Bad ear; great pianist; any thoughts?

[thalberg]

Okay, I have a friend who is an AWESOME soloist.  He has incredible fingers--the best I've ever seen.  And plays with lots of artistry.  But he has NO sense of pitch--can't identify even this simplest chord progressions.  He can identify intervals if they're less than an octave, but can't take dictation at all.

He's taught piano lessons to kids, and the kids love him and practice a lot for him--it's truly unusual.  But he wants to get out of music because of his bad ear....and he wants my advice.  Should he serve society through his teaching, or get into something else.

So what do you all think--I've never met anyone like this before.  Every good pianist I've ever known has had a decent sense of pitch....in fact, I didn't even know this about him until I'd known him for 5 years and he pointed it out to me.  I didn't believe him at first.

So....should he be a teacher or just forget music?

[xhunterjx]

I personally don't think having good pitch relates at all to piano technique or artistry.

[counterpoint]

I am such  a person too. I can imagine how a note or a chord will sound, if I see the score, but if I hear some unknown music, I can't write it down.

But: why do you call it a "bad ear"?

If he's a good pianist, he will hear very fine nuances in sound and he will hear, if his students play wrong notes, wrong dynamics, wrong articulation etc The only thing he doesn't "hear" is the note names and the chord names. But he knows them, if he looks at the score. So where's the problem?

[m1469]

This just doesn't seem like it's that mysterious to me.  I mean, if he is getting great results, then who cares ?  It just seems like he is stuck on the stigma that says you have to be a certain way in order to be a musician, but if his students are doing great and he is a great pianist, what more do we want ?

One of the most sought-after basketball coaches in my area is a man who had a brain tumor removed, and during the surgery the doctors messed up leaving him severly disabled for the rest of his life.  He lives in a wheel chair, he is difficult to understand when he speaks, and can't pee by himself.  Yet, his basketball programs are outstanding and he knows how to inspire, guide and direct his athletes like nobody else does.  Should he stop all this just because of what people might see as imperfections in him ?  By looking at the results he gets, obviously he is doing something right and should most definitely keep it up if that's what he wants to be doing with his life !  Same with your friend, it seems.

[ted]

No, he should definitely not abandon his music because of that. I know it sounds silly but it really doesn't matter, in the sense that these traditional, measurable specifics do not affect those aspects of music which are most important to the psyche. To take the creative area, all that is necessary is the ability to make a sound and respond to it; almost everybody can do that in one way or another.

I am in the process of trying to help a couple of players here get over this preoccupation with things they cannot do. By analogy, it's almost as bad as someone thinking he cannot understand Galois theory because he can't do mental arithmetic. There is more to music and more to our brains than any of these conveniently measurable abilities.

Tell your friend to stop worrying about it and just carry on, brilliantly from what you say, with what he CAN do.

[rach n bach]

I am going to agree with the general consent.

He'll do fine with something not even close to perfect pitch.  He apparently can hear the nuances of the music... no need to know the intervals by ear.

[opus10no2]

The piano is perhaps the most unique instrument in that it demands zero pitch sensetivity to play, it's essentially a percussion instrument in a way.

So this guy evidently has a great ear for dynamics, rhythm, and other things, which are what make a great pianist.

He'd suck as a cellist/violinist/singer though 

[rc]

I agree that it's not really necessary, I'm pretty rotten at it too.  Though I'm not too horrible at recognizing chords and harmony, intervals screw me up.

It's probably more common than we think.  As op10n2 put it - it's just not necessary for us, we can get away with letting the tuner worry about these things.  I'll bet over time, many pianists adapt to the instrument and don't get around to developing pitch sensitivity.

What would pitch sensetivity be useful for?  composing is my first guess

[nightingale11]

I don't get it?
If he do not has got a good ear why do he not go ahead and improve it?
To get perfect pitch he can try David Lucas Burge's ear training program for perfect pitch or relative pitch (two distinct skills by the way).
   By the way does this friend of yours pay any attention to the meaning of the music he plays(melodic analysis, harmonic analysis, motif analysis etc.)?

[thalberg]

Well, he seems to pay a lot of attention to the meaning of the music--his playing is very artistic.  He does know written theory very well.   But he says that it's very, very hard for him to arrive at his artistry because he hears poorly.  It takes him forever.  But he feels like music would be easier for him if his ear were better--it would be easier to interpret, etc.  That's why he's thinking of just dropping it.

Why doesn't he improve it?  Well, he has improved it--it's better than it used to be, but it's still just not really very good.  For instance, he says he couldn't even name an interval at age 18, but now he can name most of them if he hears them.  Still no chord progressions or anything.

[rc]

...So then he could continue to improve it.  It'd be silly to drop the whole thing after coming that far!

