Why is it that most piano teachers don't teach new music?(from living composers)

[craig_davis]

Studying piano pedagogy in college, I have realized that most people don't like new music. Why is it that not many people play new music even at a collegial level? Most of the music majors focus on works from composers that have been dead for many years- is this music still relevant to our society?






www.CraigMichaelDavis.com  

[hmpiano]

It's human nature - we go with what we're familiar with.

[blazekenny]

Honestly I think that its because there is nothing to teach.

[natalyaturetskii]

I think that it is just not as famous as the usual Mozart or Bach that people are looking to master. Most 'modern music' is usually quite minimalistic or atonal, which can be perceived as quite easy or just too complicated to understand. I'd never played any music from living composers until quite recently, when my teacher felt that I would actually be able to understand the minimalistic and atonal music, and therefore play it well.

Natalya

[j_menz]

It's harder to find and generally more expensive.

Teachers often teach what they know and/or how they were themselves taught.

Too little of it is accessible to beginner/intermediate pianists.

(Yes, I know there are exceptions to each of these)

[ajspiano]

There is easily enough nice modern music in the beginner intermediate range - say up to AMEB grade 6-7.

However, as J_menz points out, its more expensive because the scores are still under copyright.

That said, I would also consider that a rounded education requires music from all periods, and there is just more music that can be classed as old vs music that is new hence we spend more time with the old stuff.

Additionally, - since many teachers are basically teaching what they were taught, how they were taught, it seems likely that there is a generally inability to transfer certain teaching elements across to new material. There is an accepted thoroughly cultivated teaching repertoire set that has been ironed out over centuries. Straying from it requires the teacher to have enough knowledge to build their own equally strong and ranging set of repertoire. Few of us have that capability.

Really, the master teachers that built and understood the repertoire did so because they were contributing to it themselves - Writing their own works/etudes for their students. These are the pieces and people we remember.

Be good enough to write your own musically superior and transcendental works, set them for your advanced students, and you'll end up a teacher worth remembering for a long time, and who's students play modern works. Not so many teachers are able to do that, so not so many teachers are doing it.

[Derek]

Because contemporary classical music is terrible. Nobody cares, nor ever will care, except self indulgent intellectuals. Sorry, that's just the truth. Not even worth arguing about.

[perfect_pitch]

Because contemporary classical music is terrible. Nobody cares, nor ever will care, except self indulgent intellectuals. Sorry, that's just the truth. Not even worth arguing about.

Although some people might give you crap for that comment, I would just like to say I laughed my arse off in agreement. Funniest and best thing I've read in years.

Said something like that years ago, however and got into some hot water here.

[richard black]

Having just spent three days auditioning 10-year-old kids at a local school, I can assure you that plenty of teachers include music from living composers. Now, as ever in the past, plenty of composers are writing new educational music, a lot of which is very good.

As for new 'adult' (as opposed to kids') music, yes, plenty of it is rubbish but there's also plenty well worth playing. I think a lot of us in the classical music world are way too backward-looking.

[danhuyle]

The syllabus everybody follows is geared on classical music. Just look at the highest levels of AMEB and ABRSM, plus most music schools follow that same structure.

It's like going to school, pass the 12th grade, graduate university and get a JOB.

That's "The System" we are all part of.

[outin]

It's like going to school, pass the 12th grade, graduate university and get a JOB.

In real life when you finally get a job, you will often learn much if not all you need there. Most of your education seems to be not much use (depending on the field of course). The learning and problem solving skills that you have accumulated are the things that you benefit from. I am sure the same goes with learning piano, some of the skills are specific to what you have played before , but some are transferrable to any type of music.

[j_menz]

The syllabus everybody follows is geared on classical music. Just look at the highest levels of AMEB and ABRSM, plus most music schools follow that same structure.
...

That's "The System" we are all part of.

No, not all of us.

[ajspiano]

It's like going to school, pass the 12th grade, graduate university and get a JOB.

I don't think that is at all how the system works..

I haven't had a single job that was impacted by my conventional schooling, either as far as getting the job or in my ability to do it.

[thalbergmad]

Most of the music majors focus on works from composers that have been dead for many years

Pehaps this is because there is nothing of value that can be learned from contemporary compositions, where some charlatan has vomitted a load of notes onto a manuscript and dared to call it music.

The amount of people who would bother studying anything written in the last 30 years or so is very small. Generally, it is only appreciated by pompous intellectuals, thesis writing nerds and those who can only get excited when a piece changes time signature every 3 seconds.

Thal

[ahinton]

Pehaps this is because there is nothing of value that can be learned from contemporary compositions, where some charlatan has vomitted a load of notes onto a manuscript and dared to call it music.

The amount of people who would bother studying anything written in the last 30 years or so is very small. Generally, it is only appreciated by pompous intellectuals, thesis writing nerds and those who can only get excited when a piece changes time signature every 3 seconds.

If all - or even if only a part - of the above were true in all particulars and all contexts, it would indeed serve as something of an indictment of new music composition (though from around what date remains debatable); fortunately, however, this is not the case. "Elliott" (as in Carter) has two "t"s whereas "vomited" has only one and "pehaps" perhaps undermines the extent of the "perhaps" of your surmise here (and the end of self-confessed pedantry is here perhaps the beginning of yet another of your citations of "bollox"). The inherently absurd assertion that "there is nothing of value that can be learned from contemporary compositions" (can anyone seriously imagine how such an assertion might have been received in the days of Mozart or Chopin?) is presented here unadorned without even the faintest suggestion of the kind of explanatory elaboration that might at least otherwise have served as some kind of attempt at justification, however flawed and hollow. I cannot speak for what "most piano teachers" teach or how they do it, but the one unfortunate piano teacher that had to put up with me as a student for a few years a long time ago taught and performed contemporary piano music as well as that of Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Haydn and others, so my personal experience provides no more of a semblance of excuse for those piano teachers who eschew the piano music of living or recently deceased composers than should be the case.

