Only a couple of decades ago, all the cars were very beautiful and very different from each other: a Mercedes could not be confused with a BMW, a Jaguar with a Toyota. Nowadays, witnesses to hit and run accidents have a big challenge to identify the makes and models of cars because almost all models of all makes look practically the same.
The reason for the unification of the cars' appearance is not the lack of talent or imagination on the part of their designers but simply the dominance and supremacy of two factors: 1 – speed and 2 – money. If an automaker wants to manufacture a car that will reach a high speed with low fuel consumption, he/she has to make the car with a very specific shape, because any other shape will have higher wind resistance. No one will buy a car of the same class if it has a much slower speed with a much higher fuel consumption. Who wants to pay much more for a much slower car?
However, in Music, speed and money (cost of education and preparation of new programs or songs) should not be considered to be superior to the most important factor in Music – its beauty.
Nowadays performers usually have "no own face", exactly like mentioned above cars. Their music gets faster and faster but we can not hear any thought behind these Hanon-style acrobatics on keyboard instead of beautiful music that can touch our heart.
EVERYONE, not only people with a special gift or talent, can play beautifully. I'd like to remind the reader that for music to be played beautifully, there are three and ONLY three requirements: 1.Right Notes, 2. Right Timing and 3. the Right Intensity, or “Personal strength” of each note. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE.
Yes, I didn’t forget about the pedal, but this is already in the area of acoustics. We use the pedal differently if we are in a hall with a strong, long echo, as opposed to being in a hall with a very bad, dry acoustic, or even in the same hall with a lot of people in our audience as opposed to an absolutely empty hall. In addition, the use of the pedal is always different in a slow tempo versus a fast tempo.
Thus, if you play the correct notes written by a composer, and you play these notes with accurate timing and your stressing and softening of each note is correct, you can not wish for anything better: you have played beautifully. Everyone, including yourself, will be pleased with your performance. However, if any of these three elements is wrong, no one will like your music, and your audiences will hint that perhaps you should play basketball, computer games, chess, but not the piano.
There is no need to explain the importance of correct notes – everyone understands this. It is a little bit more difficult to understand the idea of accuracy in Timing. In the half century that I have been teaching, I had only one student who NEVER argued about the importance of absolute accuracy in Timing because his main job was... laying tiles. At the beginning of our lessons I asked him if he would be paid if the tiles he lays were a bit different and not at the same distance from each other. After this question, I never heard any protest from him, such as, for example, that his timing is good enough already, etc.
The most challenging requirement for playing beautiful music is understanding the Intensity required for each note. Many students and performers do not realize that music is a normal human language and ALL rules of language are applicable to Music as well. Nobody would understand and tolerate our English, French or German, if we stress the wrong vowels in the words. For example: “tomorrOw” instead of tomOrrow; “s'il vOUs plait” instead of s'il vous plAIt; or “DeutschlAnd” instead of DEUtschland.
In Music there are the same strict norms and rules of correct stressing and softening of EACH note of ANY song. Our audience does not accept our mistakes in this field. No one would say that he/she does not like your Intensity, of course – they would say: we don't like your music in spite of your correct notes and right timing.
From my experience, I can say that these mistakes in Intensity are not usually numerous. Most often I can detect one to three mistakes in Intensity in a short song (3-5 pages). However, if the student repeats these same mistakes in Intensity 20-50 times in his 3 minute-long song – it sounds really ugly.
The good news is that this problem is very easy to solve. If the student knows exactly what he/she does wrong and what he/she needs to correct, then the correction happens IMMEDIATELY and not only for one mistake but for all 20-50 mistakes in the song. Thus, this is a very productive and impressive way to teach and learn. Thanks to this “technique of teaching”, I have advertised, for over decades, my lessons with the following very attractive words: “Immediate result, or you DON'T pay!”
Here I invite anyone who is interested to post the link to ANY of his/her performances on YouTube in the comments section below my post. It can be ANY piece and ANY level from “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to the “Islamey” by Balakirev, I promise to point out the same one to three of the most persistent problems in the performance and give my instructions on how to fix these problems IMMEDIATELY and for ever.
I never had a problem to help my students in “LIVE” mode. I do not believe that music is only for special, gifted people. No one needs to be “specially talented” in order to learn one’s mother tongue. Everyone can do it, and it is the same with the language of music.
I believe that in “ON LINE” mode, my knowledge and experience should provide the same results and promise never to blame my student but only myself if my student can not understand me and make the desired corrections.
Unfortunately, these corrections are not free, for you will have to pay for them by reducing your TEMPO, the speed of performing, at least initially. It is not your fault, and it is not the fault of my instructions. It is because of the nature of our brain.
Our brain consists of at least two major parts: the “human-brain” and the inherited from dinosaurs or lizards computer-like perfectly designed and polished over millions-of-years “computer-brain”. This “computer-brain” perfectly operates our entire body, quite often without any control from our “human-brain”. All dancers, hockey players, racing drivers, etc, (like we, musicians, of course) can perform perfectly only after downloading the precisely accurate, correct program from our "human-brain" into our “computer-brain”.
Unfortunately, this “computer-brain” does not like and understand the goals of our “human brain” and is unbelievably stubborn. Therefore, we have to repeat the same, ABSOLUTELY THE SAME action, without any alterations, no less than 20 – 200 times, and sometimes even more, to explain our goal to our “computer-brain”. Only after this really difficult time of fighting with a stupid and stubborn “computer-brain” does it start to obey us at last. Each of us should be prepared that this fight ALWAYS takes its time; no one can skip this painful process. It is only after this process of repetition of our NEW vision/hearing of the piece that we are working on that we will be able to reach the previous tempo, played WITH A NEW QUALITY in our art that will amaze ourselves and our listeners. There are NO shortcuts on this way.
On many occasions, I performed in such a way where anyone from the audience could approach me and bring me their requests, express opinions, etc. Here I can reveal one small but very interesting secret: For fast-tempo music (like La Campanella, Hungarian Rhapsody, mechanically very difficult etude, waltz or polka), the pianist can get a standing ovation and a lot of “Wows”.
However, it is only slow-tempo music that generates requests for an encore (to repeat the same song again) accompanied with a $50 - $100 bill tip. I never met any exception to this rule. (For some of us musicians this point can be important as well.)
For those pianists who perform music in an ugly way, fast tempo is not a choice but a real necessity, because it is real torture for any audience to listen to their bad music. It is obvious that short torture is much better than long torture. The faster the tempo – the shorter the torture. Therefore, all the bad pianists have to play as fast as they can, and they do it, as we know.
Everyone has to ask him/her self: am I ready to spend so much time and effort just for beauty in my performances when I can easily get high marks in exams or at competitions just for playing fast? The MAJORITY of modern performers and students say: “No! No way,” and play exactly like the others around them play: ugly but fast. As a result, they can hang diplomas and certificates on the wall above their piano, they and their relatives can be proud of these deceptive pieces of paper, but they will never be really happy with their own music and will never touch the hearts of their audiences.
"Speed above the all" is a very wrong but a very popular idea nowadays. Speed, however, without proper intensity, hides much of the beauty in music. This lack of emphasis on beauty is the biggest problem of modern musical performing and education. This lack of emphasis on beauty is what is contributing to the high drop-out rates of people taking music lessons, and the ever diminishing audiences for classical music today.
Poll
Topic: The biggest problem of modern musical performing and education (Read 3832 times)