Speed

Got home last night drunk and cranky.

I slept for a couple hours and woke to Bach's Two Part Inventions speeding through my mind. In particular, one of Glenn Gould's recordings where he flew through them at such a pace that I was actually stressed out listening. I remember after listening to that particular rendition, I practiced them at that same breakneck tempo and when my piano teacher heard me, her comment to me was: "Why are you trying to get them over with so quickly? It won't make the lesson end any sooner."

But I digress.

When I woke up a few hours ago, I played them. Started nice and slow, then sped up, then sped up some more, then sped up a lot more.

I remember what made me cranky. But for the life of me, I can't figure out WHY it did so. When others are inexplicably cranky, I assume that there is another, perhaps completely unrelated, explanation for it. I could spend time trying to figure out that underlying reason for myself. Or I could just go back to playing Bach WAY too fast and lose myself in speed.

On Memory

Certain abilities, when it comes to music, might seem almost magical, especially to those who appreciate and covet them.

Perfect pitch, for one.

I don't have the best ear. But with years of training and excruciating effort, my relative pitch became almost... ok. I did well enough in my ear training classes, but that had very little to do with my ear, and almost everything to do with my understanding of music theory - because theory is something readily memorized and learned.

The typical exercise in my ear-training classes was this: our professor would play a short (no more than 8 measures) piece with four distinct lines. For my benefit (since I was the only person in the class without perfect pitch), he would tell us the key that it was in. And then our assignment would be write it all down. He'd play on the piano it four times, ostensibly so that we could focus on listening to each line at a time.

For my classmates, this was the easiest thing in the world. They didn't need to be told what key it was in. They KNEW all the pitches. It was as if someone had just read a short sentence to them in their native language and they jotted it down.

For me, it was as if someone read something in a language I had just started learning. Some of the words I recognized, but many, I didn't. But while my vocabulary was awful, I understood the grammatical rules. So I'd piece it together by what I knew of the grammar... For example, in Japanese, sentences are anchored by the verbs, so I knew that the end of every phrase was most likely a verb. I knew where the adjectives should sit in relation to the nouns. If I heard the word "if," then I knew to use the subjunctive form of the verb. I usually understood enough of the words, here and there, to figure out the meaning of the sentence. So what I produced was grammatically correct, contextually correct, but generally not a perfect transcription. And it would always take me the entirety of the hour-long class to work my way through the assignment - in contrast to my classmates who spent 45 minutes chatting with each other and looking at me fondly because it was due to my slowness that they got their free time.

But what my classmates could do - that always astonished me. As if suddenly they could suddenly sprout wings and fly.

So I tried to understand it. I did enough testing to learn that "perfect" pitch is not always equally perfect. A few of my classmates were extraordinary, they heard and recognized the pitches in car horns, in taps on a wall, in the clinking of glasses, and I tested and verified this independently. Others were limited to overtly musical notes. Others still were limited to the range of notes produced by the instrument(s) they played.

And I questioned them about WHEN they "discovered" their perfect pitch.

And this is what I realized: perfect pitch is memory. They REMEMBER the pitch in a sound and as soon as they learned to associate that particular pitch with middle C, for example, then they KNEW it, and could REMEMBER. It's the same kind of memory that allows the rest of us to recognize a voice. It's not different in kind, only degree.

But while perfect pitch is intimately intertwined with memory, it needs an association, to put it into context. Which I suppose all memory does.

Like perfect pitch, and related to perfect pitch (although not necessarily requiring it), is the ability to play something by ear.

"Playing it by ear" is advice that I both give and receive from time to time. Problem is, I'm horrible at it.

What does it mean, exactly, to play something by ear? Well, at the simplest level, to play without the written sheet music. It requires confidence, knowledge, memory, imagination. I'm not talking about listening to a piece once and then flawlessly replicating it. I'm talking about starting to play something, perhaps with only the beginning of a chord progression, or a snippet of a melody, where you don't know how it will develop, whether it will modulate into a different key, or how it will end. That requires a certain flexibility and a willingness to let things develop at its own pace, its own rhythm, its own melody and harmony.

For most of my life, my preference for and skill in following a plan has generally worked for me, except, of course, when it completely didn't. And so the thought of playing ANYTHING by ear, is more than a little distasteful and even frightening.

But I tell myself, that just as perfect pitch is really just a manifestation of better memory, not different memory, playing it by ear represents greater uncertainty, not a new, absolute uncertainty.

And that sometimes, when the outcome is important to you, you can't try to control it.