[ramseytheii]

I agree with those who said, improve it.  Hearing dynamics is essential but only one part of what we must hear to convey the "meaning of music," as someone else wrote.  In order for  a big-structure piece to be understood by the audience, we have to understand it ourselves, and we have to be able to hear the relationship between the parts, and the harmonic tension which makes the structure possible to exist.  Also, we have to hear the difference between intervals in order to execute them properly.  I've never understood why there are those who advocate knowing less about music rather than more. 

Chord progressions are easiest identified at cadences, but if you don't understand how they are progressing before that, you will have a lot of mud, and then a cadence.  A composer wasn't just writing feelings, he was writing feelings in melody, harmony, and rhythm, and if you can't understand how he used those elements, you are missing out on something essential.

I feel strongly about this because my first teacher was one who actually knew all these things, but simply failed to impart them to his students.  He succeeded solely on an enormous personal charisma that was able to inspire students to play pieces comfortably and coherently that by all rational standards would have been way beyond their level.  But when I, and other students like me, left his tutelage, we were at a loss to reproduce that success, because we didn't have a foundation of knowledge.  If this person you are talking about achieves success with students, but doesn't give them basic music knowledge and skills, it is a success of personality, not of music instruction.  This is a dangerous thing which, if a student is unlucky enough to experience, like myself, becomes very hard to overcome.

If he truly cares about his students, he should recommend them to take separate theory lessons with another teacher, if he doesn't understand that material himself, and maybe he should take similar lessons. Students are best served by being given all the tools possible to understand, create, and recreate music, not just the vague notion of feelings.

Walter Ramsy

[thalberg]

Walter, I very much agree with what you said!! You and I have had a similar experience.

My own teacher was just like yours.  She helped her students play beautifully, way beyond their level.  But they could not reproduce that success without her.  I suffered because of this.  She simply told me how to play the pieces--and she made them sound beautiful--but without her I was useless.  It made graduate school hard for me.

Walter, my friend seems to be thinking your same thoughts.  This is why he wants to get out of music...

It hurts me to advise him to get out--he's really very, very good and has come quite far.  But he is so intelligent I know he would do well if he chose another occupation.  It might be easier on him in the long run to be in an occupation where he doesn't always feel like he's working at a disadvantage.  I can see it in him that this disadvantage frustrates him.  I think he's looking for someone to give him permission to quit.

[m1469]

WAIT, he can't quit !  .

It's a disadvantage to be living a life that you don't love and feel passionately about !  It's a disadvantage to know that you give up on something that you care about just because of some fear and trepedation ( )... (argh... spouting off this kind of encouragement is hard medicine to swallow sometimes  ).  The whole point, supposedly, of having a good ear is to accomplish what he already seems to be accomplishing.  I mean, what the ?

[ramseytheii]

Walter, I very much agree with what you said!! You and I have had a similar experience.

My own teacher was just like yours.  She helped her students play beautifully, way beyond their level.  But they could not reproduce that success without her.  I suffered because of this.  She simply told me how to play the pieces--and she made them sound beautiful--but without her I was useless.  It made graduate school hard for me.

Walter, my friend seems to be thinking your same thoughts.  This is why he wants to get out of music...

It hurts me to advise him to get out--he's really very, very good and has come quite far.  But he is so intelligent I know he would do well if he chose another occupation.  It might be easier on him in the long run to be in an occupation where he doesn't always feel like he's working at a disadvantage.  I can see it in him that this disadvantage frustrates him.  I think he's looking for someone to give him permission to quit.

This could be, especially since charismatic teachers (maybe one he had in the past) discourage to the utmost any thoughts of quitting.  But if he has the musical personality to inspire success in others, he hopefully will realize that no gulf is too wide to cross, and as long as he has the inspiration within himself to improve in areas he is lacking, he can do it.  I would advise him in general not to confide his problems to music students, who are too easily saying, oh, you don't need to know that stuff!  But rather to find a more supportive ear.  Remind him of the example of humble Schubert, who in the last years of his life felt the need to take counterpoint lessons from a provincial teacher, or Brahms, who was his whole life composing contrapuntal exercises.  They weren't satisified with any superficial knowledge, and wanted to go to the depths of music.  This is what we should all strive for!

Walter Ramsey

[counterpoint]

Chord progressions are easiest identified at cadences, but if you don't understand how they are progressing before that, you will have a lot of mud, and then a cadence.  A composer wasn't just writing feelings, he was writing feelings in melody, harmony, and rhythm, and if you can't understand how he used those elements, you are missing out on something essential.

Here I don't agree. How the music is composed in "technical" view is not that important for the musician. I know some very educated people, who can explain into the last detail, how a piece is composed, what is the "meaning" of the music from their point of view. But when they play, nothing of all the theoretic stuff will be audible. So they have to explain in words what they want  to show, before they play.