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

*edit* nevermind. I decided not to waste my breath. Er, fingers. hinton probably got it anyway and is crafting another cataclysmic bloviation of epic proportions.

[chadbrochill17]

I agree with Derek. Contemporary music is just plain bad. Why teach something the students will not enjoy?

[sasuke_10]

There is no teacher who will tell you "You mustn't play today's music." However they have 5 simple reasons for not teaching today's music (or teach it careless, if you understand me):
1. Classical music is the best music ever written for piano (and violin, cello, organ, or so: nobody writes music for these instruments)
2. Piano teachers understand that classical music is the best music written for piano.
3. The music today is very annoying (have you heard "Gangnam style")
4. When somebody wants to be a concerting pianist, he/she plays classical music. If you haven't noticed, there is no "International Lady Gaga Piano Competition".
5. There are many kids who just hate classical music. Nobody knows why someone can actually hate this. That's why piano players at their age start playing this s**tty music. But when they decide playing a classical piece (everybody wants to play Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53), they understand that they can't play it - it's too hard to them (they meet tonal music for the first time and they don't even know what does this mean).

This is my opinion.

[j_menz]

they meet tonal music for the first time and they don't even know what does this mean

Nor evidently do you. Pop is almost invariably "tonal".

[davidjosepha]

There is no teacher who will tell you "You mustn't play today's music." However they have 5 simple reasons for not teaching today's music (or teach it careless, if you understand me):
1. Classical music is the best music ever written for piano (and violin, cello, organ, or so: nobody writes music for these instruments)
2. Piano teachers understand that classical music is the best music written for piano.
3. The music today is very annoying (have you heard "Gangnam style")
4. When somebody wants to be a concerting pianist, he/she plays classical music. If you haven't noticed, there is no "International Lady Gaga Piano Competition".
5. There are many kids who just hate classical music. Nobody knows why someone can actually hate this. That's why piano players at their age start playing this s**tty music. But when they decide playing a classical piece (everybody wants to play Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53), they understand that they can't play it - it's too hard to them (they meet tonal music for the first time and they don't even know what does this mean).

This is my opinion.

Not sure why you resurrected a month old topic, but...

1. "Classical" music refers to Western art music, not to how old it is. There is, by that definition, modern classical music.
2. See 1
3. There was annoying music written 200 years ago as well, it just isn't remembered. There's plenty of good music being written now, both classical and contemporary. I know of contemporary music much more complex (and, in my opinion, better) than many Chopin pieces.
4. Again, see 1 for definition of classical music and what this topic is talking about.
5. I really have no idea what you're saying. Did you imply that young people today are unfamiliar with tonal music?

Yes, lots of stuff being written today is crap. A lot of it is self-indulgent meter and key changes, but some of it is good.

To everyone saying that nothing new is worth playing, think about what you are saying. How long are people going to continue to play music in a style that is no longer being composed for? Sure, we still play Bach even though he's hundreds of years old, but if classical music stopped being composed from now till the year 2100, do you think people would still keep learning to play piano in the classical style? I don't think so.

[sasuke_10]

1. "Classical" music refers to Western art music, not to how old it is. There is, by that definition, modern classical music.

Sorry. By saying Classical music, I meant music from the Baroque era, Classical era and Romantic era - this is another definition of Classical music.

3. There was annoying music written 200 years ago as well, it just isn't remembered. There's plenty of good music being written now, both classical and contemporary. I know of contemporary music much more complex (and, in my opinion, better) than many Chopin pieces.

Yes, there was annoying music 200 years ago, I agree. Yes, there is good music written nowadays. Yes, there are Chopin's pieces I don't like - like some of his etudes or most of his mazurkas but such as pieces like his Piano Concertos or Scherzos or Ballades - Chopin is not accidently called "The poet of the Piano". I was also reffering to his Polonaise because it's famous, if I had put Beethoven's Fur Elise, you would have said that Beethoven has boring pieces, too. Of course he has, like Fur Elise - it's very boring but 90% of all pianists have played it.

5. I really have no idea what you're saying. Did you imply that young people today are unfamiliar with tonal music?

Yes, I am. In my class, there are 4 pianists. If you ask them why is it called major, they will tell you "It's because it's happy". They are all playing modern music. Of course, there are children who are familiar with tonal music. Most of them play classical music. Just saying.

To everyone saying that nothing new is worth playing, think about what you are saying. How long are people going to continue to play music in a style that is no longer being composed for? Sure, we still play Bach even though he's hundreds of years old, but if classical music stopped being composed from now till the year 2100, do you think people would still keep learning to play piano in the classical style? I don't think so.

I play classical music not because they continue composing it, I just like music from Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, etc. Yes, I think classical style is going to be played by pianists. Everybody would have heard of Mozart. On weddings, they will play The Wedding March, not Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Again, just saying.

I am new to this forum so I'm not familiar with the old topic you're talking about. What I've written is my opinion.

[Bob]

The world of classical music hasn't given it the ok yet.  Another fifty years or so, then maybe.  And if it's atonal...

I have noticed educational materials, beginner methods, seem a little more fickle for whatever the "in" educational composers are.

[davidjosepha]

Yes, I am. In my class, there are 4 pianists. If you ask them why is it called major, they will tell you "It's because it's happy". They are all playing modern music. Of course, there are children who are familiar with tonal music. Most of them play classical music. Just saying.

I don't know why a major scale is so named either. I mean, it feels natural to me that it would be called that, but I couldn't give a good definition. I am most certainly familiar with tonal music.

I play classical music not because they continue composing it, I just like music from Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, etc. Yes, I think classical style is going to be played by pianists. Everybody would have heard of Mozart. On weddings, they will play The Wedding March, not Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Again, just saying.

