Pianoforte

I don't know if people realise how much skill it takes to play, not just the wrong notes, but the right wrong notes - and to play them at the right time.

No, my dears, I'm not talking about my piano-playing...

Advertising

If you have been wondering what I've been up to lately, here is one of the answers!

I have been playing in an advert for Sony Walkman. The concept was to take 128 musicians, give them all one note to play, and add the bits together to make a complete piece. It took three days! It's called "Music Pieces" and has just started airing on UK TV. You can see me, you know. I apologise for wearing a cravat. That's what wardrobe gave me, you know. I'm sure it looks very dashing...



Also we have a "Preview Trailer" you can see. That shows you something of what it was like to film the project.

We also have for your viewing pleasure another "Teaser" of a more tantalising nature.

I hope you all buy Walkmans now!

The spot was filmed in the crumbling old Victorian theatre theatre at Alexandra Palace, London in rather low temperatures on 2, 3, 4 October 2007. Musicians were too numerous to mention, music was by Peter Raeburn of Soundtree, co-written by Nick Foster. (I can't remember the name of the other writer, sorry. He's called Jason something. That's not very helpful, I'll try and find out who it is). Directed by Nick Gordon with production by Academy Films. Many other people worked on it but I don't know their names or companies.

Anyway the people mentioned here are good at their job, so you can watch out for them in future. I am giving them a good review!

Over Here

By chance I was just reading the stories of some Chinese immigrants to Liverpool. This is interesting to me for lots of reasons, particularly because I come from near Liverpool.

Still lots of people are emigrating from lots of different countries to lots of other countries. East London is still welcoming immigrants, like it has done for a long time, though you don't hear much Yiddish round there any more.

The thing is, even if you have lived in the same place all your life, you have got there from somewhere. Even if you think there is nothing before we are born, it is still somewhere else, somewhere not here, not now. So that's worth thinking about. Welcome!

The stories I read are nearer the bottom of the page which you can find here. It seems people had to work very hard.

Back to Normal

Well I've finished the other kind of work (being an accompanist) for the moment - it's back to normal now. That's good! I don't like playing things I haven't completely learned (and completely learning something takes a long time; much longer than is available under those circumstances) so I will get on with completely learning things!

You get some funny responses sometimes from performances. These run from almost complete silence (I'm talking about meeting people afterwards; in the performance the audience always claps at least!) to the weeping and adulation of the Russians (I've never experienced that but I understand it is a real phenomenon). So you can't make any judgements based on that. Unfortunately it's hard to know exactly how one is playing. But some sense of success or failure must exist so that's what we have to go on. I guess!

Now what shall I do next?

Where I have been, and what I did while I was there

Well, have you spotted that I haven't been writing this month? Me too. I don't like to leave you alone in the bleak internet without my protection but there is a reason for my absence. I have been being an accompanist! The reasons for this are: it's near my house, I get money, I get the benefit of other people's lessons and masterclasses, also it gives me something to think about.

The other reason for my absence is to do with piano practice, and is something I'm not revealing at the moment....

Interesting people I have met and been in lessons with include Pascal Némirovski (piano), Thomas Brandis (violin), and Tomotada Soh (violin, formerly Szigeti's assistant). I heard a few interesting things there. Also I find it's good just to be in the room with a master of some instrument or subject - I learn even without learning! I can't promise it's the same for everyone though (unfortunately!)

So what have I played? Have a look at the list:


Bruch Concerto for Violin and Viola (or Violin and Clarinet)
Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1st movement)
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 (1st mvt)
Brahms Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor (complete)
Takemitsu Hika (vln)
Wieniawski Variations on an Original Theme (vln)
Messiaen Theme and Variations (vln)
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 (1st mvt)
Grieg Violin Sonata No. 1 (1st mvt)
Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 2 (1st mvt)
Szymanowski Violin Sonata in D minor (complete)
Weber Romance (trombone, presumably an arrangement for this instrument from maybe a cello piece or something)
Reinecke Ballade (flute)
Godard Valse Op. 116 No. 3 (flute)
Gaubert Sonatine (flute; complete)
Creston Sonata (alto sax)
Grovlez Sarabande and Allegro (alto sax)
Shostakovitch Violin Concerto No. 1 (1st mvt) - twice!
Lutosławski Recitative and Arioso (vln)
Berlioz Harold en Italie (1st mvt; viola)
Poulenc Flute Sonata (1st and 2nd mvts)
Strauss Violin Sonata (1st mvt)
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (1st mvt)
Bloch Trombone Symphony (complete)
Schumann Stück im Volkston Op. 102 No. 5 (I think; trombone, arranged from cello piece)
Bozza Ballade for Trombone and Piano
Bozza Hommage à Bach (trombone) - twice
Pryor Variations on Flower of Scotland (trombone)
Šulek Sonata "Vox Gabrieli" (1st mvt; trombone)
Rossini "Una Voce poco Fa" (from Il Barbiere di Siviglia; soprano)
Debussy Romance (soprano)
Menotti "Ah Michele don't you know" from The Saint of Bleecker Street (sop)
Mahler Hans und Grethe (sop)
David (Ferdinand not Félicien) Trombone Concertino (complete; sight-reading in the exam!)

