Overdependence on written music

[etcetra]

I am writing this post because I was concerned about how so many classically trained pianists seems to depend completely on sheet music.  I've read several post here that mentioned how some people wish they could learn music by ear, or how they are looking for sheet music for rock/pop songs. 

I know that most pop songs are not that difficult to learn by ear, if you have basic knowledge about harmony its  really not that difficult.. It seems like written music has become such a huge clutch for some people. I grew up learning Beatles and pop songs by ear, and that was always part of me.  Even back then, I was able to pick up Chopin's Op9 #2 Nocturne by ear fairly easily.. i was able to figure out most of it without the recording.

I not am telling  this to brag, because I don't think my ears are that great.. and I've seen some great jazz musicians who are able to learn a rather complicated 32 bar song as they were playing within couple of choruses.  (it was a jam session and this person was playing the song for the first time in his life).

I am just worried about how for so many people their first instinct on learning music is by sheet music.. because so much of the music we know is passed on by ear and it was never written down.  I can't comment on whether  proffessional pianists have great ears or not, but I know good number of people doing grad school at a  prestigious university (with scholarship) but they are utterly lost if they were to figure out a pop song by ear.

I am just wondering, how important is your ears in classical piano? I know classical pianists ears are tuned to the production of sound, dynamics.. etc but I don't know how many pianists can aurally recognize harmony and chord functions are they are playing....

I am also concerned about how this type of education can limit the ability of a piano player.. .and the ability to learn music.  There are so much music out there, and not all of them have sheet music for them.. I know mozart hard incredible ear and tone memory .. in some ways it seems like the education we are getting now is very different how these great masters learned back then.

[healdie]

yes we are getting a very different education because times are different,

also you say compared to the great masters, you don't think that Bach and Mozart dhad a 1/2 an hour lesson once a week

they did it all day everyday which we can't do now since school is compulsary and people have jobs

also Bach and Mozart are excepetions people with that sort of talent are very very rare and only turn up every hundrd years or so

[Petter]

also Bach and Mozart are excepetions people with that sort of talent are very very rare and only turn up every hundrd years or so

History must have taken a leap since there´s about 5 billions of those selfclaimed talents,  lurking piano forums as we speak. Heheheee

[pianistimo]

there is the age old problem of suzuki training vs. other forms.  with suzuki -you learn first by ear - copying the masters. unfortunately about 1/2 or so - cannot ever learn to sightread because learning by ear becomes easiest. 

i think it's a dillemma.  good sightreaders need to try to play by ear (harmonize) and good ear players need to learn to try to learn to sightread.  i am a terrible harmonizer.  i can harmonize easy songs - but barely passed the bach chorale type harmonization tests that you have to pass in college.  they give you a line - and you have to create the other voices or at least have a passable bass line.  people today don't write like that anyways - but, even with pop songs - i try to transcribe and it takes me literally hours.  i know the basic chords - but the knowledge of all the typical chord changes are not second nature.  i stumble on ii and vii and especially when things are changed to not be specifically in the key (ie MANY beatles songs have a chord or two not in the key written) - i get confused.

i think they copied beethoven, in that respect, because possibly they used III very often instead of iii. 

it's all in how you learned when you were young.  the method used and what you find understandable.  i try to go through all the circle of fifths so that all my students in the first year are able to see HOW to at least move a melody to another location (moveable 'do') and start again in that key.  it's something important to practice.  jazz musicians like to do it - that's why they are good at it. 

chord wheels are also fun.  they expose a student to the methods that composers may or may not have used to just flit from key to key - and know the options available that would sound the best.  i made one last year and it was kinda fun. 

[pianochick93]

there is the age old problem of suzuki training vs. other forms.  with suzuki -you learn first by ear - copying the masters. unfortunately about 1/2 or so - cannot ever learn to sightread because learning by ear becomes easiest. 

I learnt first by Suzuki, and when I was learning I found it really easy to memorise, but I couldn't sightread at all. I had a break from piano and I'm now learning with the AMEB grade books. Now I can sightread well, but can't memorise as well as I used to be able to. It's only really catchy things or things that I've played lots that I memorise effortlessly.

[etcetra]

Well I do admit I am not a very good sight reader.. when I was younger I took classical lessons... i did use sheet music but I did learn a lot of stuff by ear simply because I couldnt find sheet music for them as easily. 