You can say that, but in reality, you probably play classical music because your parents had you start taking piano lessons at a young age. Why did they choose piano instead of harpsichord or lyre? Is it because there's no music available for them? That's certainly not the case for the harpsichord. There's plenty of music available for it. The issue isn't that there isn't music composed for it, the issue is that there isn't music being composed for it. It's an archaic instrument. Nothing's written for it anymore, so why learn it? Learning piano in a classical style will go the same way as the harpsichord if music stops being written for it. There's only so long something can survive without new life being blown into it.

[zezhyrule]

My teacher gives a lot of her students mid-20th century stuff. I usually pick out most of my own pieces though... I'm thinking of starting a Kapustin piece soon.

[cmg]

I agree with Derek. Contemporary music is just plain bad. Why teach something the students will not enjoy?

This is quite a generalization!  

Maybe another reason for the lack of contemporary music being taught is because there is less of it being written.  And why would that be?  Because the audience for piano music (and classical music, in general) is shrinking?  Perhaps?

But maybe it's because of the dwindling importance of the piano.  It has been, since its invention until the electronic age, the "stereophonic" equipment of its day.  Before recording and playback devices were invented, the piano was the instrument through which people learned, for example, Beethoven symphonies.  Liszt transcribed all of them -- and not just to show off: it's how folks got to hear them who did not have access to live symphony concerts.  The piano was the record player, the CD player the iPod.  Every middle-class home had a piano and most every one who cared about music learned to play it.  Naturally, contemporary composers had a very lively market to write for, especially in the 19th century.  The piano and piano compositions were all the rage.  So, as noted above, were transcriptions for people in rural areas who could never get to hear a symphony orchestra.  

Until the advent of records and playback equipment, of course.  The demand for piano music dropped enormously.  Fewer composers wrote for it.  And the enormous repertoire accumulated since the earliest keyboardists up through the 19th century is gigantic -- much greater than for any other instrument.  Naturally, the piano was an orchestra, a chamber group, a chorus in small.  It could do almost anything under the right hands.  An amazing cultural phenomenon actually.

Now, well, music education in schools, in America at least, is long gone.  Even highly educated Americans wouldn't know Chopin if they found him in their underwear.  The audience for junk music (crappy pop stuff) is huge.  People want that because that's all they're educated to hear.

So, why do teachers avoid teaching contemporary stuff?  Well, as Richard Black pointed out, they DON'T avoid it.  Contemporary teaching pieces can be heard everywhere.  It's the advanced stuff that's generally missing:  too difficult to give to kids just learning, too obscure or difficult for uneducated audiences to appreciate, so few artists bother.  

It's one hell of a mess.  And a shame.  Hardly an environment to nurture a Chopin or Liszt.

[thesixthsensemusic]

I think that is because most students are beginners or intermediate players, and the serial music that is the norm today is highly atonal and therefore very difficult to learn if you do not have a good basis in playing more conventional stuff. It's the same with any form of art, sculptors or painters are being taught to do realistically looking stuff in order to perfect their technique before they are being trained in abstract art.

Secondly, I also believe it does have to do with the popularity, even the most well-respected modern composers are not household names like Chopin or Beethoven are. I am not fully sure about that but I can't think otherwise, looking at the classical music recordings on Youtube. For every recording of a piano work by Hindemith, Sorabji or Orff (except the latter's Camina Burana Suite) there's 100 recordings of Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven or Schumann.

[cmg]

I think that is because most students are beginners or intermediate players, and the serial music that is the norm today is highly atonal and therefore very difficult to learn if you do not have a good basis in playing more conventional stuff.

But not all "contemporary" music is atonal or serial.  The atonal fascism that dominated music for most of the 20th century is long dead.  There is a "romantic" revival going on out there, as well.  (And don't overlook Samuel Barber.  The American Romantic who was constantly attacked by the academicians who insisted that his musical vocabulary was outdated and retrograde.) Tunes are being written in traditional harmonic framework. Before, during and since Barber.  Alistair Hinton has embraced a very broad musical vocabulary, as well.  And he's very much a contemporary composer.

Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961), for example, has had two wonderful piano concerti recorded on Hyperion coupled with six pieces from his "Album for the Young." Tonal.  Very approachable.  Stephen Hough, by the way, is the pianist.  This is music of very high quality.

[sasuke_10]

You can say that, but in reality, you probably play classical music because your parents had you start taking piano lessons at a young age. Why did they choose piano instead of harpsichord or lyre?

My parents have never played on a musical instrument. I started playing piano when I was 12 years old - I really wanted to play.

Why did they choose piano instead of harpsichord or lyre? Is it because there's no music available for them? That's certainly not the case for the harpsichord. There's plenty of music available for it. The issue isn't that there isn't music composed for it, the issue is that there isn't music being composed for it. It's an archaic instrument. Nothing's written for it anymore, so why learn it? Learning piano in a classical style will go the same way as the harpsichord if music stops being written for it. There's only so long something can survive without new life being blown into it.

I agree with the fact that when a certain musical instrument is in the history, almost nobody plays it. The piano is one of the most common instruments now. It starts to be shifted by the guitar and it won't be played that much in 50 years. But people will continue playing the piano like people continue playing the cello.

I don't know why a major scale is so named either. I mean, it feels natural to me that it would be called that, but I couldn't give a good definition. I am most certainly familiar with tonal music.

I, too, can't give the exact definition of "major", I haven't studied music theory. But you know that a major scale is a scale constructed in a special way (WWSWWWS, where W is a whole tone, and S-semitone). In C major, the main tone is C; the interval between C and E is a major third. You know that the parallel key of C major is A minor etc. This is what I mean.

[j_menz]

I agree with the fact that when a certain musical instrument is in the history, almost nobody plays it. The piano is one of the most common instruments now. It starts to be shifted by the guitar and it won't be played that much in 50 years. But people will continue playing the piano like people continue playing the cello.

The guitar and its antecedents is a much older instrument than the piano and its antecedents.

