If I Can’t Be Tiger Woods, Why Should I Bother?

This morning, like almost every Friday morning, my first student greeted me at 7:15.  He is an adult with a full time job, and is obviously at the top of his profession.  He is one of those people that are sent out to clients as a consultant and trouble-shooter, and I think he is highly valued at his workplace.  He comes to his lesson at 7:15 so he can work with me when his mind is fresh.  He then drives another half hour to work.  Pretty devoted, wouldn’t you say?

I was impressed with one of his pieces this morning.  He did not attend last week, as we had one of our grand Minneapolis April snowstorms, and my street was more intimidating than a gauntlet.  The week before I had assigned him a new piece, and it was that piece that impressed me this morning.  My student accomplished everything I heard, with no input from me!  He is obviously learning things that allow him to process an unfamiliar work, and play with reasonably accurate pitch, rhythm and style.

I was totally “on alert” because he began, like many adults, explaining to me everything he thought was challenging.  Adults are not acclimated to being students.  This man is accomplished and highly skilled in his profession, and he thinks of himself in those terms.  He is a leader, a problem-solver, and a mentor to younger colleagues.  And… when he comes to me he struggles with the intricacies of playing the piano, an activity that several years ago he might have thought to be a simple process.

Like many adults my student struggles with what pianists think of as “a feel for the keyboard.”  Much of this “feel” has to do with relating the musculature of the hand and the spacing of the fingers to what forms are seen on the music itself.  For a couple of years we have been working on reading music as patterns…real, physical patterns.  It is tempting for beginning students to react to each note as an entity, without relationship to any other notes around it.  This leads to badly formed muscle memory, and inconsistency.  That inconsistency is the recurring complaint of adult piano students, and it is caused by the failure to process music as patterns, and the failure to place the hands, always, in a hand position. 

The thing that impressed me so much this morning is that my student was totally aware of the shapes and spacings of his chords, and award of how his hands moved from one position to the next.  I hope I was effusive enough in my praise that he understands what a breakthrough this is.  This is why teaching is so rewarding. 

But lets talk about beauty, for a second, because we all want to play beautifully.  That is certainly one of the things that draw us to the piano.  The idea of controlling a beast that weighs 1000 pounds, having the physical, tactile joy of manipulating all 88 keys, and hearing beauty, at our beck and call.  Who would not love that??  But the truth is, few adult beginners will ever sound as smooth as a professional.  Many adults sound more like they have studied the Karate method of playing the piano… Hyah!!  So, why do they bother?

It occurs to me that no one ever says that about his or her golf prowess.  Imagine your neighbor giving up golf because he suddenly realizes that he will never play like Tiger Woods.  Ridiculous?  Of course.  But somehow playing a musical instrument less than artfully will often become discouraging. 

I have been thinking about this phenomenon in relationship to myself.  I have a sort of hobby that I don’t often talk about.  It is something that I do, something that I find joy and challenge in.  But, it is a hobby that yields a product that might be thought of as amateur, at best.  Since it is a musical hobby, I have a hard to being proud of any achievements I make.  I invent little tunes, sometimes with words to match.

You notice I didn’t say I compose.  No, I am NOT a composer.  To me, a composer is… Beethoven, or Brahms!  Someone to be revered, studied, and performed!  Literally, they are gods to me because their music transcends what any mortal should be able to create.  But they did, repeatedly, unfailingly!  I am not allowed into their hallowed circle.

I am also not a songwriter, even though most of my products are songs.  Cole Porter was a songwriter; the Gershwins were songwriters.  My God, even Barry Manilow is a songwriter, and I confess, here and before everyone, that I like Barry Manilow’s songs.  We don’t even need to mention Sondheim or even Willy Nelson.  They craft songs that touch us, communicate to us, and their songs will defeat the cruelties of time and space.

The best I might be able to do would be to tell people to listen to something “I made up.”  That’s the way children might express a piece that came of their doodlings at the piano.  “Mom, listen to what I made up!”  Yes, that expresses it fully.  My creations are made up, and on the level of a musical child.  This all because I am used to being thought of as a professional.  When people hear me play the piano, I trust they do hear beauty, and through my playing, they are touched by those lofty composers and songwriters that deserve to be called as such.

I read something the other day by Rob Deemer of SUNY-Fredonia.  He was discussing pianists and piano teachers that attempt composing.  I quote below:  “…most of us look at professional composers in the same way that the sports world looks at specialists such as fencers: we can understand the basic concept of the sport (once it’s explained to us every four years during the Olympics), but very few of us ever get the chance to try such an activity. Most of us don’t meet fencers at parties or in the grocery store, and while there are fencing clubs around the country, the sport does not have the popularity of golf or tennis or even chess. I suppose what I am doing is asking why composing can’t be more like golf or chess. Very few will ever hope to reach the level of true masters, but the activity itself is still seen as an enjoyable pastime.”

