On the subject of Chopsticks, martle, wondered if you'd seen the following, by Scott Burnham?

'Everyone in this room has probably either heard or performed the piano classic popularly known as "Chopsticks." Here's a question for you then: Why is Chopsticks so fun to play? And here are a few answers. Let's start with one that does not involve a close reading of "the music itself". For instance, let's start with the title and its implications. Guess what: the fun we have with Chopsticks is not as innocent as we might have imagined. The title perhaps implies that the piece could be played with chopsticks, that its blankly primitive repetitions are to be associated with what a Westerner might ethnocentrically think of as blankly primitive tableware. And thus a seemingly innocuous bit of piano play could be interpreted as invoking anti-Asian prejudices so thoroughly ingrained in our American culture that they are imbibed in the very first organized polyphony we generally learn to produce on the piano. An investigation of Chopsticks in this vein would reveal sinister forces pulling at our fingers, making sure we in fact enjoy the work of stereotype and subjugation, such that it becomes a form of play... We could then broaden the context of this interpretation by playing figuratively on the fundamental black-and-whiteness of the keyboard, invoking the degraded histories of ivory and slavery, latent horrors waiting to be uncovered in the family piano. Remember, for instance, that Chopsticks stays on the white keys and celebrates (enforces?) Western diatonic tonality, while that old pentatonic ditty--rival to Chopsticks among the piano's young proteges--is primitively played with a rolling fist on the black keys. (And this is all in a day's work at the old piano, sounding board of upper middle class American family values...)

But this sort of a reading, which in more capable hands than my own might indeed become a soaringly imaginative reading of Chopsticks and the cultural matrix that sustains it (I'm imagining something like a Friedrich Kittler treatment of this...), will probably not satisfy a "music theorist," however much it might engage a "Theorist" with a capital T (i.e a critical Theorist). It has been said of music theorists that when given the cue to dance to this newer, headier capital-T theory, they will more than likely beg off. If we are going to understand these "wallflowers" and how they too might be understood as dancers, we need to try on another answer to our question about Chopsticks.

So here's another kind of answer. Why is it so fun to play Chopsticks? Because we get to perform a fundamentally satisfying procedure of tonal music: we get to produce a dissonant sound and then resolve it to a consonant sound. More specifically, we perform an unprepared version of the 2-3 suspension, the so-called bass suspension, so called, in fact, because the bass itself is compelled to resolve. This is a particularly vivid suspension, and at the keyboard we itch to resolve it, to feel it. In the same way, many musicians' hands will twitch at an imaginary keyboard when they are thinking about musical processes. There is a distinctly tangible mind-body connection here--I would go so far as to claim that it can be a source of pleasure to demonstrate theoretical prototypes such as suspensions. (Think of the zeal with which many theorists bang out examples on the piano--and I have even heard [and used] the dismissive phrase "He plays like a theorist.")'

(full article at http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.96.2.2/mto.96.2.2.burnham.html )

Calum, if your daughter is entering a competition and looking for a piece written after 1970, it may be prudent to accommodate both her abilities and interests. Is she after something which sounds "modernist" (forgive the cliche) or something more consonant ? Does she have "good rhythm", an interest in pianistic colour, or love playing fast octaves or grinding dissonances ? etc, etc. The field is so vast . . .

The mother of a student has a daughter who takes Suzuki method violin and apparently they have to walk up and down the bow as spiders without dropping it. They need very soft wrists in playing violin (the right hand).
I was also told that the fingers have to be like shock absorbers, very flexible. I find it is very helpful for piano too.
The piano can take more abuse than a violin. The violin becomes scratchy right away, but on the piano one can get away with much more (up to a point and for a while).


Also it seems the idea of walking like in a deep water when one has to feel for the bottom and be careful not to step in a dip is from Russian school because noone here wants to comments. Fingers supposed to walk freely and the weight (if I may say so because it is misleading) is on each individual one and behind it. This kind of touch is good for slow cantilena (Chopin). Also the idea that sharper sound comes when one plays closer to the nail. Further from the nail and even flat fingers give you more singing, but not so sharp sound.

