The dictionaries on the piano are all that are left after years of giving them away.
Contributed by Sally Hitchcock, Hitchcock Piano Studio
Several times in the early years of my 40 years of teaching piano, I heard master teachers, great performers and designers of method books say something about notes being the least important item for musicians to master. In a University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) class on piano literature. I finally got it.
Jean-Paul Billaud told us that when we turn the page in a Mozart sonata, that first note at the top of the new page was not only a place on the piano, but a note with a purpose. It could be a melody note at the beginning or end of a phrase, so how you play it matters a lot. Then, there is that note’s purpose: Is it a “hook” to a new section of the melody? Is it fighting to be heard above a fat, heavy chord in the other hand? In other words, everything else on the music matters more than just the note that only tells you where the sound must happen. Musicianship identifies how that sound should happen.
Over the years, I exploded with praise whenever a student discovered and used a volume or texture mark, or did a singing phrase that was musical and stood by itself. The most frequent question I would ask was, “Since you played all the notes, what other “orders” did you miss? Can you point them out to me, and tell me what they mean?”
I felt so good when my middle daughter went to University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and I heard about her audition to join the music department. At the next conference of our professional group, the head of the UAF music department told me that, until that audition, he had never heard an incoming student who knew how to play compositions of various periods of music in the absolute correct style intended by the composers. I think I glowed the entire weekend. Of course, my daughter switched majors to theater, but I still brag about her.
One of the missing pieces of the puzzle happens when a piano teacher wants students to try all sorts of styles from Bach to Joplin to country or the Beatles. The problem comes because those older styles of music are not often heard by the students.
It is a real shame, because some radio stations have programs of older or classical music. In addition, CDs are available from catalogues at low prices.
With those tools, a family can help expose themselves to styles that have been beloved for generations. All this can help a student become a more aware concert-goer, as well as enjoy the fun of producing sounds they learn to love.