Now that's not a novel sentiment. The cliches are plentiful. But rather than quote from Sting's "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free," I'll look to Bach. Because while Bach is famous for the mathematical precision of his work, it is easy to forget that back in the day, Bach was known as a world class improviser. He was the Charlie Parker, the Miles Davis of the 18th Century. It's just that his in-the-moment improvisations have been meticulously transcribed, allowing the rest of us try to recreate at least the playing of it. Of course, codifying that kind of magic diminishes it.  And I know I spent much of this post discussing that it isn't actually magic.  But when it's done right, doesn't it seem to be?  Especially when you remember how it all started, and most especially, when you know you can't ever fully recreate it. 

Nothing But The Music

I remember thinking recently that I got through my tumultuous teen and pre-teen years by playing the piano.

No need for a therapist, no need to act out in potentially destructive ways, not when you can empty yourself of everything difficult through your fingertips.

Some composers are better than others for that. Chopin, Schubert, and some Beethoven, are marvelous for their cathartic effect - you can overplay them when alone, without fear of criticism from one's piano teacher, and be self indulgently self-pitying or angry, playing yourself into every note, and feel better afterwards.

But Bach is what I played when things seemed so bad that the thought of catharsis was dreadful and unbearably naked, when the last thing I wanted to do was play myself into the music. Because Bach was always... wholly Bach.

I placed an Amazon.com order last Friday and received it today. I am on page 67 of my newly acquired copy of Madeleine L'Engle's The Small Rain and just read this:

Katherine looked down at the keyboard. "Mother said when you were unhappy or confused, Bach was the person to play. With almost everybody else you can think, but with Bach there's nothing but the music. It's true, you know."

"Yes, I know," Tom said. He stood leaning on the piano. Twice he seemed about to speak; then he waved his arms a little, helplessly, and wandered out.

The best writers can do that - magically pull out something important, and mostly forgotten, from your own experience, phrase it far better than you could have possibly done so yourself, and remind you of it.

Playing Mozart

My guitar lessons are going well, I am progressing by leaps and bounds.

After 2 months of lessons, I am now working an a Carcassi Etude which I will perform in a student recital in the beginning of April.

But, as I predicted for myself, I am now at the stage where I am acutely aware that my "musicality," which has been very expensively developed by years of classical musical training, is vastly NOT matched by my technical ability on the guitar.

I know how the piece SHOULD be played. But I have to accept that in the next couple weeks, the most I can achieve is producing a clean performance - all the correct notes, no incorrect ones, and, more or less, in the appropriate tempo. But a clean performance is hardly a GOOD performance.

This has made me think of when I studied piano. My piano teacher introduced certain pieces to me when she judged that I had sufficient technical ability, and had me revisit them at regular intervals. She had me first play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata when I was 11. I worked on the piece and was eventually able to produce a clean version of it. But it was only as practice, never for performance.

She had me revisit it at 13 and I performed it then.

At 16, I worked on it again. And although it was indisputable that I was a far more capable pianist at that point, with greater technical proficiency and deeper emotional expressiveness, my teacher's reply when I asked if I would perform it was: "Let me think about that. No." I think if she had been less measured in her response, she would have phrased it differently, "Hell no."

The bottom line was that I was a near prodigy when I was younger, but I peaked at 12, and while I kept progressing, the rate of that progress had slowed measurably, and by 16, I was merely average when compared to the pool of young pianists who were my peers.

In my last few years studying piano, I focused almost exclusively on practicing and performing Bach and Chopin - two vastly different composers. I was most proficient at Bach. His almost mathematical precision lent itself well to my strengths and my performances of Bach were not only clean, but also GOOD. But I enjoyed playing Chopin (and Schubert) much more - and I performed those pieces with a certain romantic, over-the-top quality which played well with audiences. I NEVER played or performed Mozart. Mozart requires all the technical precision of Bach, but also an ability to emote with restraint and delicacy. And restraint and delicacy have never been my strong suits.

Every year, my piano teacher would have all of her students perform in her student recital, and the final performance of the recital was always reserved for her best student. I was not her best student. There was another girl who had far better pedal work than I. SHE was able to play Mozart beautifully. But I held that coveted final position for years. Why? My teacher phrased it this way: "She's better than you are. But you ham it up. I can't let anyone follow you. It's not good, I don't like it, but what can I do?"

With my current guitar playing sparking this self-indulgent walk down memory lane, it has occurred to me that perhaps I need to do the life equivalent of learning to play Mozart.

But first, I will play Carcassi at this student recital, hamming it up for JF, DP, JD, et al, in the audience - JF in particular has promised to shriek wildly and pull out his hair and maybe even pee a little, no matter what I end up doing on stage, even (or especially) if it involves ping pong balls.