I was fortunate enough to talk to some of the jazz greats and I was amazed how much they emphasized ears.. some of them resent the use of sheet music to learn standards.  I read a story about John Clayton, he would ask his students to bring a fake book for the first lesson, he will not charge you for the lesson but he will tear that book into piece.. to make the point that you should never use sheet music to learn music.. unless you have to.

I also remember reading about how Mozart was so moved by something he heard in a church that he went home and transcribed it.. Chopin Lizst, and Bach were all great improvisers..I remember my teachers telling me how some of Bach's pieces were actually improvised.. (correct me if any of what i say is wrong). 


I know its silly to expect  all classically pianists to do what jazz pianists do or mozart did, but It's interesting how concert pianists are mostly dedicated to interpretation of a piece.   When I was in college I met a lot of talented classical pianists, a lot of them played very well, but at the same time a lot of them  wished that they could play that one pop song they loved.. and hardly any of them wrote their own music. I wonder if there is a more balanced approach to learning music.
 

[etcetra]

pianistimo,

I think the trick in learning music is to first hear the bass note first, and if you know your chord types/quality well enough its easy ti learn songs.  Most songs will have  some sort of I-vi-ii-V progression.. if you pay attention how IV chords, vi chords (deceptive cadence) and how stepwise motions on bass are used, you should be able to figure out most pop songs and jazz standards

I used to be amazed at how jazz musicians literally can play about  a thousand standards and play them in any key... I can't do that yet, but it's less of a mystery to me now because if your ears are working right and if you know your harmony well enough, you see how most songs have similar harmonic progression.

healdie,

I don't think its about not having time to practice or having the talent to do it.. Like I said, I've noticed the same problems in university level pianists.. .and I've seen how some of "untrained" musicians can learn music on the piano... its about what we emphasize and value in music.. and I don't think the reasons you mentioned  changes anything.. you can still not use books and decide to learn pop songs by ear even if you only have 30 min a day to do it..

[lostinidlewonder]

Written music and improvised music are two different art forms. So there is nothing wrong with depending on written music when you are learning written music. There is something wrong however if you cannot in the end memorize the music and play it without the score (of course if it is a 2 hour long piece you might be excused playing with the sheets, but most of us do not play these large scale works.)

When we learn music at a professional level we must learn our music in two fashions, that is the memory and sight reading. Both exist simultaneously all the time we are learning our music. When you first learn a piece you start off sight reading probably 100% with say 10% of what you play getting stored in your 3 types of memory (Conscious[pattern observation in the score], Muscular[physical memory of the hands] and Sound[music you can hear in your head which aids your muscular and conscious memory]). Conscious memory work is usually highlighted by writing notes and highlighting patterns with color or whatever you do.

So your second sight reading venture now also sight reads your memory indications on the score, so you now learn to sight read less because your comments allow you to understand a greater part of the score without having to read all the dots. So you start with now a lesser focus on sight reading and develop more memory work which builds upon the initial comments. We add, delete, reassess our conscious understanding of the piece and try to develop more efficient memory of larger groups of notes or understanding how these groups connect to one another.

When you reach say ... the 30th time sight reading through the piece you find you are not reading as much anymore, maybe 10% is sight read and 90% comes from memorized muscular memory routine. The last task then is at hand to single out and spend dedicated time to memorize the parts that are troubling you.

The problem is that not all developing pianists can learn music with both Memory and Sight reading working together simultaneously. So they either give bias to memory or sight reading (I usually find there are many more memorizers than there are sight readers though). As a teacher this presents us with very complicated problems, we have to try to push our students into using both memory and sight reading work when studying their pieces, and get them to sense this process of sight reading becoming easier and memory strengthening described.

[etcetra]

btw I am re-learning some of the pieces I learned a long time ago.. and I realized that I   am learning a them a lot faster than I used to because my ears are better and I can usually figure where the harmony is going.. it makes the learning process that much easier.. I am sure there is a huge benefit to using your ears in that respect.

lostinwonder,

What you say makes sense, but I am just curious because the composers we look up to were able to do both.  I remember hearing pieces written by Glenn Gould, he may not be the best composer ever but he sure was competent composer, from what I remembered hearing.  It seems like now days you have to make that choice to do one or the other..

