Ravel on You Tube

I've been watching, or listening to, a number of You Tube videos of classical music performances over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes I've just listened while I'm doing something else on the computer; other times I've sat and watched the video, distracted from doing anything else altogether. 

I hadn't realised just how much music was available for one thing, though I'd known that just about any piece of music you wanted to hear, or see performed, can be found on You Tube these days. Which is extraordinary in itself. 

Tonight I've just watched a performance of Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. It was played by Hélène Tysman with the Orchestra of the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar under Professor Nicolás Pasquet. 

Tysman gives a stunning performance, all the more so because concertos for the left hand are notoriously difficult, requiring the pianist to balance their body in a way that's quite different to normal, keeping an intense focus on just one hand, the very hand that in many pianists is slightly weaker than the other. The pianist is required to play, in this concerto anyway, right up to the upper register of the keyboard, which means leaning far to the right, maintaining the balance, and working across the body at the same time. It’s an achievement and a half to do it.

And there are some extremely difficult things to do in this piece: rapid octave passages, great thundering bass notes hit from a distance, intricate fast moving sections that have to be entirely encompassed under one hand. It's not a piece I'll be tackling any time soon...

I always wonder what a pianist practicing such a piece does with the right hand. There are no concertos purely for the right hand, so they can’t learn two different concertos at once, and obviously a professional pianist can’t let the right hand languish for weeks while the left hand does all the work. I’d be interested to know.

There’s an interesting comment part the way down the page relating to the video: Can people not look like they're bored during the entire performance! This is honestly an impeccable performance. I would be in awe if I got to play in an orchestra next to her. [I've corrected several errors in this comment for readability.]

The person commenting isn’t talking about the audience, but about the orchestral musicians. I personally didn’t think they look bored, although there seemed to be some odd grins and facial expressions at times, as though one or two were giving a nod to musicians in other parts of the orchestra. This isn’t entirely professional, but I guess these are students, so they might be given some leeway.

The young men’s dress sense could have been smartened up, however: several of them have their collars undone and their ties hanging loose. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but I’m sure once they join a full-time orchestra such things won’t be allowed.

However, one more word on the boredom factor. I remember going to see New Zealand’s own Symphony Orchestra last year, and was quite surprised, as we waited for the concert to start, to see the violinists, who were the ones I could see most clearly, sitting there with faces that could have expressed anything from ‘not this piece again’ to ‘what an unpleasant-looking audience; I wonder if they have a musical bone between them.’

I don’t say that that’s what they were thinking, but they seemed very unfriendly, somehow. And at the end of the concert this same expression came over them, in spite of tumultuous applause. Curious.

Practising the piano

I have this distant memory of reading (or hearing) about Beethoven and practice and that his idea was that you shouldn't practise stuff that was there just for the sake of practicing, you should practice with 'real' music. I'm probably paraphrasing it all wrong, and it might not have been Beethoven (!), but anyway, I've just begun reading the biography of Mike Nock that's come out, and on page 201 it says this:

Regular practise and playing was how Nock developed his facility and touch on the piano, and regular practise was something he had done since he first began playing: "You need to practise a lot so that your hands will work. It's a certain mania - music is a mean mistress..." Nock's piano practise was focussed on music-making rather than facility for its own sake however, and his days of playing Hanon and Czerny were long past:
"The whole purpose of practising is to expand. Scales are a waste of time, which is why I say each pianist has to come up with his or her own exercises. Why should you play through Hanon? Playing stuff like that has a certain value, but it is also very negative in that you are not playing music. At least if you play some challenging patterns or licks of your own, you might be using these in your music. There are people who do use Hanon when they play jazz, but they sound like they do. I never do more than a few minutes of technical exercises."

Now I'd agree that scales after you reach a certain level of attainment are probably a waste of time, but in the intial stages of learning to play, they're valuable. In later years, the work put into them means that your hands naturally follow certain paths without your brain having to think it through all the time.

On the other hand, I know what he's saying about Hanon and Czerny. Their exercises are mind-numblingly boring; they take a movement on the keyboard and hammer it to death up and down the scale. Instead of making their exercises interesting, which they could well have done, they went for the most obvious approach, and have probably put off more young pianists than any other composers. And what are they both remembered for now? Being the writers of tedious exercises; any other achievement they may have made are forgotten (for instance, the fact that Czerny published at least a 1000 works for all kinds of instruments).

The book about Mike Nock is called, Serious Fun: the life and music of Mike Nock. It's written by Norman Meehan, who's also a pianist and composer.

Peter Bregman, iPad and addiction

I've quoted Peter Bregman's articles before - mostly on the Mission Resource blog that I also write. I like his self-deprecating humour, and his good sense. I'm not going to quote him this time, just tell you that you need to read the article entitled, 'Why I returned my iPad'.

Why do I think you need to read it? Because in it he tells us what the value of returning the iPad was as opposed to keeping it. He doesn't say there's anything wrong with the iPad itself, but there was something wrong with him.

Substitute 'iPad' for any one of a hundred other addictive things, and you get the idea.

By the way, his use of 'boredom' might be questioned, and is questioned by some of those who comment. A better word might be found....

And some of the very negative comments show that there's a need for this way of thinking. They're far more vicious than anything else I've seen on the Harvard Business site

Addiction....and sin

In one of those I-wonder-what-that-site-is moments I took a look at a site on Drug Rehabilitation On their ‘aftercare’ page they give an interesting list of ‘relapse dangers’ that rehabilitated people need to watch out for.

Here’s the list:
1. Being exposed or having drugs and alcohol available.
2. Negative feelings.
3. Celebrations
4. Feeling or experiencing boredom.
5. Using a similar substance that reminds you of the old "high"
6. Physical pain or physical injury.
7. Remembering the "good ol days".
8. Having too much money.
9. Abusing prescription drugs.
10. Believing you are now "cured" and thus safe from addictions.

Interesting how several of these are also relapse danger points when it comes to sin! Being exposed to the sin that ‘always gets you’ and having negative feelings about life are both points of temptation, as are times of celebration (where the celebration is of the kind that leans towards sin rather than one of those fun parties where sin isn’t brought in).

Feeling bored, or flirting with something that reminds you of sins you’re trying to avoid are both dangerous. Remembering how ‘good’ the sin was (if that’s not too ironic an idea). Having too much money – as I said in another article recently, ‘retail therapy’ is a lie straight from the pit. And finally, believing you’re okay and can’t be tempted any more.

We don’t tend to call addicted people ‘sinners’ for the most part. There’s often an element in their makeup that’s given them a leaning towards the addiction. But not always. Some addictions just start out as straight rebelliousness, or even greed, both of which are sinful in themselves. It’s no surprise that AA meetings are often held in church halls and crypts. The whole AA concept is one that calls sin, sin, without somehow managing to use the word, and it often seems to lean towards its roots in the church.

Just getting back to the 4rehabilitation.com site for a moment, I thought this site focused on a particular centre, but in fact it’s a referral service. I notice on aftercare page they talk about an interesting offer some rehab facilities have available. If a person does relapse within six months, they can apply for re-admittance to the facility for free. Some perpetual sinners could do with the same ‘peace of mind’ service!

Henry James

'The fact is I've been comfortable so many years that I suppose I've got so used to it I don't know it."

"Yes, that's the bore of comfort, " said Lord Warburton. "We only know when we're uncomfortable."

From chapter one of The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James.