“I guess the question at the heart of the matter is what is more important: the act of musical creation or the final product. For those of us whose livelihoods are intertwined with the success of our creative work, then the final product is, of course, a very high priority. But one might suggest that allowing and encouraging others to partake in the act of creation–whether or not the final product is performed publicly, used as an exercise in a classroom, or simply listened to in private–is both worthwhile and important for the future of our art.”

This makes so much sense!  This is why my adult students study.  They have not set their bars too high.  They play for the sheer joy of musical creation.  Their requirements are not necessarily the absolute quality of their final products.  Yes, they do seek beauty, and most will accept their progress the way it occurs, little by little.  I can look at my oeuvre of songs, and I do see some that I am more proud of, than some others.  Occasionally I will find something in a song that even impresses me.  I struggle to get to the point that I see myself as a songwriter.  This is probably why most of my songs are “novelty songs”, cute musical jokes.  It’s a defense mechanism, because songs like that don’t have to be taken seriously, do they?

For now, we shall leave me with my own personal struggles with this issue.  To my adult students, you all have my admiration!

Sucking the Joy…

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 6^th 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 soul of a human, the beauty that ensues is a miracle.

If I Were a Carpenter…

If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway?  Would you have my baby?

So!  Here it is, April once again.  April is when I’m supposed to be able to regain my sanity.  The snow should be gone, of course… even in Minneapolis.  April is when I can say that the recitals, contests, festivals and exams for my students are finished, and winding down.  April is when we can begin planning our summer outings, music and art festivals, camping trips and vacations.  April is when I can think and write a little bit. 

My mind usually gets totally engaged in small topics in April.  I tend to think deep thoughts about small things I see and hear.  I’ve always believed this is my mind experiencing the same joy as a black Lab puppy being released into the fenced-in backyard, released to run as fast as possible in ever widening circles.  No reason other than the pure freedom of the act.

“What,” you might ask, “Noble thinker, has provoked your most recent Deep Thought?”  Glad you asked!  This is where it gets interesting:  Not really any one thing.  I like to add random items together to make a puzzle, which I then have to solve.  I list below the random items:

•       Yet another person asked my wife, the tax accountant, if she were very busy presently, due to Tax Season.
•       I was asked about my availability to teach a student that began study with a teacher without the qualifications of a professional piano teacher.
•      In a movie I was watching, someone asked a professional musician where he was "trained."
•      Speaking to me, someone said, “Oh, so you just teach in your home?”
•      I heard the song, If I Were a Carpenter.

I suppose it is pretty difficult to really understand the intricacies of another person’s job.  We tend to see things like we see icebergs, so we should just trust that there is always more to a person’s life than we can fathom.  It doesn’t happen that way, though.  More than most people, I know that a tax accountant is not just simply a tax accountant, and taxes are not just taxes.

The people that ask Marian about how busy she is are probably trying to make small talk, maybe show that they empathize with her “busy time.”  They understand taxes mainly through their own filing of income taxes.  They know that somewhere around April 15 their taxes are due, so they assume that maybe she will be extra busy.  Many even wonder what she does the other 11.5 months of the year.  I know that my wife doesn’t file 1040 tax forms for anyone but our own.  She works at a large corporation that has Global, International, Federal and State income tax, as well as sales and property tax in all 50 states.  The company has a tax department larger than any public accounting firm she has ever worked in.  Each area has their own specialists because the volume of work, and the knowledge that each area requires, is so vast that no one person could know all.  Nobody at the company has anything to do with your individual taxes.  And they are all busy, all of the time.

But the tax department at Ecolab is invisible to us.  We see the H & R Block outlets, and the mom & pop accounting shops in small buildings along every street.  Taxes Filed Here.  Many of our individual taxes are so simple that almost anyone that can read directions could complete the forms.  Most of us do not require a CPA to help us, and of course we don’t want to pay the extra fees.  That is unless something happens.  We have several friends that have turned 70 and were shocked by some unexpected taxes that occurred from a required withdrawal from pensions, IRAs and 401k accounts. 