I also noticed how a lot of college piano students don't to so well in theory.. they do better than singers of course, but I am not convinced that they are taking what they learned in ther actual practice.. it's hard to be specific, but for example when you learn counterpoint or harmony, you realize how a theme in a piece can be inverted, retrograded.. etc as a mean of creating variations.. or how you can analyze a piece harmonically and notice a pattern in a larger sense.. and you can pay more attention when you notice how that pattern is broken at a crucial part of the piece.

I am sure all these  things are supposed contribute to your interpretation significantly, but  I don't think most student pianists I met actually pay attention to that in practice, I am just wondering how much do classical pianists think about "oh this is a variation on a prior theme" or "this is the same chord progression but in a different key" as part of their interpretation... I know this is something that composers think about more than performers, but I am sure having that compositional insight can add so much depth as to how you interpret a piece of music... if anything its a big part of "listening" in music just like how we pay attention to tone and dynamics.

[pianistimo]

sometimes with age - you ahve more to think about and lose what you use to have.  this has, unfortunately, happened with me.  when i was a student in college - i had relatively little problems even learning the fourth ballade of liszt.  (of course, there's a bit of repetition at the beginning - but none in the middle).  now, i can't even memorize four pages of the barber nocturne without getting stuck on a harmonization of something or just plain getting mad and just saying to myself 'you idiot.'  at least i can work well with the melody line.  i know it - even when it is a modern sounding piece. that part is fine.  it IS the bass - as etcetra says.  i don't listen to the bass enough on some pieces.

etcetra - you bring up good points. interesting to hear your perspective!  i think you are right.

and, lostinidle has good advice (as always) too - about the types of memory.  one other method is to create a story and use letter names as cues to the story.  i look on the keyboard when playing some chopin pieces and do this.  others use colors.  once a piece is memorized - it is much MUCH easier to interpret.  you are relaxed because you're not worrying about 'what comes next.'

[faulty_damper]

I also remember reading about how Mozart was so moved by something he heard in a church that he went home and transcribed it.. Chopin Lizst, and Bach were all great improvisers..I remember my teachers telling me how some of Bach's pieces were actually improvised.. (correct me if any of what i say is wrong).

When a comparative analysis is made about the skill of improvisation and the skill of composition, there is high correlation between the two.  The better a musician is able to improvise, the better his compositions tend to be while the opposite is true.  This also holds true of the past, though we have to look at contemporary accounts.

There was no doubt that Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin could improvise at a high degree of skill according to contemporary accounts.  And considering their compositions, we can agree that they are often of high quality.  We wouldn't even compare their works to the works of lesser composers because they are heads above the rest...

When we examine composers who were not good at improvisation or did not improvise (Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, et al) and examine their compositions, we find that there is indeed a correlation between improvisation skill and composition quality.

Composition style follows improvisation style.  Liszt's style, for example, was often variations on a theme.  This was prevalent during his childhood and continued into adulthood.  Surveying his compositions finds many instances where variation (not necessarily variation form) is the main unifying form.  Pieces such as La Campanella, Mazeppa, and Un Sospiro are such examples.

Composition is simply the written account of actual phenomena.  If a composer cannot create the phenomena with much skill then the written account reflects it.  If a composer can create musical phenomena with decent skill, then the compositions becomes decent.  If a composer is exceptionally skilled at creation, then the written account becomes works of art.

[faulty_damper]

I also noticed how a lot of college piano students don't to so well in theory.. they do better than singers of course, but I am not convinced that they are taking what they learned in ther actual practice.. it's hard to be specific, but for example when you learn counterpoint or harmony, you realize how a theme in a piece can be inverted, retrograded.. etc as a mean of creating variations.. or how you can analyze a piece harmonically and notice a pattern in a larger sense.. and you can pay more attention when you notice how that pattern is broken at a crucial part of the piece.

Theory courses are taught in a purely intellectual manner.  Often, no music (aural) is involved.

The way these courses are designed and taught can be used to teach non-musicians.  These non-musicians would probably do better than the musicians in the course because they lack significant musical experience to put them into context.  This way, the material remains intellectual and bypasses contextual application.

Contextual application is one of the reasons why students taking any course do poorly on exams.  There is no way to universally test contextual application because each person has different experiences that no test can account for.  Traditional exams (still the most popular form of examination) primarily tests memorization ability.

Musicians will check to see if what is being taught corroborates with their experiences - contextual application.  This is the reason why students often say "I don't get it" when presented with new material; they are checking with their own experiences which do not coincide with the new information.