It's nice to know all this theory stuff, but you can play as well without knowing it. There is something called "intuition" - if you have it, you will bring out the music perfectly, otherwise all theory doesn't help.

[alzado]

It seems to me your friend is playing the right instrument.

If he gets the piano tuner to visit often enough, he should not have to worry about pitch.

Now, if he were a violinist . . . .

[ganymed]

Can someone explain me the importance of having a good / perfect pitch when you play piano ? i dont seem to get it ^^

[mephisto]

Maybe people with perfect pitch are able to hear the subtle harmony changes so often found in classical. With that ability they may be able put the subtelties of the music forward to an audience, so that the music just sounds better. I don't know.

[opus10no2]

As already said, there's a difference between knowing a sound and knowing a name for that sound.

But practically a person would need a fairly good ear to voice certain notes in a dense harmony.

Another practical use of a good ear is a certain kind of memorisation and advanced sight-reading.

But still, a deaf person is perfectly able to memorise complex scores by muscle memory alone.

[ramseytheii]

Here I don't agree. How the music is composed in "technical" view is not that important for the musician. I know some very educated people, who can explain into the last detail, how a piece is composed, what is the "meaning" of the music from their point of view. But when they play, nothing of all the theoretic stuff will be audible. So they have to explain in words what they want  to show, before they play.

Theoretical "stuff" is audible to those that understand it!  But a performer who understands the construction of a piece doesn't have to play in order to "show" it.  That knowledge can lead to inspiration.  I think people who are trained, also, take for granted the knowledge that they have gained, and don't even realize that they are applying it. 

For instance, let's say you have a piano player who has good facility and a decent feeling for music, but has never played or experienced deeply music from Baroque times, like a Bach suite.  He may or may not realize that a single melodic line contains hints of multiple lines, and overlapping harmonies.  If he doesn't, being given the knowledge of this, showing the important pitches, which pitches ornament, and which are fundamental, will add a huge amount to his appreciation and his performance.  We who have played that music from early age take it for granted, and don't realize we are applying hard-earned knowledge, and then say knowledge doesn't add to a performance!  There are a hundred examples like that.

My point is only that intuition, ie feelings, is not end-all-be-all.  Knowledge of construction, theory, voice-leading, rhythm, harmony, relations between melodic strains, etc etc, lends an enormous amount of appreciation and refinement to performances, even if some of those things can be felt intuitively.

It's nice to know all this theory stuff, but you can play as well without knowing it. There is something called "intuition" - if you have it, you will bring out the music perfectly, otherwise all theory doesn't help.

I disagree, and I think this represents the anti-intellectual view of music: that no knowledge can help to improve, that all success is based on feelings alone, therefore nothing can ever be defined.  But after studying so many scores throughout my life by Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Wagner, Tchaikovksy, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, an endless list, I absolutely refuse to believe they wrote by intuition, and didn't know what they were doing.  And if they were writing with specific ideas in mind, not just feelings, but feelings welded to ideas, why shouldn't we learn those ideas?  And why wouldn't those ideas help us?

Again, I think that we have great players that don't seem adept at theoretical things, but they were still taught to these people, and now taken for granted as true.

Walter Ramsey

[rc]

Intuition is valid.  It's possible to know something without being able to verbalise it.  and of course the intellect is also a useful tool...  Too much reliance on the intellect can stifle the intuition, and the reverse is also true.  We have to use both approaches.

To me, intellect is at home in the practice room, it's there to take things apart and see the mechanics of how it works.  Intuition supplies subjective meaning and puts it together as a whole, better suited for playing.

[thalberg]

Theoretical "stuff" is audible to those that understand it!  But a performer who understands the construction of a piece doesn't have to play in order to "show" it.  That knowledge can lead to inspiration.  I think people who are trained, also, take for granted the knowledge that they have gained, and don't even realize that they are applying it. 

For instance, let's say you have a piano player who has good facility and a decent feeling for music, but has never played or experienced deeply music from Baroque times, like a Bach suite.  He may or may not realize that a single melodic line contains hints of multiple lines, and overlapping harmonies.  If he doesn't, being given the knowledge of this, showing the important pitches, which pitches ornament, and which are fundamental, will add a huge amount to his appreciation and his performance.  We who have played that music from early age take it for granted, and don't realize we are applying hard-earned knowledge, and then say knowledge doesn't add to a performance!  There are a hundred examples like that.

My point is only that intuition, ie feelings, is not end-all-be-all.  Knowledge of construction, theory, voice-leading, rhythm, harmony, relations between melodic strains, etc etc, lends an enormous amount of appreciation and refinement to performances, even if some of those things can be felt intuitively.