That's it, finish!

I'm not sure, but it seems like a lot. What do you think?

Another reason I have been doing a lot of this is that other pianists agree to play things and then change their mind the day before the performance. However I do not change my mind.

When I was 14 I used to have a job accompanying for singers (3 nights a week at its maximum) at the local music academy, also where I had my piano lessons with Alex Abercrombie. He was a pupil of Yvonne Loriod and introduced me to the music of Finnissy (the two of them had been at college together). Also it was rather good to have an Alkan enthusiast in the local area!

You know, there is a difference between playing a piece without learning it (sight-reading) and playing it with all the details checked. Yes, you are saying, a big difference! But I can normally play something without knowing it - most music is similar after all. For example the key of C minor appears many times throughout pieces I know; certain topics like "Funeral March" have fellow pieces of the same type that I can remember and so I already have an idea of what it's going to be like. More could probably be said about "How to Sight Read"!

But when I'm doing that it's not the same as having a relaxed control over the material such as I have in a piece I'm familiar with. So that was the main, well, not really problem, with doing the accompanying, but it was at least something not-quite-positive that could be said about it. I hope to be able to know more music better.

But it's nice to meet all those pieces. It's worth practising sight-reading so you can do it too! It will help all those people with music exams and help you learn more pieces yourself!

As Charles Rosen says in "Piano Notes":

In about six months of sight-reading for three hours a day, one could go through most of the keyboard music of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Another few months and one can add Haydn, Debussy, and Ravel. Another hour and a quarter would suffice for all of Schoenberg's piano music (or two hours if you have trouble reading it at first), and an hour and a half will get you through Stravinsky, including the works for piano and orchestra, and ten minutes each for the solo piano works of Anton von Webern and Alban Berg.

So now you see what can be done. Of course, you don't have to do all that, but if you are going to have a job playing the piano in some form, it would be worth it. Also if you enjoy the piano I would imagine it would be interesting.

Having sight-read all those works, then you could decide what was good for you to learn. Otherwise it's back to the Chopin Four Ballades - AGAIN!

If you play the Four Ballades, I want to feel they are "Your Ballades" (pardon), otherwise it gets a bit upsetting for me. Crash crash crash there they go again. Oh and look I'm being sensitive here (where I can't play in tempo)!

And then there are other composers not on the Rosen-List, above. What are they like?

OK, that's all for today, see you soon!

Twins and Showers

Ah, April has returned! I was worried about the new climate and the lack of a cool spring to help the water supply, but the weather has just got a bit cooler, and it even rained a little bit. A light sprinkling of rain is, of course, known as AN APRIL SHOWER. Would there be much point having April without the showers? Well, it wouldn't be the same April, anyway.

Also, I have recently accompanied a set of twins in a piece by Bruch (Concerto for clarinet and viola, or violin and viola, Op. 88). What is good about this is that, when rehearsing with normal people, they say "can we go from three before Figure 5?"..."Er, five, five, yes I've got it. OK". With twins, however the conversation goes more like "How about...your bit..." ..."OK" and psychic communication has taken the place of not knowing where we are. I, of course, not being one of a set of three twins, have to know where we are going from! Somehow.

I was imagining what a good idea it would be to have an ensemble made up of twins. How well they would all play together! But it was pointed out to me that it might be a bit scary. Oh well. What about triplets, is that a better idea?

Ideas Test

I think this "Language of Music" idea is helping me understand music. I have no intention of carving out some "great theory" like people seem to enjoy producing, but it seems that there are things to be discovered, and here I am discovering them.

Ideas come bit by bit and it's very helpful to test them out by writing them down or explaining them to somebody. So today I can say "thank you!" to you for enduring this trial-by-blog. I hope it's not too trying!

There are some concerto exams happening at a nearby music college with "Academy" in the name, so I have been going over there to play several orchestral arrangements. They normally require re-arrangement because they are always so horribly difficult and also sometimes miss out important notes but include bad ones, in the wrong place. To make a generalisation, the old Peters editions on the whole have more playable arrangements (old-style transcription still being in force here), while the new Henle Urtext ones are basically a bit more logical with respect to reproducing the notes of the original, as well as being a bit easier so more people can play them. I hope that's of some use to somebody somewhere.

I am also glad to report the return of the sunshine!!

I don't know how we have survived without it. Now I am requesting more heat, please.