Your assertion that the piano "won't be played that much in 50 years" is pure speculation on your part, and would appear to be completely confounded by the ongoing place the piano has in popular music, jazz and modern "serious" music.

Your crystal ball appears to be in need of a service.

[ajspiano]

Your assertion that the piano "won't be played that much in 50 years" is pure speculation on your part

..failed to notice the fact that digital pianos are the weapon of choice for many people entering midi for electronic composition...

And that piano, as the "whole orchestra/visual left-right layout" instrument stands strong as a fundamental learning tool and musical guide for all musicians, whatever their main instrument happens to be.

[sasuke_10]

The guitar and its antecedents is a much older instrument than the piano and its antecedents.

Your assertion that the piano "won't be played that much in 50 years" is pure speculation on your part, and would appear to be completely confounded by the ongoing place the piano has in popular music, jazz and modern "serious" music.

Your crystal ball appears to be in need of a service.

The guitar is much older than the piano, but the electric guitar - I don't think so. The acoustic guitar is shifted from the electric, the acoustic piano - by the electric, therefore an acoustic piano
is going to be played much less. That's what I mean. However, as j_menz says, these two types of piano are used in different ways. Everybody knows that the acoustic piano is better from the electronic, but the electric one is used not only for playing on a piano - by pressing a button, you can record yourself playing, mix voices etc. But I don't think that a piano concerto is going to be played with an electric piano.
"Your crystal ball appears to be in need of a service."
Do you mean that I have to "rethink" my opinion, I don't understand you?

[soitainly]

 I think of classical music in a sense of being able to pick from the best music from the last several hundred years. In reality, there are only few great composers of each generation, and not all of them stand the test of time. In music for piano you have to also consider that solo piano isn't as popular as it once was, the truly cutting edge creative musicians of the last 100 years or so haven't gone into what we would call classical music.

 That doesn't mean that there isn't any good music being made, it's just that when you have so much to choose from, who really measures up to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven...etc. You also have to take in to account that so much modern music just doesn't sound that good (my opinion).

Teachers that are going to be successful are just like musicians that are going to be successful, you have to have enough interest from the general public to make it work. There may be niche or fringe elements, but a teacher has to have enough students to make a living.

[celegorma]

To sum it up:
1. Most new music are hard to play and rather inaccessible
2. New music have little pedagogic value, they involve techniques that are not widely applicable to most other pieces
3. The teachers themselves were not taught new music so they don't know how to teach them
4. Lack of recordings as a reference or model
5. No established way of teaching or interpreting new music, so its usually hit or miss
6. Students don't want to learn

[davidjosepha]

To sum it up:
1. Most new music are hard to play and rather inaccessible
2. New music have little pedagogic value, they involve techniques that are not widely applicable to most other pieces
3. The teachers themselves were not taught new music so they don't know how to teach them
4. Lack of recordings as a reference or model
5. No established way of teaching or interpreting new music, so its usually hit or miss
6. Students don't want to learn

I'd say 3, 4, and maybe 5 are the only true ones there.

[lostinidlewonder]

Music from movies, computer games, tv shows, radio etc etc if a teacher ignores doing those things I wonder if they actually ever do anything the student wants to do? There is plenty to teach from these materials only ignorant teachers would not know how to use it.

[ahinton]

*edit* nevermind. I decided not to waste my breath. Er, fingers. hinton probably got it anyway and is crafting another cataclysmic bloviation of epic proportions.

Your decision appears to have been a wise one.

I "got" what, by the way; you do not make this clear.

"Crafting another cataclysmic bloviation" of any proportions at all presumes that one such has been
crafted already; let us consider the evidence for this.

In response to Thal, I began by writing that "if all - or even if only a part - of (what he'd written on this matter) were true in all particulars and all contexts, it would indeed serve as something of an indictment of new music composition (though from around what date remains debatable); fortunately, however, this is not the case". If on the other hand it actually had been the case (though since precisely when is still unclear, it would mean effectively that the composition of worthwhile music had almost ceased altogether; how credible is that?

I then wrote that "the inherently absurd assertion that "there is nothing of value that can be learned from contemporary compositions" (can anyone seriously imagine how such an assertion might have been received in the days of Mozart or Chopin?) is presented here unadorned without even the faintest suggestion of the kind of explanatory elaboration that might at least otherwise have served as some kind of attempt at justification, however flawed and hollow". Who is to say and on what grounds that nothing of value can be learned from the music of however long it is? - and how would such a notion have gone down in Mozart's or Chopin's time?

I then pointed out that my own piano teacher never eschewed contemporary or recent music in his teaching.

Any enlightenment that you can provide as to the perceived bloviatory content of any of this will be interesting to read.

OK, enough of that. How far back do we go when writing of "contemporary music"? In thinking about what supposedly represents "contemporary music" in the present context, how much credence do we give to the fact that, during the last century, the sheer diversity of Western musical composition expanded out of all proportion to what it had been in earlier centuries?

If what's referred to (at lest by some here) as music whose tonal centre is either absent or at least less well defined than in, say, the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, the music that's in the firing line here goes back well over a century and the roots of that undermining of clear unequivocal tonality go back still farther; in piano music, it's certainly present in many examples in Chopin, whose influence on the later loosening of tonal bonds is all too often underestimated by some.

Thal also mentioned frequently changing time signatures; Le Sacre du Printemps, that well known piece of "contemporary" music the centenary of whose world premičre occurs in just a few months from now, has in parts of its final movement a series of rapidly changing time signatures (though it's worth remembering that, although its principal life has been in the concert hall, it was written as a ballet score), whereas, for example, some of the music that Bernard van Dieren had been writing around and before that time sought to eschew barlines altogether (the influence behind which was not something novel at that time but certain Renaissance music). Elliott Carter (who was still alive at the time of this exchange of posts) has written and spoken of the fact that today we don't have people marching and horses trotting as used to be the case - we use cars, planes, etc. (although without wishing to undermine his remark, these ways of travelling are not substitutes for but additions to the earlier ones - and our hearts still beat, after all!). The point at issue here is what's been termed "the tyranny of the beat" in music, meaning the regular pulse and there have been composers trying to escape from this for a very long time. Most pop and rock music adheres to it almost as if in fear of the consequences of the alternative - much minimalist music does more or less the same - but, as Carter again points out, people will have to get used to greater complexities of harmony, melody, rhythm and the rest because they reflect the ever-increasing complexity of life; even some of the simpler things in life are now far more complex than once they were because that's the way human life goes.