Non-musicians, those without the musical experiences, will not check what is being taught with their own experiences because they simply don't have them.  Without those experiences, the learning process is greatly simplified.

To highlight this point, here's a question that, unless it's been heard before, you wouldn't be able to answer.

How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Adults would never be able to answer this question because their experiences prevent an answer.  Adults will think that either refrigerators are too small to put an elephant inside or elephants are too large to go inside.  Children, on the other hand, answer this question correctly because they don't have the necessary experiences to not be able to answer it correctly.

You open the door and put it in.

And what about this question?

Now, how do you put an ostrich in?

If you say "open the door and put the ostrich in", you'd be wrong.  This answer is actually a result of contextual application - you simply took the answer of the first question and modified it to fit this question.  Children wouldn't do that.

You open the door, take out the elephant, and then put the ostrich in.


It's not just the piano students who do poorly in theory classes.  Most musicians would do poorly the way they are usually taught.  But because pianists read harmony (vertically, more than one note at a time) and thus have significantly more experiences with it, they make far more unnecessary contextual applications that other musicians don't have the experiences to make.  (I'll spare any singer jokes but disagree that they do worse than pianists.  They should, theoretically, do better.)

[etcetra]

Faulty_damper

thanks for your long insightful response.  I can see how non-musicians can learn theory better because they can treat it more like math than music.. I guess it would make sense if musicians can learn theory as part of developing your ears.. By that I mean that you are learning chord function on modulation because you hear them and you understand how harmony is supposed to work.

I guess I am just curious about how much "music" people understand through university training. For example how many student  pianists actually "hear" and "feel" what 3vs4 is supposed to sound like.. because you can technically play 3v4 without having to really hear the rhythm.

Likewise how often are people really aware of  simple hemiola like 3 groups of 2 on 3/4 (common in baroque) when they play them? I remember having to do choir as part of my ensemble requirement and every time hemiloa like that happens in a piece, most people just sing them without really realizing what it s. If you were learning these rhythms purely by ear there is no way you can learn them without feeling them.. the fact that you are reading them out of a sheet music allows you to bypass that process to a certain extent.

I guess what I am getting at is that there is way to learn these concepts technically without really understanding or hearing them, and it seems like much of music can be taught that way... again, if you were to think more like a composer when you are learning a piece, it would give so much more to the understanding/interpretation of the music. I dont mean that you have to do numerical anaylysis like you do in theory but hearing and noticing, realizing how things work compositionally as you play and listen to what you playing. 

I have been to several seminars of concert pianists/university teachers and most of them were quite boring.. they just tell you how you can approach this passage using this technique.. etc, the most intriguing ones were the ones that gave students insights as to how they interpret a piece of music.. they have given alot of thoughts about the composition and they seem have a lot of historical understanding and research to explain why they played the piece the way they did.. and for them, understanding the compositional aspect is just the beggining.

Well this is all just my opinion..  I am not a good classical pianist so maybe I have all wrong and I am not really qualified to say what is right or wrong.  But seeing what i saw in university enviroment, I just can't help but think that something is wrong about how music is taught.

[rc]

I think you're right, etc.  Yesterday I went to jam with a budding rock band, and I realized how inadequate the classical learning was for this sort of thing.  I will have to start from scratch for improv and comping.  Chunking out the chords won't do.  But I'm excited for the idea of developing these skills and making in-the-moment music.  Perhaps someday I could spontaniously express myself with music.

So far as the common classical sheetmusic learning goes, I guess it's up to the student whether they want to experience music on that level.  It's probably going into the 'genius factor', by that I mean that it's the ear that wrote the music that was later theorized. It's the original source, whether the student wants to tap into it directly or through the composer...

[healdie]

pianistimo,


healdie,

I don't think its about not having time to practice or having the talent to do it..

i did not mean that people do not have the time to practice to be able to do this i meant that people have school an jobs so they can't just be taught all day by a specialist teacher it is a responce to the way of teaching more than the general laziness or time manegment of today

"It seems like the education we are getting now is very different how these great masters learned back then."

[etcetra]

i did not mean that people do not have the time to practice to be able to do this i meant that people have school an jobs so they can't just be taught all day by a specialist teacher it is a responce to the way of teaching more than the general laziness or time manegment of today

"It seems like the education we are getting now is very different how these great masters learned back then."