The analogy with the bow does not hold in all respects: the bow is in direct contact with the strings of the violin, whereas on the piano the action is indirect. The finger presses the key, which sets the hammer into motion. By the time the hammer hits the string, it is no longer in contact with the key; the only parameter that can be affected, for a single note, is the speed at which that hammer hits the string (acceleration can no longer be affected by this stage, as there is no longer any force acting upon the key other than the downwards force of gravity). Thus in this sense, for a single note, there is no way of altering the timbre without also occasioning a shift in dynamics. As put in the excellent chapter 'Burnished Singing Tone' in Glenn Payzant - Glenn Gould: Music and Mind, 'It does not matter whether a key is depressed by the finger of Arthur Rubinstein or by the tip of his umbrella: only one variable is controlled by the piano key and the manner in which it is depressed, and that is the velocity of the hammer at the instant it strikes the string' (p. 115).

For a single note without pedal, then, it would seem that it is impossible to vary the 'tone' - this can only be done by voicing in chords, by the use of the pedals, by approaches to legato and phrasing, and so on. Or is this the case? Here does seem as appropriate a place as any to continue on one of my own hobby-horses to do with timbre on the piano. What Payzant draws attention to in this chapter, very rightly, is the fact that actually the ear hears a composite sound - the hammer hitting the string and the finger striking the key. This latter element may seem insignficant, but it is not. In Sylvano Bussotti's Pour Clavier, there is a section played almost exclusively on the surface of the keys, without actual notes sounding except in a few places. It is striking quite how prominent this sound is when it is isolated in such a manner. The ear merges the two sounds into one. When the key is approached other than from a perpendicular angle by the finger, there is a horizontal component to the striking which is absorbed by the key rather than contributing to its downwards trajectory - this produces varying degrees of 'key noise'. So also does a perpendicular attack from a distance above the key. A sharp throwing staccato in this manner produces a more pointed attack than striking from closer to, or in contact with, the key. Some schools of piano playing, perhaps without realising how or why, strive to eliminate 'key noise' as far as possible and always produce a more rounded attack (dare I suggest this is true of quite a few Russian schools, where the 'throwing' action I describe is often strictly forbidden - one Russian pianist I have worked with informed me of how this was a very strict 'no-no' in the various schools of teaching with which he was familiar). Personally, I think key noise can be used productively and expressively when understood and controlled.

This has been an interest of mine for some time, sometimes programming together works of Bussotti, Lachenmann, N.A. Huber, Sciarrino and others which foreground this aspect. Other composers, including Aaron Cassidy and Richard Barrett, both of who post here, have incorporated this parameter into compositions (perhaps they would like to comment further?); others including Richard Emsley and Ross Lorraine have also done so in pieces written for me.

It is, or can be, many things. In the example below, from Debussy's Prelude Canope, the pedal is presumably held in the first bar to sustain the D7 harmony in the bass, but the repeated C#s are to be played staccato. In terms of release alone, staccato is meaningless with the pedal depressed (as the dampers do not fall) - it is through a different mode of attack (which, yes, is a little more percussive, or at least pointed, than that for the legato pitches) that produces that variety in timbre. Same is true for the staccato Bb in the third bar, so it can contrast with the slurred Bb-A that follows. These distinctions, I would argue, are produced by subtle gauging of key noise.




Yes, because motions of the wrist and arm enable notes to be grouped together, upward motions of both retarding the descent of the dampers, causing less abrupt endings to the notes so they blend into one another more readily, akin to playing a group in 'one bow'.


Not everything, but the approach to key noise affects the different colours. And different pianists do this (perhaps without realising) in different ways.


I would say that in large measure that has to do with the approach to voicing, balancing of chords, playing out or otherwise of inner parts, etc. as well as the degree of key noise involved for large sonorities. A large sonority with little key noise (such as might be produced from very close to the keys) is what produces what we call a 'big sound', one that has much body without so much attack. It's not really about the weight of arms or shape of fingers, more about how one uses them. There are many players of short stature who can produce huge sounds, and many thick-set pianists who can produce the most delicate and wispy of sonorities.


Hmmm - I think the explanation is rather more down-to-earth than that. If one 'caresses' the keys, then simply one is likely to get less key noise.


Well, I think some of that is more in the mind of the player, to do with the tactile response they get in their nerve-endings upon contact with the keys. The degree of resilience or flexibility in the joints is what affects how the impact is transferred to the key.


