Piano Hero Trailer Enabled

I only just realized that I'd accidentally set the Piano Hero Trailer video as "private" and thus unviewable by pretty much everyone. It has now been let out of the garage and into the blogosphere, so take a look. There are some fumbled notes that drive me crazy every time I watch it, but I am proud of what happens at the end of the video.

Piano Hero Trailer

[UPDATE: Level Three video excerpt now posted.]

I'm not totally proud of my playing here, but we were basically sightreading from a very badly scanned score - at times the notes seemed to be less specific instructions than abstract suggestions about where to throw the fingers. It was exciting, if a bit less fluid than the previous week's Beethoven #1. It was also exciting when I somehow forgot to bring an oboe in just before the recap of the first movement - fortunately, Nathan did a great job of "treading water" while I regained consciousness and, although the return of the big tune wasn't quite arrived at via Mendelssohn's plan, it was a dramatic way to start a recap. I was just relieved that we were still going.

But, none of that is in the video above. The point of these little Piano Hero events is the thrill of the moment, and although I was surprised how much I enjoyed listening to the complete performance, I'd rather not have it preserved in the blogosphere.

You can read more about all this here.

Piano Blogging and the Art of Impossibility

One of the fun things about this Piano Hero experiment has been remembering how satisfying musical performances can be even when they're not completely polished. I might (maybe) even make an argument (possibly) that the lack of polish can enhance a certain kind of enjoyment. For example, if our listeners know we're sightreading and playing on the edge, a noticeable clinker here or there can actually help heighten the tension in a way that makes the listening more exciting. Maybe. We actually had a rather minor complaint yesterday that we looked too at ease while we're playing. This particular listener wanted to see more visible stress - perhaps even hear some muttered curses.

Anyway, I've been reminded of my decision to start piano-blogging last Spring, the idea being that I'd just sit down and record without lots of practicing, editing, fussing, etc. I continue to wish more musicians did this kind of thing, because what better way is there to express one's feelings about a piece than to play it? I kind of stalled after working my way through a little "songs without singers" series, but I think it's time to let my fingers do the talking some more. And, as usual, I'm interested in playing music not originally intended for piano solo.

A continuing benefit of the Piano Hero experience is getting to hear familiar music in a new way. I loved reading Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, but what has stuck with me the most from that book are his discussions of musical imaging, the ways in which we can "hear" music without hearing it. That's a fascinating topic in its own right, what it means to think through a piece internally, but even more complex is the way in which internal musical imaging must play a role in what we actually hear. For example, internal musical imaging makes it possible to anticipate the return of a well-known tune or to recognize a tune in the first place. And, it makes it possible to hear the relatively neutral sound of a piano as a flute, oboe, string section...or, let's say, a solo violin.

I mentioned a few posts back that Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor is just about my favorite piece of music in the history of the world. I love the violin as a solo instrument, but it shouldn't surprise you to know that I'm also intrigued by the harpsichord versions of the violin concerti. Well, maybe not the harpsichord versions, but it's amazing how well the solo violin parts can work on the piano. I also mentioned that I hear the slow movement of this concerto as a sort of "Orpheus Taming the Furies" dialogue. True, the orchestra isn't as gruff as in the famous "Orpheus" movement of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, but there's a stubbornness in Bach's bass ritornello that the solo passages seem intent on melting. The final solo statement is a miracle of sweetness and simplicity, so perfect that there is no concluding ritornello. It's less a victory than it is a unification of opposing forces. Honestly, I can't really put into words what happens in this musical dialogue, so I figured I'd just play it.

There are many compromises at play here. First of all, all those long, suspended notes the violin sings can really only be imagined as sustaining that way in a piano version. Second of all, I didn't have an orchestra available when I slipped into the recital hall early this morning, so it's just a dialogue between my two hands, not a violin (or piano) vs. orchestra. I did my best to incorporate the orchestral violin parts, but I'm inconsistent about that. Third, I only had about 15 minutes, so I just sat and played, and when I had a couple of slips, I backtracked a little and then stitched things together later this afternoon. It's far from perfect. But, whatever. I really love the way it sounds this way, and in some respects the fragility of the piano sonority just adds to the impossibly beautiful writing. And I also like that this was just a quiet, pre-workday moment, alone at the piano, trying to tame a Steinway into doing something it could never really do. Here's to impossibilities.

Bach: Concerto in G Minor, 2nd movement

(It's also now part of the MMmusic jukebox.)

Note that the keyboard version is a step lower than the violin version.

More reflections on Piano Hero: Level Two coming tomorrow.

Two Years Down

Well, I'm exactly two years older than I was the day I started blogging. However, it's been a long day and I don't have time to breath life into the two posts I started over the weekend. So, in celebration of two years of musing, here are a few posts that I wish had gotten wider exposure from the last year. They're still there!