Shhh....

My guitar teacher played a Bach Gavotte for me today. We all know what that means... I started getting all tingly.

MG is perplexed by this thing I have for Bach - she asked me, "Bach is so mathematical, what about Debussy, or even Satie?" I don't understand it either. Perhaps it's because I'm Asian and therefore find math sexy? I did have a little crush on my algebra teacher back in the day...

Well anyway, my guitar teacher believes I am a musical genius, and is awed by my near "magical" ability to instantly master both technique and music theory, often before he has completed the explanation.

I may have neglected to mention 5 years of music school and 12 years of piano lessons and the teensy little fact that I learned to read music before words.

Let's keep that between us.

He Got Rhythm

I was looking for my childhood copy of Wind in the Willows so I could visit with it awhile, when I found Riddley Walker, instead.

It was assigned to us in 11th grade English class. And I don't mind admitting that I had absolutely no understanding of what its deeper meanings might be. On the most superficial level, it's a "coming of age" story set in post-nuclear-holocaust England, where mankind has regressed to an almost primitive, semi-literate state. Huck Finn merged with Holden Caulfield meets Mad Max.

Russell Hoban invented a new language for this book. Perhaps that's what threw me when I was trying to read it at 15, but to be honest, it still throws me now. But that's also the thing I like best about it. You have to read it aloud. You have to read it slow. It's the rhythm which is absolutely infectious - and Hoban maintains the beat of it throughout the entire book.

Hear it for yourself, read it aloud:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Makes me rethink what constitutes good writing. Throw out what's "trivial", focus solely on poetry and rhythm. It's like a jazz riff... where certain fundamental rules are followed, but others are broken. And it leaves me in awe and envy. I suppose this is one reason I have such a thing for Bach - I feel comfortable with rules and precision and established patterns. But that doesn't stop me being overwhelmed with admiration for those who can improvise.

And Riddley has his own explanation for why he writes:

Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we dont know what it is. What a way to live. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.

Perhaps this means I shouldn't be so hard on boys who can't spell? I will consider it.

Imperfection

Still thinking of music school, so I sat down at my piano today and painfully worked my way through pieces I had played effortlessly when I was nine. Oddly enough, I was feeling frustration and enjoyment - odd, because I usually derive pleasure from my own sense of competence. But this was all about acceptance of compromise - and that reminded me of something I had learned in theory class...

The piano as we know it is a relatively new thing. The tuning, or temperament, wasn't always the way it is now. Often, the tuning was maximized for music written only in a certain musical key.

This is the issue: perfect intonation cannot be achieved for all the notes on a keyboard. Musicians, bear with me, or skip ahead. If you have a piano or a guitar, try this: bang/pluck on a key/string. The note will sound, and as it begins to fade away, you'll hear the overtones, different notes that are fainter and higher in pitch. (Rather like the dry-down of a perfume, but in reverse). For simplicity's sake, those other notes you are hearing create consonant (nice sounding) intervals with your original note you just banged or plucked.

However, on a piano keyboard, there is no way of tuning the twelve pitches so that every consonant interval is "just" or "perfect." If you were to try, you would not return to where you started, which is what you need to do every 12th note (except one perfect octave higher).

And if you were to try, you would end up with an instrument on which you could play music only in a certain key - which is NOT the wonderfully versatile piano that we all know and love today.

So to make the piano what it is today, almost every note is slightly "bent", ever so slightly out of tune, tempered.

Bach's Well Tempered Clavier is a collection of piano pieces, each written in a different key, demonstrating the ability of a single instrument, in tempered tuning, to play in ALL 24 keys.

I like to think of it as the celebration of something not often celebrated: the beauty of imperfection.

The More Things Change...

The summer after I graduated from college, I visited my old music school. Feeling terribly grown-up and worldly, I wanted to revisit a place of my Youth And Innocence.

I went to the fifth floor and walked down the hallway to pause at the spot where I had thrown up after having eaten a bad hamburger.

I went to the third floor and sat outside the practice room where a boy had tried (quite nearly successfully) to woo me by humming Bach's Piano Concerto in D Minor in my ear.

I went to the cafeteria to sit at the table where we had gotten drunk one lunch-time on some cheap wine someone had smuggled in.

I walked by the sofa on which JL had cried and cried her heart out upon learning that Simon Le Bon got married.

I left my music school that day feeling quite smug that I was so much more sophisticated and mature than I had been as a child.

One day soon I'd like to go back and do that tour again. But I suspect that this time I'll walk away with the realization that I haven't changed at all.