Lillian's older brothers and sisters looked on and commented on little Vladimir.
"His playing is too mechnical."
"There's no real talent there. He's learned it all by rote."
"That kid is going to have some serious issues in the future, playing a piece like that so early."
"He has no soul.
Dear Lenka – Olenka,
I have written already that I admire you and everything you had done for Piano teaching. I am sure that your method has a great feature and is invaluable for millions of students.
However all the teachers are very nasty people (I mean myself the first in this sentence) they are never focused on “what is done”, “what is perfect”, they always are looking for: what should be done else and better? I remember that we can mention anything like this, only if we want and are able to help. I hope to prove that I have the reasons to speak on these matters.
You, probably, had known my teacher Vladimir Nielsen, if you are originally from St. Petersburg. He always told to us , his students: “Do not listen to your friends. They are useless for you as a pianist. They love you and never will tell you the truth about yourself. “Love your enemies”(The Bible) instead. These guys will list all your vulnerable points immediately, detailed and with great pleasure”. I did not listen to your video yet and can NOT share or OPPOSE concerns of your opponent Bob. However, my concerns have something in common with the above quoted, though they grow from the different roots.
We all are very allergic if somebody touches our sores. To make our discussion peaceful I invite you “on different field”. Let us imagine that we both are in bicycle industry. You are an outstanding inventor: you have built already a huge fully computerized factory and you are able to manufacture millions of bicycles of excellent quality, all you need are just hundreds of promoters and salesmen. Provided you got them, you will cover probably in a few years time the whole our planet with your bicycles. This is your vision of the situation.
I am working in the basement of my house and my business is to collect your bicycles from the streets and bring them to my garage, because a lot of parents and elderly people bought them and then dumped in disappointment after they or their children had fallen from these bicycles with bruises, broken arms and cracked heads. (Btw, any hospital will tell you that they have much more injured bicyclists than all motorists and pedestrians counted together).
All what I do with your bicycles is: I install on both sides of each bicycle two small supportive wheels and nobody can fall anymore as long as they use “my invention”.
I know your objection: “No one Olympics champion uses such supportive wheels. I had asked them already – they are not interested even to listen about this your invention!”
However, I have my daily bread only because plenty of people bumped into this problem with 2-wheeled bicycles and they appreciate the difference that I make for them and their children installing these "safety wheels".
Who of us (with you) is right and who is wrong in this case? It is obvious that we simply have to co-operate and sell in some way all your bicycles ($ 300) with the option + supportive wheels ($300 + $6 make $306).
But the real situation between “our (imaginary) businesses” is not so simple and smooth.
Therefore, let us “open” our College of Art Of Cookery (with our famous student Gennady Khazanov). You are very proud that all your students get perfect knowledge of Continental, Italian, French, Chinese and 20 other cuisines just in 30 weeks. I want to teach your students in Hygiene, Safety and Math.
You say – NO! All my students will get this knowledge after the graduation from my college from their practical work, we do not need to teach all these unimportant things from very beginning. It can reduce tempo of teaching and increase its cost.
Do you know what has happened then to your students because of this your opinion?
The first one had to make ice-cream and he was not sure about the difference between 0.7 (sugar) and 0.007 (salt), so he put simply 7 kilograms of each into his machine.
The second student fried eggs over 2 hours instead of 2 minutes.
The third student set the wrong temperature and inflamed oil burned out the whole restaurant. And so on. These is the reason that no one of them is interested to work in this area anymore, even at home they eat simply fast food from the nearest shop.
This example is much closer already to our biggest problem. I believe (100%) that you are able to bring all your students on the level of conservatory in 10x times shorter period, than it is done by traditional method. I do NOT believe, that majority of them will not drop music then from this much-much higher level in the same way like they drop music from Grade 3, or Grade 9 level. The real problem is: they do not love music and they have a very good reason NOT to love, because NOBODY (their friends, relatives, neighbors, anyone, including themselves) can enjoy what they play. As well as nobody can enjoy ice-cream with salt instead of sugar, fish with entrails (not cleaned inside), burned eggs etc.
Therefore, now it is the time for our “business No3”. You are manufacturing tables, and these tables are very good in general. However, they have only 2 (two) legs – I really love this image from your promo. I suggest upgrading them, and installing one more leg, because from my experience I know for sure: 3 is a minimum for stability. You again say: ”NO. Nobody else makes more than 2 legs, consequently 3rd leg is absolutely unnecessary. All the people can keep their tables in balance in spite of only 2 legs using their elbows and knees (during their dinners). Forget about your “extra” (third) leg and focus on more important things in the future”.
However, there is no more important thing in music than presence (from the very first step in music) of all these 3 “legs” in our performances and teaching. Here we have a typical example of Hegel’s triads (Hegel glossary: Hegel's triads are the universal, the particular, and the individual). What do you prefer to teach your students: do not eat, do not drink or do not breathe? All 3 are absolutely vital and you have no way to manage without any of these 3.
However, you say: “Polishing can be done later, after the whole building is already constructed”. In my opinion this will never work because the word “POLISHING” is absolutely misleading in this context. You are right: music is just one of languages. So what is important and what is “polishing”: to write proper letters, or proper words or proper sentences to be understood and enjoy your language? What out of these 3 do you prefer to ignore “for the first 5-10 years”? For how long your students will be able to enjoy what they are doing under your guidance?
Music has 3 absolutely vital components: Pitch, Time and Volume-Intensity of each particular note. And only these 3 are entirely enough for perfect performance. Famous Disklavier "knows" ONLY these three components (without any "magic touch", "right position of hands", "playing into the string" and other bullshit like this) however nobody can find the difference between original performance and playing back of this wonderful machine.
At the same time, out of 3 vital components of music (“Pitch”, “Timing”, “Volume-Intensity" of EACH note, not to be confused with the total volume of all the notes in a chord or in a bar) only Pitch and Timing are taught in more/less satisfactory way. Particular, "individual" “Intensity” of each note is absolutely ignored and even denied by the majority of contemporary teachers. In this way they “shoot their own foot” and kill musical education for mass (not for genius who do not need to be taught at all). Because any melody with the wrong stressing and softening of notes always will be as ugly as my usual “English” example: “i AM li- VING in TO-ronTO”.
I invite you and all your readers to look at my posts “The best way to play “Fur Elise”, “I am free” and others on the same topic in “PERFORMANCE” and “AUDITION ROOM” with detailed discussion on all these matters.
Thanks once more for everything you have done for music! Good luck!
Vladimir Dounin
Topic: Why Jenny Can't Play the Piano?