I fear that the kinds of inflexible dogma put forward by you, Thal and others about the perceived lack of value of "contemporary music" not only neither reflects reality nor explains anything but it also even fights shy of any serious effort to define just what "contemporary music" actually is!

Best,

Alistair

[corrado64]

I apologize for my English, I'm Italian and I will give an exam in English in a few months. For now still use Google translator :-)

I am a living composer. This is enough to be contemporary? No, of course, but if I put myself in front of the blank page with pencil in hand looking for the new. This discussion is too devoid of cultural support. Many express harsh judgments but superficial. Beethoven's music is different from that of Bach. The social role of the Baroque composer was different from the classical or romantic. In the same way the action of the composer has changed in 900, the revolution of psychoanalysis has placed man in front of the ambiguity of all forms of expression. Each author had to find their own way alone style. At the same time the tonal harmony has been taken to its extreme consequences.

Does anyone remember the initial sounds of Wagner's Tristan? Those who criticize the music here know why the 900 after the first school in Vienna there was the second Viennese school? Know why Schoenberg created twelve-tone? They really know why the avant-garde have given rise to phenomena such as Darmstadt? They know the state of agonizing solitude in which to act is now an artist who wants to write in a true, radical, without falsehood or commercial purposes?

Have not you noticed that as the music has lost the melody, the painting has lost shape and became abstract?
We composers of today we should copy the greats of the past just to please an audience that does not want to face with courage the emptiness of their time?

With the end of tonal harmony has become much more difficult to recognize the quality of a composition by ear. It takes more cultural tools and we contextualize the works in their time.

Italy has made ​​a great contribution to the 900, some of you have never heard the music of Berio, Bussotti, Sciarrino, Manzoni, Donatoni, Luigi Nono, Gentilucci, Dallapiccola, Maderna, Petrassi, Bettinelli, etc..? How can you expect to throw in the water three or four generations of authors in this uncritically?

Today more than ever to know how to find the quality in art is necessary to take a journey of personal growth.

I believe that most piano teachers are intellectually lazy. Were formed on the styles of the past and do not want to make a difficult process to learn pieces unloved by the general public.

Such as medicine or engineering, the modern world demands specialization. As we have experienced instrumentalists romantic or baroque music, contemporary music also wants to specialists.
This is bad? This is the complexity of the modern post-Freud. It is also a great treasure to explore and discover.
When Beethoven wrote the Op. 111 in two movements or his last string quartets was no less modern and brave Luigi Nono.
Be brave and you also let emotions. The challenge today is terrible and difficult. Word of living composer :-) Appreciate the past does not mean become unable to look for quality in the present and in the future.

I hope Google translator has made ​​little trouble.

Corrado

[Derek]

With the end of tonal harmony has become much more difficult to recognize the quality of a composition by ear. It takes more cultural tools and we contextualize the works in their time.

I don't understand this. If you can't decide whether you like something by ear, what is the point? In order to get intellectually lazy (supposedly) people such as myself to accept this idea, you'll have to explain why I'd want to bother analyzing a piece of music beyond what my ear's reaction is. You'll have to persuade society as a whole that they will have to study something with tools other than their ear. I guarantee you, they will never understand this. I don't even get why anyone tries to argue otherwise, and I haven't the energy or time to work through your arguments. Nor does anyone else who is actually enjoying, playing, and creating music out there.

[teran]

Music from movies, computer games, tv shows, radio etc etc if a teacher ignores doing those things I wonder if they actually ever do anything the student wants to do? There is plenty to teach from these materials only ignorant teachers would not know how to use it.

My teacher happily lets me bring in music from different video game OSTs that I really enjoy, in fact I bought a very rare volume that's out of print that has all the tracks of a soundtrack arranged for piano by the composer himself.

He may not have heard the pieces before, but he is still thoroughly capable of polishing them with me by going over the fine details of voicing and certain articulations. He's a total musician and that's why I really appreciate him and his lessons, and also why I pay so much for them (with quite a lot of difficulty since I'm a young student not working full time), rather than taking a nice cheap option.

So yeah, I do think teachers should have an open mind and at least encourage their students to learn things they like. EVERY piece imo has something which polishes some facet of technique and musicality, provided you get them to a good standard.

I mean seriously I've had to pull off stuff like legato thirds, somewhat complex polyrhythms, frequent melody switching between hands, drawn out phrasing and many other things thanks to just learning video game pieces.

Obviously it's not to say that contemporary music or stuff from games is a complete volume when it comes to teaching, but I truly do feel it's beneficial if the student has a passion for it. I mean really, what greater way is there to get a student to learn something than for them to love it? They do pretty much 99% of the legwork, all you have to do is sand the rough edges. If you give them stuff they're not particularly fond of, then it just becomes pure work, and work with no passion is just no good at all, well, with regards to music anyway.

[corrado64]

I'm sorry Derek, you say you "do not have time" to work through my arguments. I do not really know what this has to do with your attitude a discussion about art. You do not have energy, time ... even curiosity? Want to evolve? To grow? About what's new? Prefer to judge everything by instinct? To the randomness of experiences outside design ideas? An artist should create music just thinking about the audience? Which public? Musical genres are many. Are you looking for a musical Esperanto? Are you against diversity? Are you really sure that anything that has been made ​​since 1940 to be valid? Interesting? Exciting? Pregnant? Edifying? Provocative? Helpful? A composer is perhaps hope for this passivity of the public? I'm the first to say that the 900 is a lot of music ideological, calculated on the page without considering the consequences acoustic and perceptual concrete. But in 900 have also been written masterpieces. But I want to make a complaint too. For twenty years I have suspended my work as a composer because of work and family. For four years I got to be a musician and I found a strange situation: today, because of this pervasive cultural laziness, superficiality, consumerism extreme, even the younger composers write imitating the vanguard of 60-70 years. The avant-garde has been transformed into academicism.