I'm sure it will come when it's ready. Perhaps it needs a bit of encouragement though?

The Language of Music

It's hard to explain impossible things to you.

But the reason one person writes to another is that there is something he needs to tell that person, something which he thinks the other person doesn't know. The only problem is that when a fact is an unknown fact, it is hard to understand. In fact it may be impossible to understand - it will take a lot of problems and hard work to finally see what it was. Sometimes, indeed, you can't just tell someone the answer they need, because they won't understand without actually discovering the answer for themselves. That's why we have symbols like mazes and spirals. Labyrinths were popular in ancient art. Popularity comes when something resonates with many people, no matter what the intention behind it. In this case, the Labyrinth is a journey you must follow until it is solved - there is not normally a short way through.

The Labyrinth is a part of the ear, too.

When we hear music we can identify patterns. Without them, it would probably be noise. But as long as we can fit the sound to a pattern we feel there is some sense behind it. We keep creating possible patterns to fit to the stimulus, trying to find a match for one or more templates that we have stored, or creating a new one based on the incoming material. So although I said we try to find a fit, really we are creating the pattern that we hear. The sound is what it is, but the pattern is our own. Listen to noise and see how soon you start to hear words. They may not be there as such, but we are looking (listening) for them.

So we may find there is sense at the first hearing of a piece of music. That depends on what experience we have. Whatever the case, we will try and we will find something. But you might end up saying, no, I just couldn't make anything of it. Like the ladies in the Wigmore Hall who laughed at the 'wrong notes' in a Webern piece - which was written in 1899! I was there, you can believe me.

There are "dissonant" cases where the music is too different from the listener's internal templates and antagonism results. Of course, the dissonance is not necessarily a question of some dissonance in the music's harmonic idiom - I was referring to the dissonance between what they are hearing and what they might expect to make sense, or what they have heard before and got used to. But on the whole the music one hears is mostly more or less familiar - you tend to recognise it as music, and more particularly as "our music". Statistically we are more likely to hear music we already recognise, of course - because statistically we will stay in more or less the same place.

Recognition comes then, somewhat or a lot. You can tell there is a loud bit coming up because it starts getting louder. It started quiet so you know it will be quiet for a bit. Or after learning a bit more, you know that if it is quiet, it might stay quiet or might SUDDENLY get loud. You start to learn what the options might be. And if you know a bit about music you might here where the harmony is going. You might recognise the sort of "subject" the composer is thinking of. Of course there is not a subject, it is music not words, but there are associations and special patterns we notice. It might be something clear like the sound of a bird (the cuckoo in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony) or something ambiguous like the sound of water or wind in a Schubert song. It might be a topic like "military" (Chopin Polonaise) or "exotic" (Debussy Pagodas) or "academic" (Handelian fugue in Mozart or Beethoven). Whatever it is, you learn, and then finally you understand. It can take repeated hearings to get there though - although most do not try after the first attempt. And sometimes there is no attempt! (What are the chances of success there I wonder?)

All of these insights come with practise and understanding. Some come with learning and knowledge.

They say that a child's mind is a clear mind. They say a child will see the obvious when everyone else convinces themselves otherwise or trips themselves up in tangles of thought and blind guesses. That's why there is the famous story of The Emperor's New Clothes. Maybe it's funny, I don't know. I'm sure no-one believes it could ever really happen. But that's the shock you get when you realise it's happening all the time. Look at what people are doing around you now. A little or a lot, helping or un-helping, but they are certainly taking a lot of different approaches to the maze of their life. Certainly the mazes are different, but can all the people be right? The child says: I thought you had to get to the centre. (Does that mean it is easier than it seemed?)

Yes, you try to hear some sense in the sound coming in. But we are in luck, because the person who created it all - the composer - put sense in at the beginning. So we are in with a fighting chance!

I am convinced that we can understand music purely by paying attention to what the composer has put in it. That's the approach I took when I wrote about Evryali, and it's how I try to understand music on a daily basis. The significance of this is that it doesn't matter how much you know before you get started. Knowledge came down to us because other people noticed things; that means we can notice them too. But it will take a long time if we try to understand the knowledge AS WELL as the music. That's two jobs, you see. Fortunately I have tried to understand the music, afflicted with only a slight knowledge of the technical processes involved. (That's not a joke, I really don't know much!). That's why I'm here today to tell you where to look.

The first time I noticed something important about music was in a Mozart symphony last year. It wasn't a good performance (maybe that's why I noticed it). The symphony was called "The Jupiter", but I don't think that matters because I don't like the "I know it all" approach to music: Ah, The Jupiter, yes, of course. Beethoven's second Razumovsky Quartet, yes. Opus 106, a masterpiece. It does annoy me rather, you see this is talking about music without mentioning the music. Perhaps it is not talking about the music? I know it's helpful to use labels so we can know what is being discussed, but these are the names on the filing cabinet. They are the names on the files. They are not the contents of the files. Inside are lovely golden sounds without names. Songs without words that sing in my heart.