I don't think you need to have a specialist teach you all day to learn how to play music by ear.  It's something people just do or don't do, and a lot of people don't It's just something I noticed .. we are trained to use music so much without ever questioning the merit of it sometimes, I remember when Titanic came out the sheet music for the "my heart will go on" became a huge hit.. it's a really really simple song (except that modulation might be tricky) and yet everyone's first instinct was to learn it through sheet music.. i also remember how this guy had good ears and played it on top of his head during a break and everyone was amazed at what he was doing.. so in my experience learning music by ear seems like a rareity than the norm.

Maybe its our cultural bias..it has replaced our instinct in some ways.. if you look at non-western music, most music were learned by imitation and use of ears.. mostly because they didn't document music into sheet music they way we do.

Again the post is not so much of a criticism and how people do things but how people learn..  I don't blame people for using sheet music and it's not wrong, but I do find it strange that we are taught to use sheet music almost to the point where you can learn an instrument without having any ears.

[etcetra]

rc,

I am glad that you are taking that step   I know its hard for some people to make that transition, because its such a different way of thinking.. I am still puzzled as to why it has to be so different, why the same people can't do both... after all you are still playing the piano..
I remember hearing a  story about Jeff Clayton (saxophone player).. he was auditioning for Stevie Wonder's band... he decided to learn all the horn parts off Stevie's records and when he came to the audition he blew everyone else away.. he knew the music that much better than everyone else, and not just that he played them with the right feel.. and he ended up getting the gig.
.
I think things like feel can only be learned by imitation and by ear.. thats why I am not really a big fan of learning pop/rock music through sheet music.. sure you can learn all the chords but what's the point if you can't groove with the band?  Rock music about feel and attitude and you can only get those things by learning, playing along with recording.. etc


"I guess it's up to the student whether they want to experience music on that level.  It's probably going into the 'genius factor', by that I mean that it's the ear that wrote the music that was later theorized"

I think you are right here.. I don't know for me the ear comes first in music.. I was reading a thread about books on composition .. its good to have books as reference but I think the most important thing is to be able to hear music better in your head.. all that exercise won't help you if you dont have the ears to use them, but so far no one seems to have mentioned that.. again its just a trend i am noticing in all aspects of music.

[pianistimo]

you may be on to something, etcetra. 

the kodaly method uses the solfege with hand systems that many junior chorales have copied for practice when learning moveable 'do.'  when you know the intervallic relationships between notes - then you just move around to different keys and do what you like - AND you can sightread at the same time.

kodaly also follows the premise of bartok - where one takes the songs that one learned in youth and learns from them bit by bit.  now, the problem is - nobody understands the hungarian folk songs nowdays - let alone the words.  why STILL use hungarian folk songs.  it's a bit idiotic.  a friend of mine that used to teach kodaly to pre-schoolers preferred to just make up these little songs with english words (whatever language you are from - and whatever countries songs) and make them start out with easy intervals.  the kids would learn the intervals - also learn to listen - and the note reading didn't enter the picture until they were in gradeschool.  it was a lot of listening and copying.  also, learning about rhythm.

i agree with this method and have a book by kodaly entitled 'sound thinking.'  we didn't have so much kodaly or even orff around when i was younger.  now, at least here in pa, the kids all learn music in school with orff.  they also use songs to teach music - and a lot of it is rote at first.  the kids learn basically small songs and build on them.

music used to be a very informal experience.  i think kodaly was trying to present it as such.  the kids can get out of it what they want.  when you structure music TOO much for children (esp boys) you get some funny things happening.  my son wasn't really into music like i wanted him to be (you can always dream) - he preferred actually - the running involved in one song.  and he liked to move with the music.  he didn't like to sing and wouldn't.  kids choose what they want to hear and do.  all the girls, however, sat in perfect little pretzel crossed legs and sang all the songs.

 

[etcetra]

pianistimo,


thats really interesting, and its really great that kids are getting musical education like that.. i can only wish i did in my youth.  It would be interesting to do a study on these kids and compare them to kids that did not have this sort of training.. and whether these kind of training will have any significant impact on learning an instrument later on.

I just think its strange that students can be discouraged from using their ears in classical music..sometimes.. It's true that you have to play what is on the page, but the extreme fear of not doing so may cause students to not trust their ears when they play..