I disagree, and I think this represents the anti-intellectual view of music: that no knowledge can help to improve, that all success is based on feelings alone, therefore nothing can ever be defined.  But after studying so many scores throughout my life by Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Wagner, Tchaikovksy, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, an endless list, I absolutely refuse to believe they wrote by intuition, and didn't know what they were doing.  And if they were writing with specific ideas in mind, not just feelings, but feelings welded to ideas, why shouldn't we learn those ideas?  And why wouldn't those ideas help us?

Again, I think that we have great players that don't seem adept at theoretical things, but they were still taught to these people, and now taken for granted as true.

Walter Ramsey

Walter--a phenomenally insightful post.   What you said really rings true!!!
We really do apply knowledge unconsciously.  How can we not do so???  For instance, in a Bach piece that I had been playing for my professors for a YEAR, I one day noticed a suspension I had not seen--a very dissonant one that resulted in a minor second.  I started leaning into this suspension to bring it out.  That exact week, two separate professors wrote comments in my score saying "nice!" right by that suspension. I heard it, so they suddenly heard it.

Or in a Chopin Nocturne, there was a complicated melody and I was thinking "How do I inflect this?  Where does the agogic go?"  But when I realized it was all an embellishment of the same harmony, I suddenly felt free just to move the melody along and then take time at the harmonic change. 

Bottom line--people with a good ear take it for granted, and then say it's not necessary. 

So my question is this------is there anyone here who has a terrible ear for pitch who has NOT felt hindered by it??  Is there anyone here who knows a successful pianist who cannot hear pitches and isn't bothered by it?  If all of us have good ears, are we really qualified to say they don't matter?

[thalberg]

Also--

The Eastman School of Music has a policy.  ANY incoming masters student who fails eartraining in the first semester is immediately dismissed from the school.  The SCHOOL!  There is no exception for pianists.  No second chances.  St. Olaf College treats its sophomore music majors the same way--I went there.  I can only speak for schools I know.  (not that I went to Eastman. I got in, though, which is how I know that)

David L. Burge says music is a hearing art. 

So if you can't hear, aren't you basically like a colorblind painter?  If an ear doesn't matter, where are all the tone-deaf pianists?

In the doctoral program at my school, literally every one of the doctoral piano students had perfect pitch and could play entire classical works entirely by ear from one hearing (they were all major international competition winners also).  This tends to be the trait among top people in the music field.

If this friend feels like a freak or a duck out of water, can we really blame him so much? 

[counterpoint]

So my question is this------is there anyone here who has a terrible ear for pitch who has NOT felt hindered by it?? 

I don't have "terrible" ears, I have quite good ears - but I can't name intervals and chords only by hearing them. That's the only point, we are talking about here!

[thalberg]

That's a good perspective.  Thanks, counterpoint.

[ted]

Well, despite all the eloquent discussion I remain a complete and happy primitive. Theories, professors, "experts" and doctors, in the end, are completely superfluous to my being able to create music to my complete satisfaction. I do not care what I can recognise, name or remember any more than I care about being able to play the piano with my cock.

If I can make a sound and react to it, that is all that is necessary for musical creation. Why do people have to be told what to do in music and worry about what is "right" and "wrong" all the time ? There is no right and wrong. Forget about what you cannot do or what some school or professor says . Every human being has the right to forge his own universe of music from the ground up, regardless of specific skill, social, educational or economic custom.

I was roundly dismisssed, in an unbelievably rude and patronising tirade of waffle, for saying this on Pianoworld. Most over there are hopeless conservatives. I dare say I might be here too. Nonetheless, why should Thalberg's friend abandon a great joy in his life through this totally absurd and unnecessary worry ?

In music, just do whatever you want to do - there's nothing more to it. 

[opus10no2]

being able to play the piano with my cock.

It helps though, when executing mass clusters 

And true, your post speaks trueness.

[ted]

I was just using humorous facetiae to draw attention to my serious point - no, hang on a minute - that's no better. It really does annoy me that so many people are put off their rightful musical enjoyment through unnecessary feelings of inadequacy.

[ramseytheii]

I was just using humorous facetiae to draw attention to my serious point - no, hang on a minute - that's no better. It really does annoy me that so many people are put off their rightful musical enjoyment through unnecessary feelings of inadequacy.

The only way to get rid of a feeling of inadequacy is to gain confidence.  If you've lost a leg, you don't gain confidence by pretending you don't need two legs.  You only succeed when you fill in the empty spots to the best of your ability.  This person obviously feels that his knowledge in technical issues is lacking, like Schubert felt almost two hundred years ago, and actaully that is how pretty much every major composer felt when they discovered the works of Bach, that they were missing out on something.  His problem is not the lack of knowledge, but the feeling that he can never gain it.  The finer points of musical composition aren't secrets, but they have to be discovered, and in the greatest music, there are always more points to discover.

To the general public: whenever someone advocates knowing less about something rather than more, run in the opposite direction!

