Thursday 30 August 2012

Post-practice reflections: Speed versus musicality

In the past couple of days, I've been seriously considering what I want the final tempo of the 2nd movement of Rachmaninov's second piano concerto to be. The middle movement of Rach 2 has several quite drastic tempo changes. To me, these are extremely important. When I started learning the fastest, and possibly most technically challenging, section of this movement (right in the middle, leading up to the cadenza - marked 'Piu Mosso'), I had set a target speed on my metronome which, at the time, I thought the fastest REALISTIC speed I could achieve.

As it turned out, by the time I'd worked that section up to my target speed of crotchet = 70 bpm, I felt as if I could easily do it a bit faster. So I set a new target speed: 80 bpm.

I'd already made the decision that I wanted to take this movement very slowly, even in the faster sections. I wanted all the notes to be clearly audible, all the wonderful and bizarre chromatic harmonies to stand out. But once I'd perfected the 80 bpm speed, I suddenly realised that when I stopped playing with the metronome, the technical aspect was so effortless that I instantly sped up.

On all the recordings I've listened to the 'Piu Mosso' section is played incredibly lightly, nimbly, and the final part of it sounds almost more like a trill than proper passagework. When left to my own devices, free of the constraining metronome, I couldn't help but imitate this speediness now that I had the technique to.
Of course, different pianists DO take it at different tempos. I even went to the trouble of working out the tempos of my 3 favorite recordings: Rachmaninov took the fast section at a whopping 125 bpm, Yefim Bronfman at 115 bpm, and Van Cliburn (whom I admire specially for his slower interpretation) at 100 bpm.
Yet all of these pianist play the fast section much faster than I was aspiring to.

In my practice session tonight, I tried a number of different metronome speeds, ranging from my original target of 80 bpm to Van Cliburn's nimbler 100 bpm. I couldn't make up my mind which tempo was best. On the one hand, I wanted all the notes to be audible, and not to simply sound like a blur. On the other hand, it felt so much better to play fast, and this was my natural tendency as soon as I turned off the metronome. So I did a little experiment.

I played from a few bars before the start of the fast section at a tempo I found comfortable and thought sounded nice. When I reached the fast section, I let myself settle into the tempo that felt natural, and which I always reverted to when I wasn't consciously aiming for a particular speed.
Then I stopped and turned on the metronome, adjusting the tempo until it matched what I'd just been playing. It was 90 bpm - halfway between my target and Van Cliburn's tempo.

The issue of tempo choice is more complicated than just choosing an appropriate tempo for the fast section, however. There are, as I have already mentioned, several other tempo changes in this movement, and how they all relate to each other is vitally important. If I decided to change my target speed for one section, I have to adjust all the others to fit in with it - it's like a sort of tempo 'ratio'.

For now, I've decided that 90 bpm is my tempo of choice for the 'Piu Mosso' section, but the process has made me realise that I have to be careful about sacrificing my musical intentions for the sake of virtuosity. I'm not really interested in technique for the sake of technique. One needs technique to execute one's interpretation of a piece, but if the interpretation doesn't demand virtuosity, one has to know when to hold back.

P.S. On the spur of the moment I decided to video myself during my practice session this evening, which means I can now actually hear how the different tempos I was trying out affect the sound of the music and my degree of accuracy and so forth. I've never done this before, and it was very interesting. Here's a link to the video

Saturday 25 August 2012

Composer series: Alberto Ginastera

Several years ago, my piano teacher sent me an email with a link to this recording, saying "You should do this for your next competition!" (He was referring to the local eistedfford.)
At first, I thought he was joking. Me, learn this diabolical-sounding piece in time for the eistedfford? It seemed impossible.
When I had my next lesson, my teacher brought along a copy of the score. It looked as diabolical as it sounded: the right and left hand staves were in different keys, and the rhythms were completely incomprehensible. However, I managed to read it, really liked it, and decided to try learning it.
Not only did I learn (and memorise) it, but I have since performed it several times (including in the eistedfford!)
So began my interest in the composer Alberto Ginastera, of whom I knew nothing at the time.
I can't really say very much about Ginastera, as the amount of repetoire by him that I'm familiar with is still relatively small. Instead, I'm just going to post links to my favorite pieces by him, and write a bit about each piece. I'll probably add to this list as I find new favorites :)

Danzas Argentinas (of course!) I now have the complete score of these little pieces, and have played through them (as well as hearing my teacher play them). One day I would very much like to learn all of them. The 2nd one reminds me of a well-known nursery rhyme or folk tune gone wrong... (interestingly, Ginastera used this same theme in one of his 'Piezas Infantiles')

Piezas Infantiles I looked up these pieces after reading about them, since I was curious to hear how Ginastera composed in his youth. They are absolutely gorgeous, and already show distinctive Ginastera trademarks.