This also reminds me.. I had this TA who asked me "how do you improvise".. and all i could say is to just do it.. he was a very competent classical musician but he just didn't get improvisation, and I just didn't get why he couldn't understand it..one of my friend just asked him to play whatever comes to your mind and he just couldn't do it..

its strange but he was trained so well, to the point where improvisation or making music without sheet music became impossible.. I wonder whether its psychological..that you've been trained to play what is supposed to be right/written music so much that, any improvisation or use of ears (that does not have deifnite right answer like you do with written music) becomes an impossible notion.

[pianistimo]

for me, it's linking passages.  for instance, i played in church a lot - so if i had been proficient at playing by ear - i could link hymns together.  but, i wrote it all down.  i would work all week (very hard) at these transitions - and put them in the correct order of key so that they would fit together.  many jazz musicians just do this in any key - because they can transpose easily.

i have to write out my transpositions if it is a longer piece and in a further key than a half or whole step up or down.  i mean, i know the basic keys well - but i'd have to practice this 1/2 hour per day to become proficient.  that would take away my practice time on other stuff.

perhaps the time to learn all this is when one is YOUNG.  to integrate it into the lessons and not forget it's importance.  then, you're not an adult and sufferring from nerves about playing the 'wrong notes.'  when you're young - you just make mistakes and go on and nobody thinks ill of you.

etcetra, i think you are on to something majorly important.  i believe it should be incorporated into lesson time.

ps something i find interesting is that when i did a lot of piano practice while pregnant with my middle daughter - i thought - fo sure she will be a pianist.  she's hearing all the melodies and harmonies from the start.  guess what?!  she's a drummer. 

[etcetra]

Also i think having that training in ears can make a difference in how they learn music.. Let say you are learning the chopin nocturne i mentioned above.. I think there is a big difference between knowing that 1) the first two notes of the melody is Bb and G, 2) the interval of the two notes is major 6th 3) you know that its major 6th because you hear them.

 I wonder how these different level of musical awareness translates to the performance and learning of music... maybe its relevant maybe its not.. it would make a good thesis topic i guess.

It's true that it would help to start out young, but I started learning jazz when i was 20 so I acquired these skills mostly as an adult and i had little classical training before that... so its entirely possible to do it at any age..I know its hard to trust your ears and 'know' that its right.. because that may seem subjective but I've managed to be confident about it to a certain extent.. I hard trouble trusting myself and my ears with my compositions because I rarely write music in diatonic harmony and i was afraid of being different or not being "right" , but i got over it with encourage from my teachers and friends.

I think the big thing that helped me was to learn chord function and really be able to notice them by ear... and noticing common patterns in most music.  I can't really comment on the hymmns as i dont know them, but in most jazz standards and pop music, even classical music you realize that IV and V chords are the most important ingredients to a piece, and interesting harmony is just there to enrich the journey getting to those chords.. and you can do it stepwise or through circle of fourth most of time (or diminished harmony sometimes).

I dont know if this helpful but if you are linking hymns in two keys.. you can work backwards.. and just know that the next chord should be precdeed by the V (V7) of the new key.. so if you are going from C to Emajor.. the first thing to think about is that B7 comes  before E major.. it may be obvious point you might know this already but i figured i should tell you anyways.. in the end harmony is about connecting the dots, and usually there is a logic to that process.

Also its important to remember that jazz musicians are not transposing note to note.. so it might be easier than you think..

ps thats funny about your daughter.. i never expected to do music I was goign to be a scientist when i was younger...a lot of times we don't have a choice over what we love, it just happens.. its both a blessing and a curse.

[rc]

hahah, I also wanted to be a scientist as a kid.  Well, first I wanted to be a giant, that didn't work out either   The science teachers used to love me because I was interested, and would give me little nature books and tell me how to make epsom salt crystals and other little experiments.

I also tend to think that it's best to be as well-rounded as possible.  When I realize that I'm not able to make good music on the fly, or accompany, or pick out a tune by ear, I feel like it's something I really should learn.  When people ask me to accompany while they sing a little diddy, I don't want to go "uhhhhhhh"   Then they wonder, because I can play classical pieces, why can't I give a simple backing for their tune?  I think they have a valid point, I believe in being functional...

That's largely the appeal for joining a rock band, to be more functional - to get out and play more.  I can put as much effort into doing a good job of that as I do in learning Bach. Possibly I could also expose different people to a little classical, even indirectly by incorporating things that I've heard in classical music.