Walter Ramsey

[rc]

I like your perspective Ted, and I've always felt the academic world isn't always concerned with what's practical - what someone is actually going to USE.  A small example, everybody has to learn trigonometry in highschool, but the vast majority of student only learn it to forget it because they will never use it in their daily life.  So far I've met one person who uses trigonometry, he's a geologist working for an oil company, it's used to calculate angle drilling.

By its nature, schooling has a one size fits all approach.  That's not a problem in itself, but we don't really have to take an arbitrary rule seriously if we don't need it.  I don't think anyone's come in with exactly WHAT we need interval recognition for

Back to the topic:  the equal temperment tuning system isn't even natural to the ear, it's an artificial compromise to give access to remote tonalities.  Octaves are precise, 5ths are close enough, everything else is out of whack.

[thalberg]

rc--you are so right.  The academic world is impractical in the music area.  During my doctoral program, I hardly got to play the piano at all.  I spent 30 hours a week in the library my first year and went days -even weeks- without practicing.  After that, I spent forever writing a nearly 200 page dissertation and studying for history and theory exams.  By the time I finished the dissertation, I hadn't played much in a while.  Then I started my first job, and guess what I had to do??  Play!! All the time.  Sightread, accompany, read open score.  All things I had not done AT ALL in the doctoral program.  I was so out of shape I couldn't do it.  Why do they call it a doctorate in piano performance?  All they do the whole time is prevent you from playing the d*mn piano!!

[ramseytheii]

I like your perspective Ted, and I've always felt the academic world isn't always concerned with what's practical - what someone is actually going to USE.  A small example, everybody has to learn trigonometry in highschool, but the vast majority of student only learn it to forget it because they will never use it in their daily life.  So far I've met one person who uses trigonometry, he's a geologist working for an oil company, it's used to calculate angle drilling.

Here is an interesting quote from composer Steve Reich, who granted is talking about studying composition in particular, but I think the sentiment applies in this case also:

"Another thing you learn at a conservatory is to study the music of the past, and to imitate it yourself. And that is a worthwhile activity. To come up with an original style while you are still a student may occasionally happen, but generally speaking, what happens when you're a student is that you are imitating older styles.

Also, you may be doing exercises in formal disciplines like four-part harmony or species counterpoint, and you may wonder to yourself, what possible use will this have for me? Well, I would like to say that I remember being about 35 years old and writing Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, thinking to myself, "My gosh! I'm 35 years old and I'm writing four-part harmony."...

These simple, traditional disciplines can sometimes feel onerous and irrelevant. But take my word for it, they will - in unforeseen ways -- become relevant. ... Learning about canon, you know, it seems very mechanical. What possible use could this have? Well, a canon is simply a procedure that is open to any kind of sound you like. You can sound like Sumer is Icumen In in the Middle Ages; you can sound like Johann Sebastian Bach; you can sound like Anton Webern; you can sound like Steve Reich. And you're still writing in canon."

By its nature, schooling has a one size fits all approach.  That's not a problem in itself, but we don't really have to take an arbitrary rule seriously if we don't need it.  I don't think anyone's come in with exactly WHAT we need interval recognition for

People who are learning performance do need to learn these rules, which over time have become arbitrary, but meant a lot to the people using them.  In Debussy obviously we don't need to learn about parallel fifths, but in adding ornaments in Bach we do.  They will disrupt the sound quality of his music, and sometimes, depending on which note you begin the ornament on, or the Nachschlaeger, you can create disruptive parallel fifths, I say disruptive because that was a rule that meant a lot to Bach.

Why do we need interval recognition?  Because every interval has its own meaning, and they are tempered by relevance to each other.  Take the Devil's interval, the augmented fourth.  If you didn't know what that was, and where it was, and why, you would just be missing out on a major expressive function of music over the course of oh, 500 years?   Or if you couldn't identify intervals, you will never understand the exotic scales that make up an important part of the music of Bartok.

Of course this all depends on what you want to achieve.  If you want to achieve bliss in ignorance, you don['t need to learn this.  If you want to achieve a comprehensive, life-dedicated knowledge and experience of music, get started right away!

Back to the topic:  the equal temperment tuning system isn't even natural to the ear, it's an artificial compromise to give access to remote tonalities.  Octaves are precise, 5ths are close enough, everything else is out of whack.

Neither is the sound of an angle drill, but we get used to it.

Walter Ramsey

[thalberg]

Walter....I tend to agree much more with you than with anyone else here.  Intervals do have meanings.  Harmonies have meanings.  The whole entire premise behind music is that sounds have meaning.  So if I person can't hear them or can't identify them, it's a PROBLEM.

This friend of mine will probably never quit music so to speak.  But I don't think he should make his entire living off of it.  I mean, making a living as a musician is hard even for the most talented of us.  With a major handicap like this, how much more difficult would it be?  Could you see this person conducting? Or being a good accompanying coach? 

