Last Friday I was reminded of
something I hadn’t thought about for a long time. As usual this led to my thinking laterally
about other important things that seem (at least to me) to relate. These thought-fugues always end up relating
to piano playing and piano teaching, so try to follow along.
What I was reminded of was a
telescope that I got when I was in 6th grade. It was a real telescope, and I liked standing
on our porch and looking at the moon, and sometimes, Venus, which was one of
the more present celestial bodies. In
1962 AT&T launched Telstar, one of the first satellites that I could see
with my little telescope. I remember a
little paperback book that I had that discussed the constellations, planets and
more prominent stars that would be visible, the times of year that I would be
able to see them, and other totally stimulating things about astronomy. Astronomy stimulated my imagination.
When I entered the University
of Northern Iowa I signed up for Astronomy for my first semester. Astronomy had nothing to do with my curriculum
as a piano major. I wanted to take that
course because it gave me… joy! I could
actually hear the sound of my joy being sucked from my soul when I looked into
the Introduction to Astronomy text,
rife with formulas that a physicist would recognize, possibly admire or even be
attracted to. But physics and math were
not what had endeared me to the stars. I
was probably lucky to get a “C” in that course.
I skipped lots of sessions, and I never looked back.
What, you might ask, led me
to ponder a college course taken fifty years ago? Marian and I were enjoying the start to our
weekend. We were sincerely hoping that
the snow would really, really melt. Late
April… really?? Minneapolis has seen a
huge growth in microbreweries in the last two years. We have reveled in this fact, and we had
decided to try out a taproom that we had never been to. As we were reading about their offerings, we
noticed a series of numbers affixed to the beer descriptions.
ABV is the most obvious: Alcohol
By Volume is the one that Marian sees first. She has quite a low tolerance for alcohol,
but has grown to love the tastes of different varieties of beer and ale.
I like to look for the
IBU. This is the International Bitterness
Unit. Bitter probably sounds a little negative if
you are not a beer lover, but it is a perceptional factor in the tastes of
chocolate and coffee also. Bitterness is
important.
The little acronym that we
saw Friday night that neither of us had seen before was SRM. We “Googled” SRM and found that it meant Standard Reference Method. What?
So, let’s read a little bit, here.
“…one of several
systems modern brewers use to specify beer color.”
Oh, OK.
That’s cool. Beer comes in so
many colors other than ‘Budweiser!’ So
what is there beyond a Pilsner yellow, or an Amber-amber and a nice, rich
brownish-black Stout or Porter?
“Determination
of the SRM value involves measuring the attenuation of light of a particular
wavelength (430 nm) in passing through 1 cm of the beer, expressing
the attenuation as an absorption and scaling the absorption by a constant (12.7
for SRM.”
What??? This was getting to sound like Physics, or
something. I can taste the IBU, so I
care. Marian can feel the ABV, so she
chooses wisely. I’m going to give this
SRM one more chance.
“The SRM number
was originally, and still is, defined by "Beer color intensity on a sample
free of turbidity and having the spectral characteristics of an average beer is
10 times the absorbance of the beer measured in a 1/2 inch cell with
monochromatic light at 430 nanometers."
Well,
now you have really lost me. In fact,
you probably have maxed out your lose-ability, right!
“Using
Beer-Lambert again gives the mathematical definition of SRM in the general case
as: SRM=12.7 x A430 where D
is the dilution factor (D = 1 for undiluted samples, D = 2 for 1:1 dilution
etc.) and A430 the absorbance at 430 nm in 1 cm.”
Oh. God. My. Brain. Just. Farted!
I
had to shut down the Google app, go back to my beer and decide I didn’t care
what color it was. I just wanted to
enjoy my beer, in the moment. This is when my mind
shot back to those who sucked the joy, for me, out of the entire field of
Astronomy. They were desperately trying
to show me how scientific, how important the measurement of color is to the
field of brewing. Maybe, they seemed to
say, if your mind is too small to understand our system of measuring, recording
and grading the color of our lagers and ales… just maybe you should try a nice
strong cup of tea!! They were trying to
squeeze the joy out of loving the beer.
Now,
you are probably saying, “Yes, Rory, this is mighty interesting, although more
than a slight departure from the central premise of the Fingers Dancing
blog.” But is it? Are piano teachers above squeezing the joy of
music making out of their students? Here
is the connection:
As
a pianist, I know that playing the piano beautifully is a complex
enterprise. I know that reading music is
a high level function of pattern recognition.
I have endeavored, over fifty years, to hone my reading into a true
science. Composers, such as George
Crumb, have developed graphic notation formats that challenge professional
pianists.
I
have learned enough, and read enough, about the art and science of practicing
that I could write books on the subject.
I might if I had time… but I’m usually practicing. Luckily there is a recent body of writing on
piano practice that clearly allows those interested to become experts at
acquiring professional levels of performance.
I
know that there is a great body of knowledge on the performance practices of
individual composers and their eras. Universities
offer doctorates in that area. I know
that building a piano technique can take a lifetime.
As
a piano teacher, I have learned is that, as excited as I might be about
knowledge and skills that I acquire, my students need time to absorb every
element of knowledge about the piano. I
have learned that my students don’t have to learn everything at once. We can overwhelm them with detail, and suck the
joy of playing the piano right out of their souls.
The
human animal wants to learn… wants to do better, and wants to enjoy the process
of learning. My job is to get my
students started on the path. I have to
find that fine line between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. If I am alert my students will give me
signals. They will ask pointed questions
about a barrier that they have failed to break through. This tells me that they are ready for a
subtler layer to their learning journey.
My job is not, however, to wait passively for their questions, for those
famed ‘teaching moments.’ My job is to
manipulate my students into just barely crossing that line from satisfaction to
dissatisfaction. At that moment I have a
chance to serve them up with another helping of joy.
One
last story... One of my daughters, when
she was in first grade, suddenly became interested in writing stories. They were quite imaginative. I wanted to encourage this for many reasons,
among which was the fact that she was having some trouble with reading
comprehension. I thought that writing
her ideas might help her make the connections we need when we ponder what we
read. I think the first grade teacher
had the right ideas about these stories, but the way she implemented the
project was greatly flawed. I noticed that
the assignments started to come home, marked in red, noting spelling and
grammar errors. Rather than let this
child revel in the pure joy of creation, of using her imagination and
expressing her ideas, the teacher opted to suck the joy. We all know that spelling and proper grammar
are important, but… I think you know how this ends. One less child interested in a joyless
activity.
As
for me, I shall continue to look up in the sky and try to spot planets and
constellations. I will drink my craft
beer, hold the glass up to the light and marvel at the color and taste. I refuse to let my joy be sucked from me, and
I resolve to allow my students the pure joy of playing, of controlling that huge machine. That machine has a soul of its own, and when paired with the
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