I forget exactly what it was in that Mozart symphony. I think it was a movement in the harmony. I realised he was doing something really funny, moving somewhere no-one could have predicted. I wondered why no-one was laughing. I think it was because they were hearing "A Mozart symphony" - the one in their heads, perhaps. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to tell you that the best Mozart symphony comes from Mozart, not from us. By some twist of fate, that was actually what I was hearing. Yes, no incompetence on the part of the conductor or players prevented me from hearing what the composer had put into the music. It was all there, and it always is in any piece or performance.

Music is highly cultural, you know. There is a lot to learn about. But as it happens you don't particularly need to learn any of it. If you are responsible and care about the music and why it exists then I think it won't hurt to try learning a bit. But you have to listen first.

I listened, and I am now telling you this:

A master composer knows his job and tries to get better at it.

The best composers didn't stop when they had had enough, or when they thought they were good enough. They continued changing.

In these cases, the golden secret inside centre of the music was what led the creator - it was what they were trying to communicate! In the other cases, the composer got tired and his forms started writing themselves, though there could still be flashes of inspiration. It could never dry up completely (some music leads me to doubt this but it is true)

The secret was called ecstasy. Did the composer want to be a composer, or could he not stop being a composer? "Ecstasy" is a word that means being outside yourself. What is outside? Whatever we don't already know. Other people. Other places. Other ideas. Mistakes. Answers. Genius.

Whatever you think about music, I think we all have to agree there is some kind of vision involved in it. Someone wants to communicate something, and that is their vision. It can be predictable, clichéed, or previously impossible - a surprising thing of brilliance and power. With skill, the vision becomes clearer.

That vision is present in every part of the work, and through the opposition between the parts we can appreciate what it is. (The word for an arrangement of parts is composition)

You won't at first know what a piece of music is saying. It's important to remember that it isn't saying anything. As long as you can say it in words, you are not there. You can talk about it but you have to live it to see it.

With repeated slow careful exposure to music you can learn to feel what it really is. Your mind is not understanding it, your heart is not feeling it, but these senses may be involved.

Remember what I am telling you: it is real. Music is real. There is a real reason for it. It is not something in a book or on a CD, it is something outside you, coming in. Also remember that if you were lost in a labyrinth, you might forget your journey. The outside might seem dark and unfriendly. Think then of what it's like to find the way through the maze. Find the end, and you see you were the one who had gone outside. Really the music is inside. People who don't listen are stuck outside. When we hear it truly, we are all joined up again. Or starting to be.

Primo Levi was in a prison camp. Then he sent us a message through his books so that the world would change. James Clavell was in a prison camp. He did the same. He did a good thing too, because he loved the people who imprisoned him. That is how he was set free. Any others who still hated them were still prisoners, weren't they? And Ronald Searle was in the same camp. He had to carefully hide his drawings while he was there. He sent us messages too.

There is a well-known analogy that life is like a bird flying through a lighted hall. It is light for a moment, then it is dark again. That's silly, because although I can see what it means, I think they are looking at it from the wrong side. Think what the other birds are thinking. Wot is that bird doing stuck inside that dark hall when we are all out here?

I spoke of prisoners because when we are stuck or lost, what we need most is a way out. Sometimes it is all we can do just to survive. There isn't much sign of life outside the prison. But one day a message comes.

To understand the message is all we need to do.

It is not obvious. But it is there. If you can love it, then you are hearing it.

This is the language of music.

View and Listen

I did an interesting thing once. I played in some music for the TV! You didn't know about that, did you?

I did it twice. One was an episode of "Torchwood", the spin-off series from the very famous BBC series called Doctor Who (notice that Torchwood is a rearrangement of the letters of Doctor Who). The other was a drama called "The Perfect Parents" (actually I think its real title is Perfect Parents), something about people pretending to be Catholic to get their children into a good school. don't ask me why they would do that though...

It was very interesting to do, and as always, every playing opportunity is an opportunity to learn more about playing and develop different things as you go along.

It seems that whenever a film has something emotional happening they need to have some piano music to make everybody cry. That's where I step in! Yes, my piano music often makes people cry (that's a joke...though actually true as well (for different reasons)!).

In the UK you can see the results on BBC 2 last night (too late now!) or on BBC3 (digital channel) on 22nd Dec (21.00-21.50) also 23rd Dec (01.55-02.45). That's for Torchwood episode 10 ("Out of Time"), and then "The Perfect Parents" is on ITV1 (used to be called just ITV in my day, but there you are, now everything is more complicated). on 28th December from 21.00-23.00. Listen out for piano music! (not including the Moonlight Sonata in Torchwood, I don't know who is playing that)

You might not hear me doing this type of work very often, so keep your ears out!

