Playing A Piece Never Heard

[alzado]

I see that a very old thread (Dec of '05) has come back with quite a few posts.  The thread on the "Teaching" forum has to do with whether a teacher should demonstrate for the student or not.  In plain English, should the teacher be playing the piano for the student?

Bernhard had an answer that satisfies me -- "the teacher should demonstrate for the student, but should not play to entertain the student." [Paraphrase]

One issue was not addressed, so far as I can see.  How about the mature pianist or advanced student playing a piece never heard?

As a senior citizen who takes weekly lessons, it is not unusual for me to go to my lesson with material I have literally never heard played -- in any form. 

Since a lot of this is classical repertoire, usually my teacher does know the piece.  One I am playing now is "Melody in F" by Anton Rubinstein.  I am not sure if that is the original name of the piece.  One reason I am working with this piece is because my teacher recommended it as a very good choice, given where I am with my piano studies at present. Needless to say, my teacher has never played it for me.

Another example-- I acquired several books of pieces by Edward MacDowell last fall.  Neither I nor my teacher had ever heard most of this material.  I stayed with it for a couple of months, and wound up learning four of five of these pieces to a good degree of polish.  Here again, I just took on sheet music that for me was unheard.  I "sample-played" excerpts from the pieces to identify pieces I personally might like.  Then I played them for my teacher, mastered them, and polished them.  I am not sorry I did so -- some of them are very beautiful pieces.

I believe that AT SOME POINT the student -- regardless of how advanced or how proficient -- MUST be able to work up some scores he or she has never heard.

Imagine the absurdity of Bernhard or Vladimir Horowitz or -- whoever master one thinks of -- calling his old teacher in a panic -- "a score has been left with me -- I have to play it next week.  I have never heard it.  Can you DEMONSTRATE it for me?"  Or alternatively, racing to the public library to check out the music CD, as a crutch to learn the piece?

At some point, I believe the student must be prepared to leaf through a book of selections and "sample-play" material in order to identify something he or she likes. And then go on to work it up, master it, and polish it.  This will necessarily involve daring to tackle a lot of music the student has never heard.

I will say this.  I believe it is easier to learn a piece if one has heard it -- especially, if one is familiar with the piece (having heard it quite a few times).  But this may not always be possible.

[Bob]

You just have to know the style.  What's allowed, what's not.

And it's easier to imitate a recording yes, but is the recording correct?  Otherwise you have to read and interpret.

[lostinidlewonder]

In reality the more music you learn the more you discover that everything else is the same procedure. The more combinations of notes, rhythms, jumps, leaps whatever you can imagine you experience, the easier it becomes to notice patterns even in scores you have never seen before. The patterns are all over it, the procedure is all there, perhaps you will not be able to express the music as nicely as you wanted to at first but once you get use to the idea of the music you will connect it with experience you have had with other pieces which did similar things.

There is nothing wrong with a student asking their teacher to play the peice for them. It is a big part of learning music. To see and listen to how a passage is played with control. If a student struggles I cannot help but play the passage for them, if they can verbally tell me what is the difference they have learnt something by sight and sound. The next step is to actually do it which will be lots of experimentations.

[pianistimo]

also, imo, mcdowell's music is not as technically challenging (although it may have some difficulties) as say, a chopin etude.  something played extremely fast.  you are learning movements from the teacher and not necessarily inflections and interpretation.  i didn't go to my teacher to have him 'play the piano for me.'  otherwise, as you say - you would be to dependent on your teacher and want him around to play everything for you.  even though many things i haven't thought of before have come to the surface, the main things i was looking for:
technical proficiency
the idea that the pieces he might pick or i might pick - would be pieces that he HAS played before - thus, me gleaning insight to the pieces i work with him.
pieces that he has possibly worked with teachers before him - or has intimate knowledge of.
an update on my fingering plans - checking things thru that i'm already working one fingering for - to see if there are better ones.
an idea of the sounds the piano is capable of - rather than the ones that i have thought were 'my pallete.'  (kind of like going to an art teacher who shows you 100 more sounds).
learning to be an even better performer - learning tricks of the trade, so to speak.
connecting with musical people in the area - networking.


agreed about not being lazy, though.  a tendency might be for some to ask the teacher always to play the piece first.  most really good teachers don't play the entirety, but excerpts that are in the  midst of discussion (ie the really difficult passages - or interpretively difficult passages).  also, i've asked a lot about terms and found that some of my definitions of terms were a little off.  this could be learned by simply looking mroe in the dictionary - so that might be a little on the lazy side - but teachers facilitate your improving weaknesses - so unless you know you have a weakness you can't correct it.

[rc]

You just have to know the style.  What's allowed, what's not.

This is useful, but carries the danger of playing dogmatically... Tastes have changed and evolved over the years, what people 'allow' or 'disallow' isn't concrete. Though, there are things that are certainly incorrect (having an alberti bass overpower the melody, for example), so complete subjectivity is the opposite danger.

Experience is a good guide for playing something unknown, following patterns as lostinidle said. It's also good to be able to cook up a bunch of ideas for interpretation and experiment around. I think it's important to have reasons behind your decisions in an interpretation, to be able to explain "I did this to create a certain effect", that gives it meaning.

I like the challenge of working on a piece I've never heard before, it's also interesting to hear the differences/similarities between what you've come up with and what some famous pianists have put onto a recording.

Alternately, when I choose to learn a piece based on a recording I've become familiar with, by the time I've learned the piece I'm surprised how differently I play it from the recording.

I agree that it's beneficial for a student to have to learn pieces they've never heard before, I would even say to do so often. It encourages a musical imagination, and forces them to think things through.

[alzado]

RC writes--

 agree that it's beneficial for a student to have to learn pieces they've never heard before, I would even say to do so often. It encourages a musical imagination, and forces them to think things through.

I would agree, with the one qualifier that this "trailbreaking" in an unfamiliar score should be reviewed by the teacher -- either by listening and correcting the student, or in some instances, by playing parts where the student might have the rhythm wrong or something.

Example --   Throughout the entire piece entitled "Song" from the MacDowell book, SEA PIECES, I incorrectly sharped a G in a in a C#-G chord.  This was in a particular measure that was often repeated.  This serious mistake just did not dawn on me, and I even memorized it wrong.  That's where my teacher saved the day, corrected the error, and made this "trailblazing" in new material to be a real learning experience for me. 

Thanks to all who responded to this thread.  I have gotten a lot out of the replies up to now. 

[Bob]

I think everyone does that at some point -- practices something wrong.  I just figured out I had practiced a rhythm wrong in a piece I was playing.  Duh!  And it was a rhythm!

If the teacher knows the piece, style, or if it's a familiar scale, the teacher could just hear a wrong note.

Having a recording won't necessarily help the student pick out their mistakes either.

[landru]

Re Practicing Wrong: I learned a short Handel piece with a passing 16th note as a B natural when it should have been a B flat. The key is F/Dm and it should have been very noticeable (in theory) - but it escaped my teacher every time she heard it. I only discovered by comparing my memory to the score. But the thing is - the wrong note on the surface doesn't sound wrong! 

Re Teachers demonstrating: I was playing a Tchaikovsky Mazurka and my teacher let me discover how to play it on my own. There was one tricky part (passing the phrase between the left and right hands) that I couldn't figure out how to make it sound and of course it showed in my playing. She played the phrase and I could immediately see what I was missing. This is the valuable part of teaching - showing the student a musical aspect that the student just doesn't have the experience to get on their own.

Great discussion!