If you listen to the Prometheus of Luigi Nono is more modern, current, challenging most of the compositions of young graduates Europe's most important. And this is a recurring thing in history: what is revolutionary for a generation is converted to Orthodoxy from the next generation. Yes this is a problem of modernity. The composers of today are not intellectuals involved in social and political life in the civic consciousness of the people. They do not try to think about more new worlds. The composers have to start thinking about new ways to bring music, new places, new social functions for the acoustic experience. To play Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Stockhausen created in a theater for opera or for the great nineteenth-century piano recital is simply a false history. But all this is appropriate to the star system. The market has crystallized the art of forcing her to change not more, and where he asks her to pretend that change following the rules of fashion, not the rules of art and aesthetic, philosophical thought. About this you should get angry. And find the energy and the time to change things knowing how to listen some of my arguments. Not because they are my arguments, but because they are urgent.

[chadbrochill17]

I'm sorry Derek, you say you "do not have time" to work through my arguments. I do not really know what this has to do with your attitude a discussion about art. You do not have energy, time ... even curiosity? Want to evolve? To grow? About what's new? Prefer to judge everything by instinct? To the randomness of experiences outside design ideas? An artist should create music just thinking about the audience? Which public? Musical genres are many. Are you looking for a musical Esperanto? Are you against diversity? Are you really sure that anything that has been made ​​since 1940 to be valid? Interesting? Exciting? Pregnant? Edifying? Provocative? Helpful? A composer is perhaps hope for this passivity of the public? I'm the first to say that the 900 is a lot of music ideological, calculated on the page without considering the consequences acoustic and perceptual concrete. But in 900 have also been written masterpieces. But I want to make a complaint too. For twenty years I have suspended my work as a composer because of work and family. For four years I got to be a musician and I found a strange situation: today, because of this pervasive cultural laziness, superficiality, consumerism extreme, even the younger composers write imitating the vanguard of 60-70 years. The avant-garde has been transformed into academicism.

If you listen to the Prometheus of Luigi Nono is more modern, current, challenging most of the compositions of young graduates Europe's most important. And this is a recurring thing in history: what is revolutionary for a generation is converted to Orthodoxy from the next generation. Yes this is a problem of modernity. The composers of today are not intellectuals involved in social and political life in the civic consciousness of the people. They do not try to think about more new worlds. The composers have to start thinking about new ways to bring music, new places, new social functions for the acoustic experience. To play Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Stockhausen created in a theater for opera or for the great nineteenth-century piano recital is simply a false history. But all this is appropriate to the star system. The market has crystallized the art of forcing her to change not more, and where he asks her to pretend that change following the rules of fashion, not the rules of art and aesthetic, philosophical thought. About this you should get angry. And find the energy and the time to change things knowing how to listen some of my arguments. Not because they are my arguments, but because they are urgent.

The key flaw in your argument is "what is revolutionary for a generation is converted to Orthodoxy from the next generation". This is not a statement that holds true for all cases. Just because something is "revolutionary" does NOT make it worthwhile for progressing music. The more important question is WHY is it revolutionary.

It could be revolutionary for me to close my eyes and compose music, or have my cat perform the music on the instruments. However, these would be worthless ideas and attempts which should rightfully discarded forever into history. If you disagree with me there, there is no hope of reconciling our arguments.

[corrado64]

Chadbrochill17 You must excuse me, but I struggle to understand the meaning of your post. Maybe because I have yet to learn English well. I did not say "that holds true for all cases." Did I say that what is happening in Europe at this time. The value of a revolutionary artistic choice lies in being against conservatism, those who oppose the new and would like to lock the 'evolution of human thought in order to maintain power over the consciences of the people.
Wagner was born as a revolutionary then embraces German capitalism and ends up trying to create a pseudo religion. Giuseppe Verdi instead of talking about real life and encourages consciences to civic values ​​and independence. Beethoven looking for something new and sticks Napoleon when he realizes that it is not a liberator but thirsty imperial power over Europe and Russia. The best definition of Wagner's music is in Manhattan, Woody Allen: "When I hear the music of Wagner I immediately wanted to invade Poland." :-))))
I will not give a too ideological to the concept of "revolution". I'm not a communist. I want to stress the importance of the "new" in artistic creation. It is obvious that I am not talking about the new end in itself, just to impress the new, striking instincts superficial and rudimentary. What does fashion. The art is on a higher plane, from Beethoven onwards philosophical reflection came more and more in the work of artists. Indeed, the problem today is, as I said before, that the composers have renounced the role of intellectuals capable of influencing the ideal values ​​of their time.
We all know that when you can measure with new stylistic categories there is always the risk of encountering those who try to deceive you. But you can not think of anyone who has tried to write the last century has done so simply "closing his eyes", or by walking her cat on the piano keyboard, just because you personally have trouble understanding the new musical languages​​.
That said, it is obvious that the end of the tonal system has caused a tremendous gap between the general public and composers. It is clear to all who listen to the music of 900 is difficult, it is often difficult and requires a lot of concentration. But some of the highest and most formidable experiences for the human being can be made only after a journey of personal growth at the end of which you can experience excitement and satisfaction unparalleled.
If we are looking for a different experience easier, faster, than as they arrive then go away leaving little or nothing, the world is full of musical genres more accessible.
But I find it quite absurd that in 2012 we are still here to discuss the reasons why so many artists and thinkers to choose from a century a certain stylistic and philosophical position. Not to mention that there are many experiences in these days in Europe where a young audience is listening to the latest compositions by young composers. This gives some hope. With regard to the initial question of this trehad "Why is it That plan most teachers do not teach new music? (From living composers)," I remain convinced of the general laziness of many teachers. Because often a performer has made a personal journey of learning a performance practice as a performer, that has focused its attention on historical and stylistic periods in which specific specialized. For this reason he has a problem with the ability to open up to new, learn new practices and lives as a dangerous problem even be able to teach his students. Few people have the courage to really get into the game, this also in the arts. When they find something that works, do not leave him more willingly.