New News

I went to a camera show run by Nikon which purported to be for professional photographers (I am not one, but, you know, when you know the right people....). However I had the feeling that professional photographers would more likely be outside being professional photographers rather than attending a show.

I was not entirely wrong, and you can follow my way of thinking by looking here! Look, it's scantily-clad women wielding industrial welding equipment! It looks like it - anyway they certainly make a lot of sparks! Wow, that looks exciting. Evidently it is supposed to be exciting anyway! And we can imagine that Nikon have pitched this about right, if a lot of the people who buy camera equipment are the same people who buy camera magazines and car magazines and so on. They always have women in, posing in a rather demeaning way (it demeans lots of people!). Oh well, they get paid for it I suppose. You probably get paid more for being an astronaut though....they could try that instead.

So anyway, there were similar types of females featured in a so-called "catwalk opportunity". Also one man, much to everyone's disappointment I am sure. Indeed, nearly everyone attending in the guise of photographer was a man, many many many of whom found it necessary to carry their cameras around their necks so as to show off what they've got, how much it cost, and how many megapixels it has. A lot of them were funny grey men...rather odd, it was.

I would have thought a camera show was not necessarily a good place to learn about photography. For example, it must be a similar type of thing to wanting to learn about music at a piano show, or about painting at a paintbrush show (I've never heard of a paintbrush show, this is entirely fictional), which is to say, it's possible but unlikely.

However the technical side of photography is sufficiently important (important if you want to get it right without guessing, as Ansel Adams wanted to teach us to - though guessing is possible, just time-consuming) that some of the presentations must have been useful.

I did learn a few things. I learned about the history of digital photography - e.g. the first digital camera had less then 2 megapixels of resolution and cost around £20, 000! Also I heard someone from Nikon saying that megapixels were not everything - other factors define a good camera. Interesting to hear that from the top of the camera production tree.

Also, contrary to what you might have been expecting from the above, there was A PHOTOGRAPHER! Yes, a professional photographer (so there was at least one!) called Bruno Barbey, showing many of his pictures and saying a little bit about them. It was quite exciting because I had recently seen some of his pictures in a book called Magnum Ireland so now I caould see that he was a real person! He was officially there for the purpose of telling us that he now uses a computer and a printer to make exhibition prints (rather than developing them the okd way) and has been satisfied with the results. Also he appeared to endorse digital photography -he laughed when he said this though, probably because it's what everyone seems to talk about. My identification test for people who say they are interested in photography is: what is the first thing they say when I mention the subject. Often, in fact nearly always, they say "What camera do you use?" - indeed, this is an interesting topic, and I often wonder what camera people use, however it is probably somewhere down at the bottom of the list of interesting topics, because, as Ken Rockwell says on his completely useful website, it's not the camera that takes the pictures. Yes, it is your brain! When Edward Steichen took a portrait of Isadora Duncan at the Parthenon in 1921, he borrowed a Kodak camera from the head waiter at his hotel. Looking at his amazing photographs, I can only assume that he knew what he was doing!

Bruno Barbey seemed a bit embarrassed (did you know there is a place called Embarrass, Wisconsin? Also one in Minnesota) to be talking about digital, I don't really know why. He said it was very good for shooting in the dark. Perhaps that is the only time he would use one? Ha ha, actually night photography is good, you just have to hang around a bit while the camera gets enough light in it so you can see something. He probably meant digital photography sees into the darkness very well. This is true since the manufacturers has concentrated on optimising for the dark areas in an image - they decided they wanted dark patches to have more visible detail, The result of this is that they have been successful, and consequently digital images burn out to white in the highlights very easily - analogue film took bright light more gracefully.

Howeveritmaybeso, M. Barbey showed us his pictures shot on film (some using Kodachrome, which was developed by Godowsky's son Leo (who married Gershwin's sister) and his school friend Leopold Mannes (who was a president of the Mannes College of Music, founded by his parents)), and very good they were too. This is the one I remember first:



(See a bigger one here) It's interesting because it has little colour yet in the scale of colours it has, there is great variation (the red umbrellas - and the red hat! - in the middle are very exciting, I think). It shows an excellent control of proportions and colours, and is a very resonant image. Things that are good make me feel calm or give me a sense of wonder or make me feel I am part of them, and that's what I feel with this image. That he could achieve this as a photojournalist is something we can be amazed at. Nobody sets these pictures up, you know - good photographers have to be good improvisers.

He talked about painters a little bit (e.g. Matisse) so you can see he was interested in the image more than the hardware. Actually that is a little bit of a redundant statement - we can see he was interested in the image from his images!

So that, my friends, was what I learned from the Nikon show. It was a while ago but still newsworthy, I hope?