He himself says he's frustrated because it takes him forever to arrive at an artistic interpretation, and he often needs help from a teacher or pianist friend.  Doesn't this tell you that his ear is hindering his playing?  I think that music could be a smaller part of his life than it is, and he'd be happy.

[counterpoint]

People who are learning performance do need to learn these rules, which over time have become arbitrary, but meant a lot to the people using them.  In Debussy obviously we don't need to learn about parallel fifths, but in adding ornaments in Bach we do.  They will disrupt the sound quality of his music, and sometimes, depending on which note you begin the ornament on, or the Nachschlaeger, you can create disruptive parallel fifths, I say disruptive because that was a rule that meant a lot to Bach.

Yeah, now what do you want  to tell me? When I studied music in the late 70ies, I learned of course these primitive rules, and I got high marks in Tonsatz (don't know what's that in english). A teacher said once, that from my Tonsatz housework one would recognize, that I have very good ears... (he didn't know) 

A professor for singing said, from how I accompany singers, one would recognize that I am singing myself (I never did) 

So, do you really want to say, I am an unmusical person and I should better taken another profession than music? You seem very proud of your theoretical knowledge to me. That's fully okay. But don't judge and critizise others only because they don't have the same theoretical/intellectual sight on music as you obviously have.

[ramseytheii]

Yeah, now what do you want  to tell me? When I studied music in the late 70ies, I learned of course these primitive rules, and I got high marks in Tonsatz (don't know what's that in english). A teacher said once, that from my Tonsatz housework one would recognize, that I have very good ears... (he didn't know) 

A professor for singing said, from how I accompany singers, one would recognize that I am singing myself (I never did) 

So, do you really want to say, I am an unmusical person and I should better taken another profession than music? You seem very proud of your theoretical knowledge to me. That's fully okay. But don't judge and critizise others only because they don't have the same theoretical/intellectual sight on music as you obviously have.

I don't think I was judging anyone.  I'm speaking from experience, because many times I have herad people who don't know the rules by whch the music they were playing was written do the things I spoke about, like creating ugly parallel fifths in Bach.  I'm sure you are a great musician, and never wanted to criticize you.  But why would anyone advocate knowing less rather than more?  My posts are intended for those people who want to know music better and better until they die.  I think it is a popular opinion to say, theory doesn't matter, it is stuffy, it creates intellectual prformance devoid of feelings, and I love to go against popular opinion, especially when it is too narrow-minded.  Popular opinion is powerful, and the opposite voice has to be heard.

Oh, there may have been a misunderstanding because I used the word "you."  Ich habe nicht "Du" oder "Sie" gemeint, aber "man."

Walter Ramsey

[rc]

People who are learning performance do need to learn these rules, which over time have become arbitrary, but meant a lot to the people using them.  In Debussy obviously we don't need to learn about parallel fifths, but in adding ornaments in Bach we do.  They will disrupt the sound quality of his music, and sometimes, depending on which note you begin the ornament on, or the Nachschlaeger, you can create disruptive parallel fifths, I say disruptive because that was a rule that meant a lot to Bach.

Why do we need interval recognition?  Because every interval has its own meaning, and they are tempered by relevance to each other.  Take the Devil's interval, the augmented fourth.  If you didn't know what that was, and where it was, and why, you would just be missing out on a major expressive function of music over the course of oh, 500 years?   Or if you couldn't identify intervals, you will never understand the exotic scales that make up an important part of the music of Bartok.

Of course this all depends on what you want to achieve.  If you want to achieve bliss in ignorance, you don['t need to learn this.  If you want to achieve a comprehensive, life-dedicated knowledge and experience of music, get started right away!

That's a good point.  For the most part I can understand where the arbitrary theories/rules have their uses...  I see what you mean about how an understanding of interval recognition in unravelling the meaning of the music.  OTOH, I don't think it's entirely necessary to identify the intervals in the scales Bartok uses in order to understand the effect they serve, when listening.

Something I thought of this morning is how certain knowledge and ideas don't have much relevance until the learner comes to the point where they can use it.  Imagine teaching about the history of tuning systems to a beginner to piano?  They won't care about things like interval recognition until their fingers can actually play the notes...

I agree with the lifelong pursuit of knowledge, if it's applicable (knowledge without application is just trivia)...  But I can also respect when others are content with enjoying the music, which may be closer to the purpose anyhow.

Neither is the sound of an angle drill, but we get used to it.

I've never heard one... It'd probably drive me nuts!

[rc]

He himself says he's frustrated because it takes him forever to arrive at an artistic interpretation, and he often needs help from a teacher or pianist friend.  Doesn't this tell you that his ear is hindering his playing?  I think that music could be a smaller part of his life than it is, and he'd be happy.