[Derek]

To those whose posts I halfheartedly read: That's right. I don't have time to read your posts, ahinton's, or anyone else who posts books. I fail to understand even what motivates you guys. Do you want to convince folks like me to enjoy complex modern music? If not, then it would seem you are satisfied for modern art to be enjoyed only by a few people who enjoy reading and writing books to each other justifying it. If that is the case, I'm not sure why write books at all---the people who actually would read what you have to say already agree with you.

[corrado64]

Ok Derek, you do not have time for us, we get it. I would, however, make it clear that I will not convince anyone, I came on this poll where there is a specific question and I expressed my views. If I see that are methodologically incorrect statements made ​​about a topic that I think I know, it is normal to feel the desire to enter into a dialectic. Especially if I see that some people still wonder about certain subjects with a century of delay and using ways of thinking altered by a lack of knowledge of the subject. I wonder if you do not have time to read our posts why do you participate in a forum? Play your preferred music, listen to your favorite music, teaches your favorite music.
But you first post is: «Because contemporary classical music is terrible. Nobody cares, nor ever will care, except self indulgent intellectuals. Sorry, that's just the truth. Not even worth arguing about».
You understand that your sentence after this many may feel the desire to answer something ...

[ahinton]

To those whose posts I halfheartedly read: That's right. I don't have time to read your posts, ahinton's, or anyone else who posts books. I fail to understand even what motivates you guys. Do you want to convince folks like me to enjoy complex modern music? If not, then it would seem you are satisfied for modern art to be enjoyed only by a few people who enjoy reading and writing books to each other justifying it. If that is the case, I'm not sure why write books at all---the people who actually would read what you have to say already agree with you.

The extent to which and/or frequency with which you might read certain posts "halfheartedly" is for you only to determine and your viewing and reading habits are, of course, your sole prerogative, as indeed they should be.

Likewise, the amount of time the you choose to devote not only to reading posts but also to writing them is down to you alone.

Much the same may as well be said of your self-admitted failure "understand even what motivates" certain mainly unspecified contributors to this thread (nor have I any idea what you mean by "posting books").

I cannot and therefore do not pretend to speak for any of those others but can confirm that I have no wish necessarily to "convince" you to "enjoy" anything; indeed, the very most that I would hope to do is encourage you to be more open to new musical experiences (by which I mean new to you, not necessarily new music per se) than some of your expressions suggest is the case so far; after all, you never know what you might enjoy - or indeed dislike - until you've given it a try (or in some cases perhaps several tries).

You also refer specifically to "complex modern music" yet you offer no clue as to what you mean either by "complex" or "modern" in this context and, whilst a simple explanation of each from you might help in understanding your interpretation of those terms, it can and will do nothing to validate your implication that much or all "modern music" (whatever that may be) is "complex". Where, for example, is the "complexity" in the music of any of the minimalists? (and, taken together, that's quite a large amount of music of relative prominence) - and where, for that matter, is the "simplicity" in the mature works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner or Mahler?

It is also unclear to what or whom you refer when you write of your imagined notion of satisfaction "for modern art to be enjoyed only by a few people who enjoy reading and writing books to each other justifying it"; there are many tens of thousands of books on all kinds of music nowadays, some more intellectually and musicologically oriented than others, but there is scant evidence that more than a tiny minority of them (at least outside the cocooned demi-monde of academia) are written for the benefit of their authors' peers alone, as you appear to imply when writing of being unsure "why (some of those authors) write books at all" as you appear to believe that their readership "already agrees with" such books' contents.

Furthermore, your premise that "modern art" (whatever that may be - do you mean only 21st century at or might you go as far back as Picasso more than a century ago?) is "enjoyed only by a few people who enjoy reading and writing books to each other justifying it" is in itself untenable when one considers just how many people do enjoy art from all creative periods, whether or not they write or read books about any of it.

None of this is in any case directly pertinent to the thread topic of why "most piano teachers don't teach new music? (from living composers)", as it reads far more like a series of unfounded personal opinions about what you choose to call "complex modern music" that readers are as entitled to challenge as you are to hold; your post has accordingly failed miserably to enlighten readers as to why - or even the extent to which - the premise of the thread might be valid.

Oh and, by the way, a mere 600 or so words (which is the number I've just typed above) do not any kind of book make...

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

Still the way guys like you win arguments is to basically write many more words than the people you disagree with, and also always find time to have the last word (which I usually never do, because I have better things to do with my time). I guess I just feel if you and people like you were truly sincere, you'd cut your posts down to maybe a few sentences and just say something honest like "Hey, I really like Xenakis/Sorabji/Schoenberg etc. etc. and I don't really care if you don't, and I also accept the fact that few people will ever enjoy it." Like, why do you feel the need to write more than that? That's the thing that really morbidly fascinates me about you and your ilk. What is your life like? What gives you so much time to write so much? There's got to be something motivating you. For me, I jump into these sometimes out of boredom and some weird OCD quirk that I can't completely get rid of that pops up every now and then. It's more than that though, I am motivated also by love of beautiful music and wondering why the world seems to be trying so hard to include ugliness and horror in the mix. I agree with Bach, the aim and final end of all music should be the refreshment of the soul. I'd like to learn why anyone today thinks it should do otherwise. But if it can't be explained in more than a handful of sentences I probably won't read it.

