I like how we change our studio teacher every semester because then I get to learn from different teaching styles. Sometimes, teaching is like chemistry... or cooking. You have to know the ingredients!
I've got some exciting piano pieces to work on this semester, which include two Messiaen's ---- "Gaze of the Star" from "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus", 2nd Prelude - "Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste" and Bach's 4th Partita! I am so excited because I have always loved Messiaen's piano music, but never quite had the gut to try it out! ---- and, Bach's Partita!
I like how we change our studio teacher every semester because then I get to learn from different teaching styles. Sometimes, teaching is like chemistry... or cooking. You have to know the ingredients!
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I've been seeing some very crappy conductings on TV lately. I mean... weird gestures are totally fine, but non-intentional repetition of meaningless weird gestures means bad conducting to me, totally...
# I was working on the page right before the coda in Chopin's fourth Ballade. Seriously, the TV is kinda scary... I really just want to play piano every day, but I have to go to Guangzhou again tomorrow, not that I don't wanna see grandmum... I love my grandmum.
I am keeping myself occupied as much as I can, so that I feel I am very much alive. I am playing this Chopin Ballade madly, but my playing doesn't have a soul. It's loud, messy... I hear no musicianship in me. so empty. there's nothing. I want to feel pain, but I feel nothing. Okay, maybe I shouldn't play. I feel like I am insulting Chopin and whoever can play this piece... # Maybe I became a composer because I fear to be alone. I have my music. I remember, a few years ago, a professor (not my applied instructor) told me that he hears no musicianship in a piece of mine. I believe it is the worst thing possible to say to a composer. Really, you can say how bad my piece is, be it technical, musical... I am even happy if you hate my music, because I have successfully triggered an emotion in you and that we have communicated with each other successfully... But, he completely denied any musicality in my music. Why then, should this piece, exist? It was also the first time I started to think, why should I be a composer? Am I necessary? Who needs me?
I started to realize that, besides loving music, I have continued to be a musician because I need to prove that I am a necessary existence. This is the same reason why I do photography. I have something to say, and I need an audience, even if there is only one --- even if I am only necessary to one person in this whole world, I am happy. But, maybe it doesn't matter anymore... as long as my music needs me, and I need music. I went to do a mini surgery on my left toe today; I guess I needa stay home for a few days... # More practicing... Here is a video of Zimmerman's old recording of Chopin's fourth Ballade. It remains one of my favorite interpretations of this piece. It is very structured and well thought out yet free and expressive. I believe this is the best piece Chopin wrote - it has everything - Nocturne, Barcarolle, Waltz, Mazurka and a crazy coda... Sometimes, it is frustrating to watch him play, haha... It is just impossibly clean. # I usually don't practice piano to perform. I never performed Chopin's first ballade (except for an audition) among many other pieces. Practicing piano has become something that I do purely for myself ----- it's great. I don't really plan to perform this fourth ballade when I am done, either... I just enjoy playing on my own. Maybe sometimes, I'll play some chamber music again. I am sort of hesitated to start the coda... I think I have spent most of my life waiting... Most of the time, I don't know what I am waiting for.
# Zimmerman's recital is coming up on June 23rd in Hong Kong. It is hard to find a friend who wants to go. Come on, it's Chopin, it's very easy to "understand"! All it takes is just to listen, for once in your life? Okay, I'll buy ticket? I can talk about these topics forever... anyways, many people want to hear beautiful music. Does art have to express only beauty? People can easily accept avant-garde paintings, movies, novels, but why not music. Let's see what W. H. Auden had to say:
"The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. Thus, average listener prefers concerts confined to works by old masters and it is only the highbrow who is willing to listen to new works, but the average reader wants the latest book and it is the classics of the past which are left to the highbrow." ----- W. H. Auden It's the laziness. How often do you really listen to a piece of music? Really, I think commercial music has corrupted our sense of listening. Nowadays music lacks harmonic content, dynamic (due to the invention of the compressor, which shall go into my future blog post about mixing/mastering...), rhythmic variety, timbre/color, etc... Many people look for only a nice and loud melody so that they can sing along, and call it expression... When they listen to a Mahler symphony, get overwhelmed, and thus they shut off their ears. Remember, art is about expression and communication... Everyone in this world with a pair of ears can understand classical music. I finally finished my "Five Songs of the Von Seggerns"!!! It has taken me exactly four months to write this huge piece with approximately 20 minutes of music; plus, it is almost through-composed because of the nature of the poems. Thanks to Amanda DeBoer who gave me this opportunity!
Now I can finally go into "revising" mode, which is much more relaxing... I think that... I start to sound like Ken Rockwell when I make all these links, hahaha... If you are a photographer and you don't know who he is, you should check him out. He writes about anything he has in mind, and certainly doesn't care what other people think... Carlos Kleiber, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, is really my favorite conductor. Note how he shapes the sound with his baton and his whole body. He doesn't simply beat time; indeed, none of the great conductors beat time. The orchestra reflects every movement Mr. Kleiber does on stage, and vice versa ----- it's a two-way communication thing. A conductor is the spiritual leader of an orchestra or ensemble; at times, he needs to be an educator, "traffic police" (as Ozawa puts it...) and technician, but most of the time, he is a musician who makes music.
By the way, can you count how many circles Mr. kleiber has drawn? Every music teacher tells you that circular motion is the most natural movement you can draw with your body, but it is not the only way to conduct, of course. Try drawing squares and see what kind of sound you get! (okay, it's awkward...) Conducting teachers tell you to move smoothly and gradually like feeling the resistance in water for a legato, bounce at the top of the beats for a staccato, raise or lower your left hand for crescendo and decrescendo... let me tell you, it doesn't matter as long as you can convince the musicians and communicate with them clearly with your gestures. Every conductor is different, just like every pianist is, in their movements, musicality, personalities, relationships to the orchestras ------ every little thing in them affects the SOUND. It is what makes conducting so fun for me. I like to find out what kind of sound I get from interacting with different musicians. One thing though, Carlos Kleiber always seems to lack eye contact. Maybe I am wrong because I never played for him obviously, but he does seem a little zoomed out. He doesn't correspond his eye contact with his baton and his phrasings. In Mr. Kleiber's conducting, the sound of the full orchestra is shaped simultanously, while some other conductors cue and pick on every little details. So, which conductor lacks eye contact? Check out Karajan, who closes his eyes all the time, even in rehearsals. If you want to see what real eye contact is, check out Fritz Reiner; he stares at you mostly... This is the best recording I could find of Brahms' fourth symphony ---- I prefer it than the one he did with the Vienna Phil. To some extents it's because of the video. I think music can be seen. That's why we go to performances! I have been playing with this web site for the whole afternoon. It still looks very empty - I'll continue to add stuff...
...and because of that, I didn't practice or compose today ------ NOT GOOD... I am hoping to finish my third song of "Five Songs of the Von Seggerns" soon ----- and also my Chopin Ballade that has taken me almost a year... |
Patrick Chan
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