Reader Response Reply

Andrew writes in a comment to "Teaching and Learning":

This is very wise and true. But if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, what should you do? Can you (ie. Philip) make enough money from doing what you really want to do, and if you can't, what else do you do to earn it?

3:33 PM GMT+01:0

Hi Andrew, thanks for asking! Although your question is rather penetrating as it involves interrogating me about my finances! :)

There is (as usual) more than one way of looking at this.

1) If I can't make money out of my chosen job, is it really useful to people? People pay for useful things...(of course they pay for useless things too!)

2) Creativity and imagination are very important in helping you find a good job. For example, if I say I want to be an acrobat, then that's fine. I could be a) mad or b) a talented acrobat. OK let's say I am a good acrobat. I could stop there and say, oh, but there is no work for acrobats, so I have to do something else. Or somehow my imagination and creativity could help me see a way to make it work.

Saying

you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do

...means just that so far you haven't made money from it. Or that you have decided it is not possible and stopped trying - perhaps even before you started!

Now, it is also true that some jobs are not very lucrative. Perhaps they are not useful? But if someone has a helpful talent and they have developed it then there must be a place for it in the world. And you know you are doing the right thing when it makes you feel happy.

So, how to get your dream job: dream it, define your goals, train for it, discover who wants you to do it, aim at them, get money. (Very simple, eh?)

3) OR you can say, look, I love doing this thing, so I'm just going to do it, and not try to get any money from it. But you will have to get money from something, and the other thing you do to survive on needs to be something you enjoy as well...so it is a similar situation.

We all had dreams once, but school often teaches us that we are not good enough to do anything, that we have to make the best of what we have, and living in Britain often teaches us that everything is awful and grey and nobody wants you! (AAArggh!)

Not a pretty picture. And if it is not pretty, leave it! Paint your own!

It might be very daunting to imagine leaving your present path to find a more fun one. You have to be brave. But it will be more colourful and lively! I recommend it.

Myself, I know that everyone has talent. I also know that it could turn to genius with enough commitment. Anyway, regardless of that, we're just looking at talent here, skills, aptitudes, abilities. We all have skills - if there were really people without any skills it would be STUPID. I can't believe it's possible. Perhaps that is more a philosophical-type question - here we are just talking about the people reading this now. Hopefully some skills to be had among them...

If something is valuable then it is needed, somewhere. If I thought I had no value then I would admit it and either live in a hole in the ground eating stones or try to get more useful fast.

It is easier, at the time of writing, for me to make money as a pianist than as a composer because people recognise e.g. a Beethoven sonata or a Xenakis piece. They do not know what a piece by me is like (since I generally do not know either!) so it is harder to get them to "buy" it. It takes a bit longer to develop as a composer so I am not expecting to earn millions out of that yet! If I never get money for composing that's OK (actually I already did get a bit) because I will still get paid to use my skills. But I have not finished yet so it is possibly not the end of the story for me as a composer...

I recognise where there is a demand, and that plays some part in the way I direct myself. Somehow I can think of marketing potential yet still stick to my own interests. Odd. Strangely though, anyone can reproduce existing success, but something really distinctive is rather more memorable, and that's what I am going for. It is me, my personality, doing the things I am interested in. Even if I play a piece by Chopin, I know that it is potentially popular (people have done it many times before) but I also know that I am meant to play it (if I decide to) and that my way is different from the other ways. So that's what makes me think there could be some demand.

The other point is about "making enough money". What is enough? Perhaps some lifestyles have very high costs. It could be nicer to sell the 35 sports cars and grow apples instead. If you see what I mean. Doesn't mean you have to set lower standards. But it is worth thinking about.

And if you can't make enough money yet at your chosen thing, it's OK to try other things for now. You need to eat. But, one step at a time, you are learning how to make some money being you. It might not be ultra-profitable, but you will have enough.

Being rich is easy anyway (I'm not telling you how to do it!) although it is not very nice sometimes.

To answer the question, if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, you should

Admit it.
or
Do something else.
or
Try harder.

Even to pick something a bit more common like banker, solicitor, etc., they all require training and so on, so success would not be instant. To get a good job you need to be good though. That's probably the key.

Thanks!

Teaching and Learning

People often ask me, "So what are you doing now, teaching?", and the answer is always no. I never have done any teaching. It seemed to me that many college-leavers who teach do it because they have to do something to make money and not particularly because they have a calling to be teachers. Of course, I think it's fine to do a bit of teaching to see what it's like, if you haven't thought about it. It's difficult! Also, people who want to become teachers will have to learn how to teach, and I suppose a good way to do that is to start practising.

But the idea of teaching instead of doing what you really want to do is not very appealing to me. Or you, I hope!

So, who is a teacher? Someone who can help.