[j_menz]

I am motivated also by love of beautiful music and wondering why the world seems to be trying so hard to include ugliness and horror in the mix.

Because ugliness and horror are part of life and all of life is the proper subject of art. It has ever been thus, including in the music you love.

I agree with Bach, the aim and final end of all music should be the refreshment of the soul. I'd like to learn why anyone today thinks it should do otherwise.

Catharsis is a form of refreshment; sometimes the only refreshment available.

But if it can't be explained in more than a handful of sentences I probably won't read it.

That's four, including this one; otherwise three.

[ahinton]

Still the way guys like you

Who are they?

win arguments

...which I'm not even seeking to do, incidentally - this not about "winners" and "losers"...

is to basically write many more words than the people you disagree with, and also always find time to have the last word (which I usually never do, because I have better things to do with my time).

Or to split your infinitives as you've done here, not bother to do word counts of anyone's posts and "always find time"? - excuse me? - my last 600+-word post took me around five minutes - that's not so long, is it? - and as for "the last word", you had that until just now! How exactly do you "usually never do" something? Either you never do it or you usually do it - you can't have it both ways! Whether you have "better things" (than what, exactly?) to do with your time is open to question since you clearly didn't have better things to do with it than respond as you have done here.

I guess I just feel if you and people like you were truly sincere, you'd cut your posts down to maybe a few sentences and just say something honest like "Hey, I really like Xenakis/Sorabji/Schoenberg etc. etc. and I don't really care if you don't, and I also accept the fact that few people will ever enjoy it."

Why? I take these issues seriously and try to address the question posed in the thread topic and surrounding aspects of the subject - perhaps more so than you do - and this simply cannot be done by airing a few personal prejudices and preferences and then clamming up! (and, in any case, I have not expressed any because I feel that the subject is far too important to respond to it in so personal and comparatively trivial a manner).

Like, why do you feel the need to write more than that?

"Like," what? And why question the need to write enough to try at least to scrape the surface of the subject rather than suffuse it in a handful of personal dogmatic whinges about "complex modern music" (which, by the way, you have still not defined in your own terms but which I'm fairly sure that you could do in not so very many words if so you chose).

That's the thing that really morbidly fascinates me about you and your ilk.

Is it really? well, whoopty-doo!

What is your life like?

What concern is that of yours, especially in the specific context of responses in this thread?

What gives you so much time to write so much?

As I told you, nothing does - for I have spent very little time on this!

There's got to be something motivating you.

There hasn't, but nevertheless there is; it's the simple business of trying to address the question seriously.

For me, I jump into these sometimes out of boredom and some weird OCD quirk that I can't completely get rid of that pops up every now and then.

Your problem rather than that of the rest of us, presumably - and one over which only you can exert any control if indeed anyone can.

It's more than that though

Oh? Good!

I am motivated also by love of beautiful music and wondering why the world seems to be trying so hard to include ugliness and horror in the mix.

So you stick your head in the sand and prefer to constrict musical expression to just one particular aspect of life's rich tapestry, then? Well, go ahead - if you must!...

I agree with Bach, the aim and final end of all music should be the refreshment of the soul.

Ah - at least, we all agree on something! - even if the particular ways in which various quite different souls can be refreshed is something on which we appear not to do so...

I'd like to learn why anyone today thinks it should do otherwise.

Well, since I don't in principle think that it should do otherwise, you'll not learn that from me, I fear.

But if it can't be explained in more than a handful of sentences I probably won't read it.

The apparent fact that you won't address anything that's not in primary colours or embraces other than the most simplistic of reasoning is your problem; why on earth would you consider the "refreshment of the soul" - especially in today's immensely complex, rich, verdant and ever-increasingly fast-moving world - to be a matter that can be accounted for in a handful of monosyllables, common chords, plain brush-strokes, straight lines, quarter notes in 4/4 time, simple counterpoints and the rest? Doesn't such a notion constitute a gross insult both to the very phenomenon of the refreshment of the human soul and to fine human achievement over the centuries?

Think about it! Or, if you prefer, criticise all and sundry for writing more than two dozen words about anything that, by so doing, might risk interfering with your apparently simplistic, complacent but quite unrealistic world. You invoke Bach - one of the greatest minds in Western culture of any kind, not just in music; do you understand what you're doing in citing him, of all people, as some kind of illustrative example of what appears to be your strangely monochromatic views about "complex modern music" (of which Bach himself was a most adept creator and purveyor!)? And, in the meantime, could you just try your best to do us all a favour by attempting to define what you mean by "complex modern music"?

Thanks in advance of whatever you might come up with in answer to that (if indeed you do)...

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

This may be a simple question of personal compatibility. I feel like just talking 1 on 1 with j_menz I could get somewhere and learn something, but ahinton your style of dissecting everything all the way down to grammar and even spelling in some cases is just too much for me. Fact is I really do not have enough motivation to read all that stuff you just wrote. In fact, it was a very good question posed to me earlier about why do I post on a forum. I honestly don't know...I guess I should stick to things that don't require all that much typing or reading.

I do sincerely like talking about this topic though, I just need to do it in a lot less detail. If that isn't sufficient for you ahinton I don't think you need to respond to me anymore. I'll try to have this debate with j_menz and others who agree that being concise is just as effective as bloviating an entire phd thesis in response to forum posts.

[soitainly]

Because ugliness and horror are part of life and all of life is the proper subject of art. It has ever been thus, including in the music you love.

Catharsis is a form of refreshment; sometimes the only refreshment available.

That's four, including this one; otherwise three.

 Ugliness and horror are a part of life but I don't seek them out. Sometimes we need to address these issues, art is a reflection of our culture and of the human experience. But ideally we should be seeking beauty.

 I don't automatically dismiss all new music, but rarely does it inspire or uplift me. It all comes down to the right to make whatever music you want to make, and for my right to choose what to listen too. There are too many modern composers who think different=good.