I began with rock guitar btw, and did a lot of learning by ear.  I remember playing Highway Star by Deep Purple over and over, trying to figure out what a certain bass note was.  Or transcribing songs for friends.  And doing a lot of improvising...  But somehow these skills haven't carried over to piano.  Probably because I haven't applied any of it

A thought on your friend who can't improvise:  Perhaps, after becoming so good at the 'classical' way of doing things, he has troubles getting into the beginner mindset with piano.  To develop improv skills would feel like starting from scratch again, and after all the years and effort of getting to where he is, that could be a difficult hurdle.

[faulty_damper]

A thought on your friend who can't improvise:  Perhaps, after becoming so good at the 'classical' way of doing things, he has troubles getting into the beginner mindset with piano.  To develop improv skills would feel like starting from scratch again, and after all the years and effort of getting to where he is, that could be a difficult hurdle.

Actually, the reason why learning to improvise is difficult is not because he has trouble getting into the beginner mindset.  It's because he thinks he can already do it.  (Huh?)

He is making a contextual application of improvisation and piano playing.  These are two very different skills yet he assumes they are the same.  They are not.  He already plays the piano and assumes that improvisation on the piano is similar in skill.  Wrong.

In this situation what will make learning to improvise significantly easier is to learn to improvise using a different instrument or voice.  This way, there is nothing similar to put into context.  Improvisation can be learned as a skill in itself with an instrument that he has no significant experience with.

[lostinidlewonder]

. or how you can analyze a piece harmonically and notice a pattern in a larger sense.. and you can pay more attention when you notice how that pattern is broken at a crucial part of the piece.

This hits on the way in which you consciously observe your sheet music. The method in which you mark observations on your sheet music to help you understand the group of notes with a single observation certainly is very important. The better you can analyze the music the more efficiently you can consciously understand how the music is written, thus the associated muscular memory is accelerated.

We can make grounds into this understanding by basic pattern observations. Usually for the beginner it is useless to say this chord is a so and so chord because it doesn't mean anything to them. They first have to understand basic triad chords and play them in pieces. They will recognize these chords not relating them to a chord family name but rather a pattern they see in the keys. This is the starting of making chords building blocks to their piano playing. They will say, C major is C with even spaces, one white note in between each. Eventually they will get used to this concept of spaces between notes to create chords, and then they can eventually start understanding C major as a particular interval of notes. Then they can mark on their sheet music when they have to play this form, but first the understanding has to be very much observing the leaf instead of looking at the whole tree and naming it.

This process extends to everything we learn at the piano. When I teach students the form of the fugue we first highlight the pattern and how it is weaved in and out of one another. We highlight when it repeats, when it is similar but slightly transformed. Once they get very used to the various patterns of the fugue they can then understand them in more general terms like exposition, development, subject, answer, stretto, episode, coda etc. I find it useless to force them to see it in these concepts immediately, rather see the pattern without these concepts, but push towards observing the pattern that relates to them just as you push a beginner to understand a simple chord.

[etcetra]

lostinidlewon

its very true that you have to take everything one step at a time because its too much information to understand all in once.. I guess what I am concerned is that in most piano teaching people focus so much on technique that these concepts never gets taught.. Even simple things like noticing whether the subject is played RH or LH in Bach Invention can change your playing significantly (because you know which hand you are supposed to bring out).. I found this out by listening as I was playing, but my teachers did very little to make that point.. at least it was not something I became aware of until much later.  I guess its one thing to be taught but its one thing to really understand these ideas "musically" which is probably what I am trying to get at..

[rc]

Just to follow up, I jammed with the band yesterday and had a lot of fun.  Wasn't familiar with any of the songs, so I mostly chunked out some chords, experimented with different patterns and mimicked some of the patterns they were playing.  Often wasn't even using the LH, because the bassist had that covered.  It's kind of a puzzle for me to figure out how a piano fits best in the mix (what register would sound best, what kind of accompaniment).  But it was all pretty fun, a lot of freedom so I could just sit there and experiment...  Then I get the nod that says it's time for me to solo, so I crap out a little solo, hahah.

It's quite a bit different, but I can see a lot of possibilities in this sort of freedom.  I stayed up way too late last night playing around with lead sheets.

[etcetra]

thats great 

I think the important thing is keep on doing it, and not be afraid of making mistakes.. its nice to have people who you can play with and trust and not feel like you have to sound perfect.  I dont know what the band is like but if you can find similar bands and listen to how the keyboard parts .. it might help you..