Piano teachers are much like accountants, in that all are not the same.  The people that do your 1040s are not always highly qualified.  If you have a simple tax situation you could pay anyone to do those taxes.  If you want, you could hang out a shingle and advertise and charge to do taxes for someone else.  As long as you claim to be certified you will be OK.  Or until you screw up!  You could also hang out a shingle to teach piano.  There is no license requirement.  My mother loves to tell a story that a slightly wacko lady that she knew years ago wanted to set up a piano teaching studio.  They would be partners.  The lady would do the teaching, and my mother would provide the music, using my own piano books.  Legally they could have done it.  They probably would have gotten some students, too!  Not everyone that can play the piano should be teaching.  Not even everyone that has studied music should teach piano.  Knowing music and knowing how to play does not really qualify you.  But there are no laws, and no minimum requirements.  Directing a school music program, or choir does not qualify you any more than the ability to fill out a 1040 qualifies you to do complex tax filings. 

I have often wondered where the reference to “training” came from when speaking of activities that people engage in.  Training, to me, seems like something that we do for animals when we take time with them.  People train their pets to live comfortably with them in their homes.  Some do further training to enter their pets in shows.  We can train dogs and horses to race.  But most activities that people engage in are “learned” activities.  I think the semantics are important.  Learned activities take a higher level of thinking skills.  They cannot be trained.  I especially am sensitive to the idea that a concert pianist is “trained.”  So, call me thin-skinned.

As a professional piano teacher I realize that learning to play the piano is not one thing, simple or otherwise.  I like to break down the higher level thinking skills this way:

1)     Reading music, with its complexity of eye movement, coded symbols for physical movement and timing, and a mental “streaming” is a set of skills that would confound most computers.

2)     The discipline of daily practice involves the diagnosis of problems, and the discernment of how to solve those problems.  It also involves training the mind to have a mature attention span, a self-critical attitude about success and failure, and self-discipline to continue to a satisfactory end.

3)     The interpretation of the musical intent of a score involves higher level coding that regulates the speed within a set pulse, and regulates the level of sound from the softest to the most powerful.

4)     Memorization involves setting and maintaining multiple cues, signals and imagery that allow an unbroken recitation of complex physical, mental and emotional acts. 

5)     Performance skills allow a musician to coordinate both conscious and subconscious minds, focus through multiple distractions and react with control to unforeseen missteps during any given performance. 

The skills listed above are not things that can be trained.  For many people they are not even skills that can be learned.  To become proficient at all five of these a person must develop a remarkable mindset, and develop their brains to a level they might never really understand.  I like to tell my students that they are artists, scientists and athletes, all rolled into one.  I believe that.  My students are not trained.  They are taught to become independent thinkers and musicians.

I am presently enjoying a second career.  My first career was as a university teacher.  My main duties were to teach applied piano to undergraduate and graduate students.  They had steep requirements to get their degrees.  They participated in competitions, played often in both informal and formal recitals, played with ensembles and soloed with orchestras, as did I.  As a university teacher I performed often, was asked to make presentations at conferences and adjudicate competitions.  I was eagerly asked to serve in offices of the state music teachers association, and serve as a faculty mentor to male music students at ten different universities, under the auspices of a national music fraternity.  All of this recognition came to me, before I had earned it, as a result of my position on a university faculty.  Although I think I grew into this position and recognition, I know that the scenario would have been different had I been an independent piano teacher in the same place at the same time.

When I retired from university teaching, I became that independent teacher.  My studio in Minneapolis has grown, and I have enjoyed many very talented and hard working students.  Some of my students are of average ability, and I love them too.  They work hard for me, and I love to see the progress they make.  They may never become gifted performers, but they may learn enough to be able to express themselves and play for the rest of their lives.  It does pain me a little when I hear someone say, “Oh, so you just teach in your home?”  I doubt if any real malice is intended, but under the surface there is this idea that your place in the profession of music teaching is somehow diminished.  The Department of Labor would even go so far as to categorize we independent music teachers as engaging in a “cottage industry.”  Oh, well!

The final thought came as I heard, If I Were a Carpenter.  I always liked this song, especially as sung by Bobby Darrin.  I think the lyrics are fairly poignant.  Somehow the lady, we presume wellborn and upper class, may not be able to love the carpenter.  We are presented here with a challenge.  Are we simply going to accept the idea that a carpenter, skilled labor, is somehow a lesser-respected person that say, a university “trained” professional?  Is the difference inherent?  Is there a moral or intellectual difference here?  We are challenged to decide.  How many of us are willing to pre-judge by chosen profession?  I good friend of mine was the pastor of a United Church of Christ church.  He had a Masters degree in Theology.  He had a vibrant congregation, and I was his music director.  When I accepted my university position in Louisiana, I later found out that he had resigned from the pastorate and had become a carpenter.  Did he lose his professional prestige at that point?  Did he notice that people accepted him in a different way after his change of life?  We might ponder this.  Now that it is April, we might have the freedom to think on this, and other of life’s persistent questions.