Oh, that IS a problem afterall!  That's odd though, that he can play excellently and musically, but can't figure it out himself?  There's something here I'm not understanding...

Well I still figure it's his choice, to either find something else to do, or continue to develop his ear.  Unless his hearing mechanism is actually damaged, then the problem is actually in his mind, meaning that it can be learned.

[ted]

This discussion is interesting to me because it perfectly illustrates a phenomenon I have observed in musical threads on forums over the last seven years. Generally, what happens is that posters cluster around two poles of a duality, frequently undeclared and sometimes quite mysteriously removed from the prosaic facts of the topic. Here, the dualities are discipline and freedom, the universal and the personal, objective truth and subjective truth - as these things manifest themselves in the world of piano playing and the creation of piano music.

Fortunately, by and large we are, hopefully, somewhat more mature than those on certain other forums, and the interaction probably will not degenerate into the mere psychological game stage of headmaster versus naughty boy. The truth might be that we are all in pursuit of a magical, syncretic state, an ideal reconciliation of discipline and freedom.

As Walter says, virtually no knowledge is useless, and without some universally agreed discipline, the communicative function of art will break down. However, the spectacle of so many learned musicians, impeccably trained and ordered, and yet somehow lacking a spark of creativity or life, is equally unsatisfactory.

Perhaps, therefore, the debate, if debate it is, may be better couched - not in terms of deciding between discipline and freedom, for we need them both desperately - but more in terms of what personal knowledge, which personal methods, which personal life courses are most likely to lead to the critical balance.

Of course, that is much more difficult, decidedly unspectacular, and to many people no doubt less immediately satisfying than a flat-out confrontation between the headmaster and the naughty boy.    

[counterpoint]

Oh, there may have been a misunderstanding because I used the word "you."  Ich habe nicht "Du" oder "Sie" gemeint, aber "man."

Walter Ramsey

No, that was not a misunderstanding. It's not important for me, if you are talking about me (or the person you suppose me to be) or if you talk about thalberg's friend, whoever he is. If you say, a pianist who can't hear chords and intervals reliable cannot be a real, full and serious pianist, you include every person with this "specialty". To me this is very disrespectful. It's the same if you say, a pianist who can not sightread, or a pianist who cannot memorize music well is only a third class pianist. There are many third class pianists, who can sightread and memorize and know theory well and hear all intervals and chords. But what really counts is: does their playing transport the spirit of the music to the audience or not. And if it does ... all other critisism is irrelevant. It doesn't matter.

[rc]

I think the polarization is an ego thing...  One disagreement, sometimes simply over a wording, and suddenly I feel like I disagree with everything the other person says   I can't count how many times I've written a long complicated arguement before I've stumped myself and lost the point - because it's so hard to get around the fact that the other person has a good valid point, hahaha.

Then it begins to feel as though we're circling around some sort of agreement, the critical balance...  Which we've all come to from different directions.  It seems like we tend to emphasize the aspect which we lacked and had to overcome.

[counterpoint]

I think of the great singer Thomas Quasthoff, who wanted to study at the Musikhochschule in Hannover. They didn't accept him, because he could not play piano...

He got a good teacher anyway, but that's how musical talents are treated by bureaucracy 

[thalberg]

This discussion is interesting to me because it perfectly illustrates a phenomenon I have observed in musical threads on forums over the last seven years. Generally, what happens is that posters cluster around two poles of a duality, frequently undeclared and sometimes quite mysteriously removed from the prosaic facts of the topic. Here, the dualities are discipline and freedom, the universal and the personal, objective truth and subjective truth - as these things manifest themselves in the world of piano playing and the creation of piano music.

Fortunately, by and large we are, hopefully, somewhat more mature than those on certain other forums, and the interaction probably will not degenerate into the mere psychological game stage of headmaster versus naughty boy. The truth might be that we are all in pursuit of a magical, syncretic state, an ideal reconciliation of discipline and freedom.

As Walter says, virtually no knowledge is useless, and without some universally agreed discipline, the communicative function of art will break down. However, the spectacle of so many learned musicians, impeccably trained and ordered, and yet somehow lacking a spark of creativity or life, is equally unsatisfactory.

Perhaps, therefore, the debate, if debate it is, may be better couched - not in terms of deciding between discipline and freedom, for we need them both desperately - but more in terms of what personal knowledge, which personal methods, which personal life courses are most likely to lead to the critical balance.

Of course, that is much more difficult, decidedly unspectacular, and to many people no doubt less immediately satisfying than a flat-out confrontation between the headmaster and the naughty boy.    

This post is so elegantly written I can hardly reconcile it with the fact that you previously mentioned playing the piano with your cock.  Not to criticize--the cock thing was colorful, after all.  I had a piano teacher once who I think could do that.  And he had a phenomenal ear, let me tell you, so he really had it all.