Someone who can help a bit is a bit of a teacher. Someone who can help a lot is a better teacher. Someone who can guide you and help you find your way home is truly a teacher. I said find your way home because I feel that while learning is partly about gathering new techniques and bits of information (like a jigsaw puzzle), the important part of learning is finding out how to be really creative in the way that only you can be. All of that was always in you, as a potential, and somehow you have to find it. When you find it, it is not something new. It is you, the real you. (After that, perhaps you can make something new...)

Anyway, that is your genius. A real teacher knows that you have it, even though you may doubt this, and may even laugh if you hear about it.

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not is simple. Teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows, and knows that he knows is wise. Follow him.

(Persian proverb, translated by Richard Francis Burton)

It's me!

It's me, I'm back from the land of busy people!

It is sunny, 26 degrees, and ironically I have even more to do now!

At least the many things on my list can be done at leisure. There are few appointments at the moment.

Everything must be done one step at a time! This applies to your activities list, too!

Why waste time?

When I'm composing a piece, the first thing I need to know is what sorts of things are going to be in it. I don't mean will there be octaves, glissandos, E flat minor, etc, I mean what are the ideas that I will be considering in the piece.

Now, perhaps you don't know what I mean by that. I wouldn't be too surprised, because the normal way is to think of music as sound, i.e. that good music is something that sounds good. I don't think that's right because I know how easy it is to make something that sounds good. Yet it is more difficult to make good music.

Anybody can invent good sounds. I'm not going to tell you how to do it, because if I do you will go away and become famous and popular composers whom everybody likes and who are very rich!

But this sort of approach is just moving notes around on the page, in my opinion.

To say briefly what the alternative is, I would suggest that it is more about moving ideas around the page. Then what happens when the ideas all hit each other and agree or, more likely, disagree, is what we call music.

So much for that! What I really wanted to talk about is what happens after I have found the ideas. Perhaps this is when I should be writing something down, but I don't.

I can see the music in my head, and that is where the ideas move themselves around on the page. Then they keep moving around, getting thrown away, or just being tried out in case they are helpful. I don't see that I should have to write all this stuff down, since I will only throw it away!

Then when I do write music down, I mostly keep it. Sometimes it takes a long time to get from the start to the writing-down part, but I have several pieces on the go at once (they are cooking!).

When the music is ready, it will demand to be written down. There is no alternative. What would happen if I didn't? I don't know, I would explode or something...

Anyway, it does take time before the piece appears, but that time is being used in instant recomposition (faster than on paper). Why waste time?

Berlin Facts

I am back!

Here are some handy facts about Berlin:

1. Somewhere in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin, a man is twitching. He is twitching quite a lot.

2. When a performance of Michael Finnissy's piano music gets out of control, burly berlin policemen get called in.

3. It is easy to rhyme only with lonely, maybe with baby, but only one person could rhyme lemon with demonstrate.

Answers tomorrow.

The Berliner Klaviertage 2006 were impossible: it was impossible that such interesting pianists could ever play in the same city, in the same festival, over three days - most of them on the same night! Amazing. It was very very good and I hope they get the opportunity to have a lot more piano festivals.

My Legs

The concert was very acclaimed - I suppose I should believe everyone and say: it was good. Of course, naturally there were things I would like to do better. Lots of things! I was happy with it, though.

You can see the programme now, available in two parts: page one, and page two. (requires Adobe Acrobat PDF reader)

I will be playing the same three Finissy Gershwin Arrangements in Berlin in two weeks. (As well as other works, of course!)

So now all we have is the famous Leg Issue. My legs hurt a lot after I play! Why is this?

Not immediately after, but when I have got back to wherever I am staying (my house, in this case). Then I am like a cripple. It's a bit of a mystery, but it will be gone quite soon - until next time!

Michael Finnissy was pleased with his concert. It was a good audience, and they were all listening very well. Howard Skempton was the nearest person - he, like all of them, so welcoming the music that I could only play better!

Lots of good composers under one roof! Quite memorable - for those who were participating - different for those who were slaving away at the piano - memorable in both ways though!

Any questions?

Nocturnal Activities

The night is very useful for concentration. All the distractions have gone to sleep with the sun, leaving us free to consider and toil. Daytime toil is hard work, but night-time endeavours are of a different sort. Think of sewing on buttons, mending socks, all the quiet labours of the nocturnal home.

You could also practise the piano.

Last night I found that the hours up to and after midnight were ideal for getting familiar with the many difficulties of Judith Weir's An Mein Klavier. When I say 'many' I mean it in the fullest sense of the word!

Now I have to go and do it again! Because it must be the best it can be for tomorrow's concert.

Tailoring Article

Here is an excellent article I read today. Written by Thomas Mahon of Savile Row, it describes what to look for in a bespoke tailor.