Agreed in essence, though in plenty of music I don't necessarily think the 'noise' is a bad thing, if used intelligently. Music doesn't always have to be warm and rounded, it can also be harsher, more pointed, and much else.

What suggested by Associated Board is usually very good. I use them a lot. This board attracts good professionals in the field and their suggestions are very good and very helpfull for students and teachers alike.

I don't have this particular Kabalevsky sonata in front of me. I am looking at his easy variations op 40 at the moment to see what kind of tecture and difficulties one can encounter.
On the whole Kabalevsky is very good for young students. He loved children and loved to write for them.
Sometimes he has chordal passages, but they are usually very comfortable for the hand.  The character is usually straight forward.
I am sure your daughter has a good guidance from her teachers.
Attending master classes can be very helpful, it also can be confusing (if one is not mature). But it is very good idea to go to as many as possible and see other people's ideas. I am learning from each student and from people on this board and from books, from my partners in playing.

Teaching piano is different than playing it. One has to be a good psychologist and get alone with children. I played better with teachers that were supportive and thought (told me) I was good.
My first teacher adored me. She thought I was professional material. I was the best player in music school.
My very first teacher when I was 6 was too critical. I did not learn much from her. The second teacher after her just let me play and thought I was fantastic. I played badly technically, but was very advanced in the  pieces I played. The teacher I call my first was a music school teacher. She had to change my technique which I hated. I could not understand what she wanted, but was afraid to ask. However I played well for her (I never practiced much and did not think I wanted to be a musician.

With a student one has to think fast, technical things has to be kept to a minimum. One has to sort in one's head what is important and what can be passed by. Students don't have a patience to listen to much explanation. Everything should be consized and kept to a point. Later that cruedly done thing could be improved upon either by the student of the next teacher.
When students are older then can take more, but even a little ones have personality and can not be fooled into doing something they don't want to do (Play pieces they don't like). They either like it or they don't and it can be influenced, but little (at first up until they they are older. Teenagers are influenced by their own friends. Later they begin to adopt to life and play pieces they don't like and they become different.
However, non professionally inclined students will not be persuaded to play piece they don't like (or even listen to what they don't like).

My students are non professional variaty (so far) here. They need enthusiasm and not to be bored.

t-p's 52 and Ian's 53 reminded of one of the joys of learning an instrument - that there are so many ways to learn.

The thing that struck me was that Ian's 53 is about the mechanics of production and what goes on at the boundary of human and instrument.  t-p's is a much 'inner' way of thinking that will influence the way the player interacts with the instrument.

I can probably describe it best with a description of how I was re-taught to play the violin.  My teacher described the basic bow stroke as the string being pressed firmly to the string and that the movement was given by imagining cog wheels either side of the bow at the point where it touched the string guiding the bow up and down.  It made an immediate difference - a stronger more consistent tone - but the thing that struck me was that I had to learn no new muscle movements at all, and that I didn't have to think about what my hand and arm were doing.  I guess I had to at some stage (the reply 53 method), but a great bit of learning was gained by 'fooling' myself (the 52 method).

Probably one for a teaching or violn thread - please excuse the intrusion.

Tommo

Images are very powerful tools to help understand the piece and the sound that is required.

I was thinking about the tembre. It is strange with the piano. The instrument is so "objective" with keys and machinery so to say. Yet different pianists get different sound and effect from it.
One can make piano sound brighter, darker, even sharper. We are working with illusions.
But images has to be helpful. For years I thought that piano is an orchestra. It lead me to force sound too much. One can not really expect the piano to sound like an orchestra. It is just helpful to compare it to one.
Now practicing Weber Duo I find it helpful to think about clarinet playing the staccato notes for my playing double thirds. In general thinking about Weber Oevertures (bassoon sounds) is very helpful.

One can change tembre of the sound when playing like a violin or like a trumpet or even a horn. If one says play as a trumpet fingers immediately become different (muscle tone is different). Image effect our muscle tone.

May be agogic pulling and stressing change the illusion. I don't know what it is, but piano reflect different personalities and approaches as good as the other instruments do.

Tommo, Viola student I played with told me that one of the master class teachers always teaches to hold the bow like if you have a ping pong ball in your hand (make this kind of shape). he is very famous teacher and I don't know if one has to hold the bow the same way all the time.