I remember when i played in rock bands the trick was to play less, sometimes simple 3-4 note patterns are all you need.. and when I was working with this guy who was doing house music, i realize that you are just one of the process of layering.. you have different layers and the piano is just one part of orchestration.. and i started to notice what makes  good pop song (aside from the melody and stuff) is that  have really great orchestration/layering/arrangement going on.

anyways glad to haer that you are having fun with the music.

[rc]

Thanks for the tips, it was what I was thinking too - in terms of being one of the layers. I only want to contribute if it's going to add to the overall sound.

I've been keeping in mind Bill Evans' advice from 'The Univeral Mind' about being real vs approximating.  Meaning to play within my ability to control rather than fumbling something harder, and it's golden advice.  This could be the same idea as your understanding of the music - only taking things one step at a time, whatever can be handled, adding up to something greater.  Since what I'm doing with the band is largely improv, I'm finding this new way of approaching piano very exciting.  Today the bassist was missing, I decided to figure out the bassline and supply it, which was a tricky task for my poor brain, but there was that freedom to build it on the spot.

That video was really inspiring.  I think it's important to cultivate some sort of spontanious music-making to some degree.

[etcetra]

Yea that video is great.. I think the problem is that when we are studying music at school, we kind of get into this survival mode, we either make it or we sink kind of attitude.  Often times we are forced to learn a lot more than we can handle, and we feel like it's our fault for not keeping up to expectations..

I have to do a lot of undoing since the school days, and what i realized was that the problems i had been struggling with could have been prevented if only the teachers i had were able to break down the problems and simplify them.  I often feel like kicking myself because i will come across simple solutions.. and I tell myself "gee I wish i knew this in college!"

I think in improv that can be a big problem, since so many people try to overreach and do crazy things.. as a result, they are not accurate in timing and note choices.. and for them going back and fixing them is going to be a big problem in the future.

I guess there are other books that i can recommend for similar stuff.. like Kenny Werner's "Effortless mastery" and Stephen Nachmanovitch's "Free play".. its intersting how a lot of jazz musicians reveal a very philosophical side to thier music.. whether its john coltrane or miles..

[rc]

Yea that video is great.. I think the problem is that when we are studying music at school, we kind of get into this survival mode, we either make it or we sink kind of attitude.  Often times we are forced to learn a lot more than we can handle, and we feel like it's our fault for not keeping up to expectations..

I've watched it twice now and plan on seeing if the library has a copy

With school, I think it's just the nature of the beast to be that way, because they have to have a curriculum.  I think most people know it's sink-or-swim before getting into it.  At least I hope so.  What I find disturbing is the cultural attitude that an institution is the only legitimate way to learn.  Outside of institutions is more freedom, but there's probably a lot of spillover - a lot of private teachers came from an institution.

I have to do a lot of undoing since the school days, and what i realized was that the problems i had been struggling with could have been prevented if only the teachers i had were able to break down the problems and simplify them.  I often feel like kicking myself because i will come across simple solutions.. and I tell myself "gee I wish i knew this in college!"

I sometimes wonder if it's the difference between teachers, that some are content with getting the notes right, and others will also want to be sure the student completely understood and mastered the ideas.  Also, perhaps different schools have different curriculums? The one I plan on going to seems to have a broad focus.  There's a lot of ear training, I'm told I'll have to sing, perhaps in a choir, and do some ensemble playing...  Though, I haven't heard anything about improv so my guess is it's all still very sheetmusic oriented.  But I suppose in the field of classical music it's not needed, it's playing the fully developed music of others...  All the same, I like the style.  It would be neat to be able to improvise in the classical style.

I think in improv that can be a big problem, since so many people try to overreach and do crazy things.. as a result, they are not accurate in timing and note choices.. and for them going back and fixing them is going to be a big problem in the future.

Yes!  The way Bill Evans put it makes so much sense - you can't build on confusion.  When he mentions how he didn't have the immediate facility and had to be analytical to develop it, I think that probably has a lot to do with why he's so articulate on the topic.  I also think it's important to note how he learned a lot on the job, because it's too easy to stop time while practicing at home.  When jamming with others, you can't just stop when a mistake is made.  It's more exciting, and engages the mind more.  I also like the immediate practicability of it all.  Feels more like an apprenticeship than academic study.  The two approaches are good foils for each other.

Thanks for the book recommendations!  They've been added to my list