Halloween?"
Me: "Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin"
Meagan: "COOL!!! You could do cartwheels for your trick when you go trick or treating!!! Wait, do you trick or treat on Halloween or just stay at home and give out candy?"
Me: "Well, actually, I think I'm going to a party with some of my friends."
Meagan: "Oh, that's cool. A fall festival. So you're gonna bob for apples and stuff?"

An XXX rated post. Or, art.

Remember this? Well, I found a picture.

Brace yourself.




The artist wants us to question our preconceived notions and prejudices towards the penis. Question away, but I for one would RUN if I came across several of the above.

A "key" taboo. Or, something you'll never see at the Dallas Museum of Art...

http://karalla.com/Piano/BabyGrand.htm

On feeling like a broken record. Or, 10 things i say more than 20 times a day...

1. "Sit up straight and tall, please."

2. "No saggy wrists. Show me good piano hands!"

3. "Fuck. Fucking shit, fuck."*

4. "Okay, play it one more time."

5. "Take your feet OFF the pedals. Now, please. Feet off the pedals. Sit up straight and tall."

6. "Let's try that again with a steady beat."

7. "There's something wrong with me."**

8. "Please play that again with dynamics."

9. "Sit up straight and tall, please."

10. "Oh, dear."***


*Note that I don't say "fuck" in the presence of young children during piano lessons. My daily expletive quota is most typically reached in the safe (and soundproof) confines of my car.

**Note that this, also, is not something I say in the piano lesson setting. (Although, that would be funny. I imagine the following scenario: "Good job on your new song, little Johnny. By the way, there is something wrong with me. I'm totally fucked up about relationships and my life is a complete mess. Want to take a break from 'Yankee Doodle' and go grab a drink?").

***Who knows! I just say this all the time. It's my inner spinster/old lady coming out. Oh, dear.