Solo

The piano has more repertoire than any other instrument. And pianists can play with other instruments, one, two, three, or more than that. Much of the great repertoire of the other instruments has piano in it too, so we get to share all their best moments. Beethoven and Brahms Violin and Cello Sonatas, Trios, many many many more composers and instruments, but always including piano.

There are some special things with no piano in though. Bach solo Suites and Partitas for violin and cello. (G major Cello Suite my favourite!)

No pianist can play in Beethoven or Schubert String Quartets.

We can only hope that we will get the chance to hear some of these somehow, by meeting the right people.

Pianists get to play in larger groups as well. For example, Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos are not just works for piano with orchestra, they are music for a very large ensemble which includes piano. Sometimes the piano has a very dynamic part to play!

There is plenty of concerto-type music for piano to perform.

So, all of that is stuff pianists can play. Could you even hear all of it in one lifetime? I'm not sure a lifetime is enough to learn to play one piece, sometimes. But you have to do the best you can...

But there is some other special music with no piano in it. Tchaikovsky's best moments are surely in his Symphonies and Operas. Mahler Symphonies! On the piano you have a few Mahler songs you can play, but you will never get anywhere near Symphony No. 9, I am afraid.

I was going to say I know why pianists become conductors.

After all this, I feel like we have more than enough to play as it is.

But if you see a pianist conducting an orchestra, perhaps you now know one of the reasons.

My favourite piece, the Beethoven Violin Concerto - I can never play it! (Although there is a version for piano, which I haven't seen - that's the so-called Piano Concerto No. 6). But I do like hearing it.

Actually, you can't go very wrong in playing Beethoven. All you have to do is play what it says on the page. Nearly nobody knows how difficult it is to do this, because they play what they think it says on the page, not what is actually there, so that causes problems. But basically Beethoven can't go too badly wrong (please let that be true!). However...there are ways of doing it better. There are ways of understanding it better. And if you have done this, then there is only one way to make it come to life: play it! Too bad when it's not for the piano. Hmm, I wonder what will happen about that.

Favourite

Everything is my favourite.

But there is no time to say more than this, yet!

Communication

Today I used one of my famous (to myself) sayings or quotations in conversation. I said something like, "Well, you know, they say the first six languages are the hardest". I don't remember what they do say - it might have been something more like "The first twelve languages are the hardest" but the point is the same...although less hard to bear if I say six. It depends what degree of dramatic effect I am aiming for. Since most people in England have only ever dreamed of hearing one language, let alone speaking more than one, I think that to say "six" is sufficiently incredible to make my quotation funny and rather disquieting (yes, this effect is quite a good one to make sometimes!).

Then on the other hand you have countries in the middle of things where it is common to speak more than one language. Even on this island there are bilingualists - for example Welsh speakers who speak English too. And in other times and in other places it may have been natural for many people to know many languages, for reasons of necessity. But it's always because of necessity, isn't it. To know a language (or some of one) means to be able to understand conversation in that language, or writing, or what-have-you. It is good for vital and urgent verbal communication, and is also good for the possibility of having access to literature. There are always benefits from greater understanding of communication. With knowledge like this you can find out all sorts of secrets. By knowing a bit of French, I once found out a concert was on a different day to the one the musicians were expecting (including me!) - it's really a simple thing, but it is always the first example I think of. It amazes me to see what a powerful, secret thing knowledge of language is.

Are the first six languages you learn the hardest? The first is hard in a way because you have no other language then. But it is so vital that you HAVE to learn it. That is why the first language we learn is so successfully learnt! Studies of children isolated (through chance or cruel neglect) past the age of seven or so show that they never acquire language fully, or that they cannot advance much further than the rudiments of speech they already have. The ability to learn in the intensively open way of a child's first years is lost quite soon.

Whether you can get that back is another question, but here we are talking about the issue of second languages and beyond. For me the main motivating factor is interest. I care what other people are thinking or feeling. I want to know what it is like to be someone else, because that is where all the important information is. I already know what it is that I know. To find more answers I must look elsewhere. That is why I look outside. Probably this accounts for my interest in languages.

The second language is an important step, because that is the one that exposes the possibility of speaking languages other than your native tongue. Until then, there is no language, there is just speaking. Everyone talks the same.

People say they do not have the time for language learning. But I do not have the time NOT to learn languages. I need so desperately to understand what is happening to me in this world that I can't afford to stop learning. It is urgent!

It's hard for me to see how people learn to speak fluently though. Probably they do this, though, by sticking to one or two languages. That must be the answer. And because I am learning many things, it will be longer before something fluent appears. It's the same with piano playing, with everything. To do something little would take only a little time. (Sorry to keep you waiting, so far!)

Knowing more than one language tells you that it is the meaning that is important, not the words, not the surface. It is not people's clothes, but what they do and how they live that tells you about them. A tree could be green one day and spiky with twigs the next, but the whole tree is more than those two pictures.

So many words, but all of them useless for describing important things.

That is why we have music.

Imagine

There is a little girl sitting in a big rocking chair. I am in the room too, sitting at the piano. The girl's singing teacher is perched on a little round stool, the diameter of which is significantly smaller than that of its occupant.

This is many years ago, at least ten.

The girl has just been told who used to own the rocking chair, what his job was and where he used to work. She is saying,"You can close your eyes and fly to London". The teacher says,"What?" - What do you mean, What are you talking about...that's what she says.

That was the end of it. I knew what the girl meant, and we had probably thought the same thing anyway. But the other person didn't know what was going on really.

We have heard the expression "It's just your imagination", which means something came into our mind which is impossible and wrong.

But imagination is not dreaming or sleeping. It is not wrong ideas. It is the image you create before you make something real. Imagine, and then follow the image you made into reality.

A sparkly child in a rocking chair would understand about imagination. But the singing teacher would not. Which part of you will you listen to?

Imagine.

Whale Milk

I am learning about whale milk. Yes, the milk of the whale (order Cetacea).

Where cow's milk contains 4% of fat, whale milk is 50% fat. So it is that baby whales grow by 5 kg per hour!

What I am really trying to learn is how do we know this about the milk? How do you milk a whale?