[thalberg]

Oh, that IS a problem afterall!  That's odd though, that he can play excellently and musically, but can't figure it out himself?  There's something here I'm not understanding...

YES it's a problem...finally someone understands! 

But you said there's something you're not understanding.  I'll explain:  Ever had to read about a deep and philosophical topic, but couldn't understand it till someone explained it to you?  Then it all made sense?  Or had to read the instructions on how to put something together but couldn't do it until someone showed you?  Someone who understands and walks you through it makes all the difference in the world.

Basically it's like a baby drinking milk--milk is essentially pre-digested food.  The mom eats it first and digests it first so baby can handle it second.  It's this way whenever we need someone to teach us something as opposed to going out and teaching it to ourself.  They digest it first, then give it to us in easier form.  Because of his weak ear, he needs milk.  Someone has to show him.  After that, his intelligence and manual dexterity enable him to execute any instructions he has received.

 It's weird--when we were in school people thought of him as a strong pianist.  Not the best around, but really strong.  I did notice he gave very, very few performances, though.  And he never sought out performance opportunities.  This would explain why.

I have a dyslexic uncle who was a lawyer and quit.  He was a great lawyer--but his dyslexia made all the writing so incredibly hard for him and it took him WAY too long to do it.  He just got worn out trying to work around his deficiency and so he quit.  This guy seems worn out and frustrated, too...

[rc]

That's strange...

What confuses me is that your friend knows his theory, and seems to pay attention to the meaning of the music, and plays artistically...  But can't figure out the interpretation himself?

Because he can execute it when shown how to play it, makes me think his ear is fine.  That he can hear the nuances of an interpretation and reproduce them.  Or at least imagine it when told.

It's sounding more like a mind problem to me, that he somehow can't apply the knowledge...?

[ted]

I do not think a correlation exists either way between the vulgar, bawdy or scatological and the intellectual. I possess a simplistically puerile sense of humour, often remaining po-faced at the cleverest repartee, even if I do understand it, while almost always laughing at a fart or a joke about the lavatory. I cannot explain why this should be so. 

[thalberg]

That's strange...

What confuses me is that your friend knows his theory, and seems to pay attention to the meaning of the music, and plays artistically...  But can't figure out the interpretation himself?

Because he can execute it when shown how to play it, makes me think his ear is fine.  That he can hear the nuances of an interpretation and reproduce them.  Or at least imagine it when told.

It's sounding more like a mind problem to me, that he somehow can't apply the knowledge...?

Yes you're right.  Perhaps he thinks his pitch is the problem when really it isn't.  I mean, how would he know what benefits a sense of pitch offers if he doesn't have it?  He must imagine it as the single key to everything he can't do well.  As far as not arriving at the interpretation himself....how can we account for that??  Of course, who really can arrive at good interpretations themselves.  I have heard many recitals of facutly members who no longer have teachers, and let me tell you, they could have used a second set of ears!

[rc]

I do not think a correlation exists either way between the vulgar, bawdy or scatological and the intellectual. I possess a simplistically puerile sense of humour, often remaining po-faced at the cleverest repartee, even if I do understand it, while almost always laughing at a fart or a joke about the lavatory. I cannot explain why this should be so. 

studies have shown it takes above average intelligence to pull off a good poo joke.

[thalberg]

.

[rc]

Yes you're right. Perhaps he thinks his pitch is the problem when really it isn't. I mean, how would he know what benefits a sense of pitch offers if he doesn't have it? He must imagine it as the single key to everything he can't do well. As far as not arriving at the interpretation himself....how can we account for that?? Of course, who really can arrive at good interpretations themselves. I have heard many recitals of facutly members who no longer have teachers, and let me tell you, they could have used a second set of ears!

hahah, a second set of ears is always a good thing.  Sometimes shelled up on my own for too long, I begin to wonder what my playing might sound like to outside ears that haven't been hearing the pieces over and over for days

As for your friend, it's a strange case...  I still feel like there's a piece of the puzzle missing.  But it's only something he can answer for sure.  It's his decision if he wants to continue in music or not.  Whatever the problem may be, it doesn't sound insurmountable...

I have a dyslexic uncle who was a lawyer and quit.  He was a great lawyer--but his dyslexia made all the writing so incredibly hard for him and it took him WAY too long to do it.  He just got worn out trying to work around his deficiency and so he quit.  This guy seems worn out and frustrated, too...

...This makes me think that there are ways around a deficiency anyhow.  Possibly your uncle could have continued to be a great lawyer and got somebody to do the writing by dictation.  Possibly your friend could continue to be a great teacher but regulating himself to beginners.  Getting kids practicing and excited about music is a great service for the early stages!