The Rite of Appalachian Spring

J. Peterman sells Schubert & Stravinsky

Carrousel perpétuel

Tomorrow is Level 2 of Piano Hero. We'll be tackling Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony, which has a lot of notes. (I might have to sneak in a little early morning practice.) I'll try to report back soon, but in the meantime, it was perhaps inevitable that I'd start a Piano Hero blog. Here it is. Happy MMmusing Day...well, what's left of it.

Piano Hero: Level 1 Complete

First, a few milestones worth noting: This is my 300th post, I recently surpassed the 150,000 word mark, and I'll hit the 2-year mark next Tuesday. We're still stuck on 8 sonnets though...

In other news, I feel pretty safe in saying that the debut of Piano Hero yesterday was a big success. We had a really nice turnout of lunchtime listeners,  especially given that publicity consisted of a couple of emails sent out the day before and a few flyers taped around the music building. What was especially gratifying is that we had quite a few listeners from outside the music department who stopped by. Most important is that I sensed people really had a good time. I know I did.

I referred to the recital as an "experimental performance concept" in the previous post, although a program consisting entirely of Beethoven's first symphony is hardly avant-garde. What was new for me was performing for a good-sized audience in the kind of informal atmosphere where a meticulously rehearsed result isn't expected. In fact, though we'd had two hastily arranged run-thrus of this 4-hand arrangement, there wasn't really any possibility that everything would go perfectly, and if I'd thought there was, the fact that we didn't strike the first chord together put an end to that. Nor did we strike the second chord quite together, but it was gratifying to realize it wasn't a big deal. (Granted, if the entire performance had followed that pattern, it would've been painful, but we did get our cues more organized after that. All in all, I think the playing went remarkably smoothly. Only a few lingering regrets...)

So, I guess my first point is that I really enjoyed just having fun and not worrying so much about every little detail. Mind you, part of the fun was the sense of daring, knowing that things could fall apart if we didn't keep our concentration up, making split-second decisions about whether or not to play certain notes, taking time with a phrase here and there as a spontaneous response to the music. The truth is, I can get pretty tired of meticulously rehearsed performances - I don't really like planning out all the rubatos and dynamics in advance, and, maybe more to the point, I don't like the sense of being held accountable for every little thing that happens. In that respect, this was about as enjoyable a performance experience as I can imagine. That's not to say there's not an immense sort of satisfaction that comes from preparing a fully memorized program for recital (which still always involves a bit of daring after all). Still, I can rarely remember having so much fun on stage. I feel like I may have found my most natural element. I would definitely sit and do this 40 hours a week if someone paid me.

And that's an interesting tension here. Obviously, part of the point of a meticulously rehearsed performance is to sacrifice one's own experience of immediacy and spontaneity (to some degree) for the benefit of an audience. Jeremy Denk wrote about that tension beautifully here. So, while I may be having a thrill ride sightreading on the edge, the question is whether the audience gets anything out of that. The truth is that the packaging of the experience makes a big difference here. I think that because our audience was prepped to think of us as two videogamers trying to beat the score (ha ha), at least some of that excitement transferred to them.

Just as important was the sense that we weren't taking things too seriously. It was just an open-door afternoon of musicmaking, not meant to be a final statement about Beethoven. Beethoven's notes and sounds are wonderful, but as I wrote back in my first-ever blog post, "our reaction to a given musical performance isn't just about the music; it's not just about the notes on the page and it's not just about the sounds that result." It's about a shared experience and an awareness of the human side of producing those sounds, and at its best, this kind of program can help an audience identify more closely with the challenges the performers are facing.

As for the fun part, Beethoven's 1st is one of the most consistently happy pieces I can think of. All the movements are in major keys, and even the 'slow' movement is light and skipping. In fact, to help set the tone and in lieu of a printed program, I just scrawled out the movements on a big, whiteboard with titles like: I - Slow Intro, then Fast & Happy; II - Light, Skipping, and Happy; III - Fast, Humorous, and Happy; IV - Slow Intro, then Fast & Happy. I'm not saying there's nothing profound or no moments of pathos, though they are certainly fleeting, but it's a piece that seems to be all about spontaneity and fun. So, I think the fact that we were having fun was an important part of the event's success.

As for the light-hearted "packaging" of the event, I feel very positive about that, partly because I got so much good feedback about the little e-vite and poster. It could be tempting to bewail the fact that Beethoven should ever need packaging, but there's a reason that all the named piano sonatas get extra airtime. In fact, Kenneth Woods had a great post recently about how Brahms made a bad P.R. move by not calling his two "serenades" symphonies - thus relegating them to a second-class status in the public's eye that means they are rarely heard. I don't think it even reflects that badly on people that they respond to this sort of packaging. Let's face it - we make sense of a very complicated world by organizing things into containers. So, if it helps to package an event in a way that reminds people Beethoven's music can be spontaneous, informal, and appealing as a sort of spectator sport in which the possibility of failure makes it all the more worth watching, then why not? [In other words, we're moving Beethoven from the "very serious and imposing" container to the "X-treme Sports gamer dude" container.] We definitely take music too seriously too often, and the world notices that.

