Eating piano scores

[wkmt]

Maestro J. Rezzuto explores the "anorexic" music way of life the musicians suffer nowadays. His solution: Eating piano scores.

Read the full article here:
https://www.i-am-a-spammer.com/single-post/Eating-piano-scores

[outin]

My cat does that all the time...he especially loves Scriabin...which I have not tasted yet. I'm not a musician, I can buy food

[keypeg]

Maestro J. Rezzuto explores the "anorexic" music way of life the musicians suffer nowadays. His solution: Eating piano scores.

To save the next person time:

The writer talks about the way a working musician, especially a teacher, may no longer have time to get satisfaction out of music himself.  His solution is MEMORIZING music, (not "eating" it, which is simply a title to get people to read the article) because it was his personal experience that memorizing got him to get deeply into the score.  I work with people who get that same depth by truly studying and reading the score.  Their process is just as effective.

Yet the writer does touch on some very important issue for teachers which I have heard expressed many times: So much time is spent teaching, and that teaching by necessity can have mundane elements (I talked to a former teacher who said "I was just so tired of perpetually showing the location of middle C), that it takes away from what caused them to get into music in the first place.

[wkmt]

Thank you Keypeg for your insight.

I'm with W. Mozart on this one, so I guess you will have to approve my thoughts this time

[keypeg]

Thank you Keypeg for your insight.

I'm with W. Mozart on this one, so I guess you will have to approve my thoughts this time

I was confused about this response at first.  Initially I looked for a member calling himself W. Mozart either here or on your site who had written in.  You mean the composer.  Secondly, I wrote two different ideas.  The first was to clarify that the writer did not mean "eating" anything - but "memorizing".  So I thought you were referring to that.  I'm rather sure that Mozart never referred to "eating" music, so I wondered how you could be "with" Mozart on this.  I.e. the clarification that "eating" was not meant - but rather, memorizing.

My second point was that different musicians have different relationships to music, including how they "read" music, what goes into that, and how they experience memorization.  I see your thoughts as reflecting your own experiences and growth and journey.  I don't think that Mozart uttered any opinion about how different musicians relate to music.

I'll express some further thoughts by private message.

[wkmt]

I was confused about this response at first.  Initially I looked for a member calling himself W. Mozart either here or on your site who had written in.  You mean the composer.  Secondly, I wrote two different ideas.  The first was to clarify that the writer did not mean "eating" anything - but "memorizing".  So I thought you were referring to that.  I'm rather sure that Mozart never referred to "eating" music, so I wondered how you could be "with" Mozart on this.  I.e. the clarification that "eating" was not meant - but rather, memorizing.

My second point was that different musicians have different relationships to music, including how they "read" music, what goes into that, and how they experience memorization.  I see your thoughts as reflecting your own experiences and growth and journey.  I don't think that Mozart uttered any opinion about how different musicians relate to music.

I'll express some further thoughts by private message.

Dear Keypeg,
Sorry for the ambiguity.
I'm referring to Wolfgang Hildesheimer's book "Mozart"
In his work, W. H. describes how Mozart says that a piece should be apprehended, like an apple. Meaning that you only control a piece when you know it inside out, without the score.

My English is not exactly superb, but I hope you I was successful in transmitting the concept. 

I'm definitely not comparing myself with Mozart 

Kind Regards,
J. Rezzuto

[lostinidlewonder]

... you only control a piece when you know it inside out, without the score.

What rubbish. Your school obviously is full of teachers with poor reading skills?

[keypeg]

Dear Keypeg,
Sorry for the ambiguity.
I'm referring to Wolfgang Hildesheimer's book "Mozart"
In his work, W. H. describes how Mozart says that a piece should be apprehended, like an apple. Meaning that you only control a piece when you know it inside out, without the score.

Thank you for explaining.  I agree that a piece should be known and controlled inside out.  That is also what I have been taught and and being taught.  But there are different ways of doing that, including with or without a score.  Sometimes there is a weakness in reading - in true ability of reading - which makes that difficult to do with a score, so that memory must be substituted.  You must make room in your thoughts for the fact that there are different people with different experiences among the world of pianists, as well as the world of teachers. 

[j_tour]

How do you improvise without reading the score when you lose your place on the cheat sheet and need to not sound like a knob?

[wkmt]

How do you improvise without reading the score when you lose your place on the cheat sheet and need to not sound like a knob?

I'm afraid this article mainly refers to classical pianist studying classical pieces. The skills of the improvisers are much envied by us, or at least by myself Completely different species and powerful ones indeed. Please do post something on improvisation techniques and we share it. We are always looking forward to read about it