Piano Sonata No. 1
1st movement
4th movement

Unfortunately there isn't a complete version of this on youtube that I like (I have Debora Halasz's recording of this, in my opinion it is the definitive one.) I discovered the last movement of this piece completely by accident while browsing youtube, and was absolutely blown away by it. I'd never heard anything like it (at least not in the realm of classical music), and I still haven't heard anything like it! The other movements are amazing as well.
I must confess I was heavily influenced (almost to the point of plagiarism) by the 5/8 descending fifths pattern in the first movement when writing a short piece for piano and percussion, earlier this year. It was just too good not to, erm, be influenced by!
Of course I bought the score for this fiendishly difficult sonata, in the hope that one day I'll manage to learn it... :S

Piano Concerto No. 1
1st movement
4th movement
I discovered this concerto through Emerson Lake & Palmer, who made a wonderful version of the last movement of it (which, incidentally, Ginastera himself thoroughly approved of.)
I dream of learning this concerto one day, but it will probably only ever be a dream.
Unfortunately I can't find the middle movements of this work on Youtube - at least, not played by João Carlos Martins.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

On memorising things

As a musician for whom memorising music is important, I'm fascinated by memory. As I've also realised, however, memorising isn't just for music.

Although my visual memory isn't very good, I have a highly developed memory for touch. I use this (muscle memory) to memorise music, but it can also take on a different and rather bizarre form. I often form a memory of a particular sensation, such as the pain of a badly bruised toe or the ache from the prick of a needle, and this can be randomly triggered so I actually experience that sensation again, long after it originally ocurred. I can't make this happen at will and I can't figure out what causes it, but it's quite fascinating.

A short while ago I decided to learn Russian, because I love Russian literature, music and so forth and thought it would interesting to learn the language too. I've previously dabbled in Latin and Greek (a long time ago!) and, more recently, French. What I've discovered is that there are lots of parallels between music and language.
Learning the Russian Cyrillic script (which consists of 33 letters!) is rather like learning to read written music; learning grammar is like learning theory - harmony, counterpoint and structure; and learning vocabulary is basically memorising. However, I'm a lot better at memorising music than I am at memorising words, and the reason is that there is a physical, spacial dimension to learning a piece of music.

I know that different pianists have very different techniques of memorising, and I can really only speak for myself when I say that I rely almost entirely on muscle memory. That is, I form a memory of the spatial relationships between intervals, the way the keyboard feels under my hands, how much I have to stretch my fingers or reach with my arms to hit the right notes, and so forth. Of course I also make conscious decisions  - 'here I have to play this note and that will lead me on to this section' - that sort of thing, but these are only momentary, and help me get through 'change-over points' in the musical structure. Once I've memorised a piece, I don't have to think about it - it just plays itself, allowing me to put as much feeling and expression into it as I like. In fact, as soon as I start thinking about what I'm doing, I'm likely to forget. My fingers know where to go, and thinking is a distraction.

I've heard a lot of people say that muscle memory is unreliable, and shouldn't be used for long pieces. Some people seem to be able to visualise the score in their head, but I have a very poor visual memory and although I could easily sing any of the pieces I'm learning at the moment, knowing what a piece sounds like does not equate to knowing where to put your fingers.
I can't consciously memorise an extensive section of music, either: I do, however, do this for very small sections that I'm having trouble remembering because they signal an important harmonic change in an otherwise uniform pattern that could be repeated endlessly without ever moving on. I have been known to start 'looping' a section of music like this (a notable example being Chopin's Etude Op. 25 No. 12, which can pretty much go on forever if you keep taking the 'wrong turn'!)

I often find it helpful to say to myself 'I have to play a B flat here' or 'This progression is a series of arpeggiated diminished 7th chords' to memorise an elusive passage. Once I've got it right enough times, I develop a spacial memory of it anyway and no longer need to give myself clues.

Memorising Russian vocabulary is a completely different matter! Although I've switched my Facebook and Twitter accounts to Russian and stuck a picture of a Cyrillic computer keyboard to my laptop, I'm not really using Russian on a regular basis so I have to make an effort to ensure I can remember the words I've already learnt. A technique I've found useful is to think of an English word or set of words that sounds a bit like a Russian word I'm trying to memorise (the results are often hilarious.) Unfortunately this doesn't guarantee I'll remember what the word is meant to mean!

I'd be interested to know what techniques other people use to memorise things, whether it be music, a language, or something else entirely! And I'm particularly interested in what pianists think about muscle memory and whether it's a good thing or not.