There's something else I really enjoy about this whole experiment - the spontaneity of the planning. Yesterday's event went together very quickly - it's an idea I'd been thinking about for a long time, but I didn't even schedule the hall until Monday after we'd had our first 30-minute read-thru. Looking ahead, it looks like we'll take a shot at Level 2 next Wednesday. Although the original idea had been to go straight to Beethoven 2, the fact that our orchestra is playing Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony next weekend makes that seem like the right choice, even if I'm not a huge fan of the piece. [In spite of the passionately compelling advocacy of Kenneth Woods and others, I still finding myself thinking the Octet, the Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Violin Concerto are as perfect as perfect can be - but just about everything else Mendelssohn wrote leaves me not quite convinced. I'll be more than happy to be converted.] But anyway, I love the fact that our piano hero "concert season" didn't have to be set in stone months in advance. I understand why orchestras have to do that, but it's so nice to think we can just change on the fly. It's one of the beauties of musical life in a local setting, and I think the more localized our music-making becomes, the better for all.

A few more topics worth touching on. First of all, Beethoven symphonies sound really fantastic on the piano, in spite of the obvious limitations - this one particularly. The 4-hand repertoire is a strange world, but what's odd is that I've always been more attracted to 4-hand transcriptions of orchestral music than to original 4-hand works, with the notable exception of the Schubert Fantasy. I think it's that the piano functions wonderfully as a solo instrument, and the solo repertoire is so freakishly good that piano duets always strike me as superfluous. But, whereas 2-hand versions of orchestral rep tend to be either incredibly difficult or woefully inadequate, the 4-hand versions are quite playable and they have the great advantage that, assuming one knows the orchestral version, you get to imagine all these sonorities that aren't really happening. I'm not sure it's worth my time to learn the Liszt solo transcriptions, but the 4-hand Philharmonic model is a perfect balance of practicality and satisfacticality. (It's my 300th post - I can inventify words if I want to.) 

A non-music faculty colleague came up and asked me after yesterday's performances if the piano could really recreate, for example, the sound of a cello section playing that wonderful transitional idea in the first movement of Beethoven 1. As it happens, I first got to know this symphony as a cellist - it's the first symphony I ever played - so I know exactly what he means since the cello part means a great deal to me. The answer to his question becomes very complicated, because when we're playing I can't really say where the sounds we're making end and the sounds in my head begin. (One reason mistakes don't bother me - I've got a good little internal editor.) But that's true of all listening to some degree - and, really a subject too big for a post that has already gotten way too long. The bottom line is, there's a special thrill that comes from this half-real, half-imaginary metamorphosis into an orchestra.

[You know what, this is my 300th post, so I'm just going to keep on going, even if it's too long.]

Here's an interesting aesthetic question that arises from this experience, a question I think about a lot. How important are all those little details that professional musicians spend so much time obsessing about, and that students are taught to worry so much about? Details like playing articulations exactly as intended, voicing harmonies just so, playing dynamics just as written (or implied), etc. My point is not that we shouldn't care about such matters, but that spending so much time on them probably makes us care too much about them. I say this because, speaking as a well-trained musician and a seasoned listener, I found that the absence of a well-planned point-of-view on these matters was no obstacle at all to getting the spirit of the music. Nathan and I did not discuss much of anything in our rehearsals. We just sat down and played and stopped when we crashed. Yeah, there were pedaling issues that could have been more coordinated and balances that could have been more balanced. But, if I'm honest, I just didn't really care that much about them. I think we're both naturally good musicians, and I was happy to let the chips fall where they fell.

Lastly, and I regret burying this at the end of the post, an important aspect of the "packaging" was that we played from computer monitors. If you're interested in the tech side, basically I set up a normal 15-inch laptop in front of me and hooked up a 15-inch LCD monitor in "extended desktop" mode for Nathan to my left. We then had Acrobat Reader set in two-page mode, maximized, so that each page fell squarely on its own screen. Of course, I used the Airturn to turn pages for both of us (Nathan handling the damper pedal), and I had pre-edited the score (originally downloaded from here) in PDF Annotator, inserting repeats of pages so that we could take the repeats and yet always be turning forward.

I wanted to use the monitors partly just for the fun of it and to give the audience a unique videogaming visual (actually, the real dream is to project the score for them - give me time), but I think it also made for a more fluid performance. The turns are basically instantaneous, which is nice when you're turning for two, and it's so nice not to have to worry about turning back for repeats. You can view the marked-up score here. (Depending on the version of Acrobat Reader you have, you may need to insert a blank page at the beginning to get the right two pages to show at the same time.) It has some red marks to help navigate the repeats, although you won't find a single interpretive mark or fingering - Nathan didn't have a chance to mark up his part, so I've got my pride. I don't wanna seem like a wimp who's using secret codes to get by.

And that's Post #300.