(Done - fwiw)
This is my third try in two weeks. Maybe this time I can get the words out.
Playing music on an instrument has two major sides: 1. There is the thing inside us that relates to the music and where we want to express what we feel in the music; 2. There is "technique" and "theory" where we get skills in how to use our bodies on the instrument, and we get formal understanding which helps us bring more out of the music. When you know you have G7-C or V7-I in the piece, and it feels like a section is ending, even that is "theory". --- If we've never been taught but we do have music inside us, then we might be totally in the first side (1) and play sort of wildly with a hint of something, or be locked up trying to get it out but we can't. Otoh, there are people who are totally in (2), that is they know exactly how to move and time themselves, because they have been taught, but feel nothing and no real feeling comes out. For a musician, these two - 1 & 2 - mesh and intertwine, one coming from the other in both directions. It is one of the most important things my first ever (violin) teacher told me. As students, we are in the process of getting there. This is very important, and why I don't like this idea of competitions, especially at earlier stages.
As a student first time round, I was like a roof without walls or a floor. I had played different instruments self-taught, and gotten at music somehow with strange "reading". I could feel things, and heard things in music. So if I was shown generally how to hold the instrument and move, I took off on that and tried to express what I heard - by hook and by crook. (violin) I heard the whole thing, and tried to play what I heard. I advanced a pile of grades in one year and then got stuck. There had been a six year old boy doing the same grade 1 exam as I was doing at nearly 50, and my teacher had said "You must remember that he has taken over a year to learn what you did in a few months." (so I wouldn't feel bad) - but even then, I had the feeling that this child who had taken a year to my few months sounded steady and solid.
Later when I seemed unable to progress I started to explore what learning to play can actually be. This is where the (1) and (2) first came up. I was missing foundations. I could chase what I was hearing in my head, and never had a chance to know that C was C, or what an efficient way of moving the hands along with the body might be like. That is the steady and solid of that little boy. It seemed that I "had this already" because I could get music to come out. But in a way, I didn't really. I also learned another important thing. I was being told by someone that we must do every basic thing perfectly, or we would be doomed forever with the imperfections that we established. If this were true, we would have no dancers, orators, or singers, because all small children stumble, fall, and mispronounce. Our skills evolve and begin imperfectly.
By the way, while learning that instrument I did a lot of swaying, like LittleTunes, because there was so much in me that wouldn't come out, and for me - I didn't know how to move.
After this I got a piano. I was no longer able to take lessons with anyone, and I also knew how important it was to get basic technique. I only played very simple music so that my old habits wouldn't gel, and spent most of my time on theory and understanding music that way. Then I was fortunate enough last year to start working with a teacher who is giving me what I need --- the floor and walls to my roof --- the 1 for 2. Since as a student I know these are the goals, because of my past, we can work well without it going off track.
Most of the time in my practising has been spent on things like learning how to play a chord without locking up the wrist or arm. I'm slowing down to know that this note I'm playing is a D#, and here is a G7 followed by a Cm. We rarely polish pieces, and mostly I am working in a mechanical, basic way ("unmusical"), in order to get the floor and walls. It's topsy turvy because I'm missing things. LittleTunes - you're going forward step by step, and your floor and walls are being built. I saw two things in your playing, besides the music that will come out more and more --- I saw that steadiness: each note and chord that you played, you knew where you were going; and I saw subtle little movements in your wrist that I've had to strive for. Your playing is evolving from the ground up, and that is what is supposed to happen. Again: We are students.
When I read the assessments describing what the music "should" have in it, I had two reactions:
- in a competition, esp. assuming that the music is being played by professionals who have the skills, yes
- in the context of students playing - a student being someone whose skills are being formed - depending on where the student is at - absolutely not! I'll qualify that.
I am not (yet) a piano teacher. But I do know that things evolve, and trying to go after results before having the underlying skills can tie a student into knots. In my own experience, it actually hurt me, because I pushed any way possible to produce the sounds I wanted to produce. We play at the level we are at, using the skills that we have. Also, some of the musical effects are created by doing a combination of things, which we have to learn to do, by first getting those "things" solidly, before using them. It is foolish to expect someone to do this, before having the skills and knowledge. (That's the best way I know to word it.) I don't know how a "competition" could be geared toward that. Say this piece can be played at different levels (which it can) --- does the judge say that a student at a grade 4 level should play as expected for someone who has that set of skills, while a professional should be expected to play commensurate to those skills?
This has become long and rambly. What I'm trying to get at is what it means to be a music student.
Topic: VOTE : PS Competition, Round 1 - Performances