Read what he says at the end - what to look for and what to watch out for:

Don’t be convinced by the narcotic effect of labels, they mean nothing. Have your eyes and senses tuned. Don't trust the glossy magazines for your info, they are writers, not cutters. Their world is about PR, not about the actual stitching.

No journalist ever had to spend seven years as a proper tailor's apprentice. Their agendae are different from yours.

I think it would be unfortunate to describe a tailor's mind as 'cutting'. I mean, it would be unfortunately unintentionally unfunny. But I think these words are certainly very sharp.

I always admire anybody who knows their job. There are so few of them. But each is a genius in his field. Or approaching it.

The best will admit that they are very far indeed from this. But they might admit to being capable of something, occasionally.

What is the reason for writing about tailoring today?

1. I have been thinking about what musicians wear for performing. Including me, obviously.
2. Good information is always good and always helps us, no matter what it is about.

Learning is always possible, and I hope you will be able to learn something from the article.

Last of all, have a look at Mr. Sheppard's Shears.

Identity

I have heard of two young pianists who changed their names.

One did it because there was already a pianist with the same name.

The other seemingly changed his name because his real name wasn't very interesting. I'm not sure about that, but certainly his new choice of name was much more exotic!

Actually, both names were changed to a more "exotic" one. Exotic means foreign, non-English, basically. The classic example was the American pianist Olga Samaroff (1880-1948, born Lucy Mary Olga Agnes Hickenlooper, in Texas). She later married Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977), who, though he had a Polish name and an indeterminate Mid-East-European accent, was from London. I know he was, there is a plaque about him on a school just up the road from my house. Actually it appears that Stokowski, despite having an exotic name, accent, hairstyle, etc, actually changed his name to a less exotic one! If what I read is correct, he was born Antoni Stanisław Bolesławowicz. I guess the public wouldn't have known what to do with that name. Well, I'm not a Stokowski biography expert (did you guess?) so we will have to leave him there for now.

What I was thinking was, if there was another pianist called Philip Howard, what would I do? You know, the genuine answer to that is I would expect him to change his name. I wonder what that tells you about me? I must be very egotistical! But not as much as people who take fake identitites. After all, they must be proud people who try to protect the new myth of themselves - so that nobody notices how boring they really are.

Except you, Leopold! Because, of course, the truth is everyone is a lot more interesting than they realise. If only they would have more confidence in themselves!

You heard it here first.

So long?

Look at this - ten days since the last information on this page!

Anyone would think there was some kind of a problem!

But there isn't.

I have been rather busy, though.

My dear nice little friends, it is painful to be away from you for so long. I wish I could write every day. When I do, you will know I am quite healthy. Because creative output shows that all is well. We can be even happier when my work-list of compositions needs scientists from NASA to catalogue it. Oh yes, and when I have 11 children (didn't Bach do that too?)

Are you being creative today? It doesn't have to be an oil painting. But you can do something. Create, not destroy - mend or fix something! Give to someone! Give something they really like, would be even better!

More soon - in the blink of an eye. Hopefully the blink won't be too long!

Takk and tak

As part of my travel plans for the future, I'm back to learning Polish. There is this word, 'tak', which means 'yes'. So far so good, that's all quite clear (in some pronunciation you can even hear a bit of a 'd' sound at the start, so you can think of 'da' in Russian and know for sure that this word means yes). But in Norwegian (which we discussed at length, starting on 25th June) the word takk means thanks. I get just a little bit confused as I try to decide whether I'm saying yes or thanks. Solutions: get focused into speaking Polish and not have any other options for the 'tak' sound in my mind; or, concentrate on the different sounds between the two words - which are very different, if you get close enough to see all the differences - and associate different pictures and feelings with each one which will always be there when I use the words.

It may seem a small thing to be talking about. But once you know bits of a few languages, some of the bits can fall into some of the other languages, so I'd like to know what you do about that.

One great linguist (polyglot, or by definition, hyperpolyglot - speaking more than six languages fluently) - the first that I think of - is Richard Francis Burton, the great English ...well, there isn't a word for what he was, he was everything - and everything England was not, so we can be thankful for having him (1821-1890). He was one of the first Westerners into Mecca - he went in disguise, linguistically as well as everything else (you can read about this in Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca). He translated the Arabian Nights (the Alf Laylah Wa Laylah, or "Thousand Nights and One Night") and the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - among others. Burton, who was supposed to know 29 languages, was an incredible man who went everywhere and did everything - fantastical, unlikely, impossible, but he did it. He even discovered the source of the Nile. Read something by him or about him. Then have a think about what you have to do to qualify as 'being alive'. Lord Derby said of RFB: "Before middle age, he compressed into his life more of study, more of hardship, and more of successful enterprise and adventure, than would have sufficed to fill up the existence of half a dozen ordinary men".