There's a little bromide that used to be very popular on wedding programs, that, like most really popular bits of sentiment, didn't sit well with me. It was meant to be really nice, of course:
Don't lead me, I may not follow
Don't follow me, I may not lead
Just walk beside me and be my friend
Which sounds simple and lovely, but doesn't really work in a marriage or anywhere else. There are times when you have to lead the other person, times when the other person leads you, and yes, times when you both walk leisurely into the sunset together holding hands and everything works out nicely.
I bring this up because I think accompaniment works the same way.
First of all, the chairman of the department of said accompanying in college hated the word. She preferred to call it "collaboration." That does sound like a more equal term in some ways, but it still needs to be understood correctly.
There were folks who joined the "collaborative piano" department because they were too shy to be soloists, much the way violists are sometimes people who don't play the violin well enough or lack confidence. That doesn't really work in either case.
That's because a collaborator has to have the boldness of a soloist, mixed with the discretion of a respectful partner. In other words, you've got to have the ability to take charge and the wisdom to know when that's necessary.
There are some places, of course, when the choir stops singing, or the instrumentalist stops playing, and you have an interlude all to yourself. Some of the wallflower accompanists in college would get nervous and make a mess of passages like that because suddenly they didn't have the security of someone else playing along.
You could be an organist playing an introduction to a hymn or a pianist playing a violin sonata in which the piano plays the opening measures alone. Either way, you have to set the tempo, you have to set the mood, and you have to deal with the fact that people are listening to you alone, and that any mistake in the piano part is going to be noticeable. But then, that's usually true of my situation anyway. Even when I'm collaborating with the 70 voice choir, I figure that if a false piano note develops, it will be obvious who did it. No hiding behind 5 other tenors!
You've got to have the guts to be wrong in order to be right. You can't wait for somebody else to start the piece, or hide behind their sound. In fact, you often have to be ready to equal or even outplay your choir or soloist.
Heresy! they all cry. An accompanist should always be softer than the soloist or choir. That's why they are an accompanist.
Not true. There is also a line, a chord, something that is an important part of the music that needs to be heard. It may be a small percentage of the notes on the page. It usually is. But one of my most important jobs is to recognize those places. It may be that the composer has given the piano alone a chord on the downbeat of the measure and the entire choir comes in on beat two. In that case, that chord has to be the equal in volume to the whole choir or it will sound musically wrong, and it needs to have sufficient vigor to give the choir a secure sense of the rhythm, so they can bounce off of the beat that they don't get to sing.
Changes in harmony that are given to the piano, or to the rhythmic inflection--if the musical information is not in the solo part, than it must be audible. The clarity of the musical argument depends on it.
And if it is redundant--if the soloist or choir is already giving out the information (i.e., singing the same notes)--I back way down or leave those notes out altogether, to let my partners shine out. Unless they turn out to need help, of course, in which case I offer as little as is needed to help them achieve their independence!
One of the best compliments I've received is from the choir members who have said "you make us sound better" because I think it illustrates what I hope is true about my approach to accompaniment. To be solid and secure and to let your choir or soloist shine forth when they are in fine form, giving them strategic help when they are not, and, without drowning them, serving the music such that the important notes come through clearly no matter who has them.
I sometimes hear that the problem with other accompanists is that they think they are soloists. Now here's where it gets tricky. I've been talking about accompanists as if being soloists is a useful skill. I still think so. The problem is in what kind of soloist we are talking about. A good soloist to me is one who listens. Even when playing by yourself, you have to balance the different parts of the music and be sensitive to the musical material, bringing some things up and some down. Often what emerges with persons who cannot accompany well is that they really don't listen very well. Because the only real difference between balancing a solo sonata and playing in an ensemble is that some of the parts that you are listening to, you aren't initiating yourself. But if you are used to listening, to liberating music from your own physical motion, it doesn't really matter. It is just as important or unimportant regardless of where it is coming from. Besides, even in a solo piece, there are often places where the soloist is playing an accompanying figure, as in several piano concertos. A soloist can never escape the need to be a collaborator any more than a person can live completely apart from society. And an accompanist can't avoid being a soloist, either.
But then, I do plenty of both kinds of playing, so I guess I would think that way, wouldn't I?
Showing posts with label accompanist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accompanist. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
The right notes at the right time
"with regard to organ playing, there is nothing to it. You simply strike the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself."
--J. S. Bach
When it comes to accompanying, it is necessary to multi-task. Of course, you have to be able to turn pages and play simultaneously, often finding clever ways to play the entire passage with one hand while doing so. But more to the point you have to be able to listen to your choir (or soloist) as well as listening to yourself.
As soon as somebody needs help, you've got to be able to provide it. In the course of a standard choir rehearsal, I almost never play the written out accompaniment. This is because generally I am helping one section or another with their notes. I may be playing the voice parts instead of the accompaniment, or some combination of each.
But even if the choir is singing alone, without the aid of the piano, I may step in to help at any time. We encourage the choir to do as much singing alone as possible, even in places where the piano would be there for them in the performance of the music. This is to help strengthen their sense of their own notes, and so that the director and I can listen more carefully to the sound they are making. The point, after all, is to make sure they can do it. They are mostly amateurs, and they don't spend several hours every day practicing. But they can sound quite good when they work at it.
As they are singing "a cappella," I am following along in the score, and, at a nod from the director, or a whispered "help the tenors" (by which point I am probably already poised to do that because I can also hear that they aren't finding their notes) suddenly out pop a few piano notes. I don't play their entire line--they don't need it, and I am not there to hand-hold, just to offer aid when necessary. That may mean I only play a few notes every 30 seconds or so. But they have to be the ones that are needed. The right ones, at the right time.
There are also situations in which I leave out notes. If the accompaniment features an occasional clash between the piano and what the sopranos are singing, during an early rehearsal I may leave those notes out in order not to lead the sopranos astray, because they will think they are supposed to match the piano. Once they know their part well, I'll put those notes back in. This requires me to understand the relationships of the notes at a glance, to categorize not only the important notes in a phrase, but to see the notes that will be helpful (if the composer has written the baritone note in the accompaniment a beat before they come in, for instance) from those that will not be.
I didn't major in accompaniment at the conservatory, and only took a class or two, so I don't know if this is ever taught in music school, but it is certainly important. And it is a case when it helps to be able to improvise and score read, enabling one to play a few beats of accompaniment, a beat or two of some voice combination, back to the accompaniment, just the sopranos---the situation dictates it, what one hears, and no preconceived plan. It is all done in reaction to where the group is, and what they need. In concert as well as in rehearsal.
"....If you could see him...not only...singing with one voice and playing his own parts, but watching over everything and bringing back to the rhythm and the beat, out of thirty or forty musicians the one with a nod, another by tapping with his foot, the third with a warning finger, giving the right note to one from the top of this voice, to another from the bottom, and to a third from the middle of it--all alone, in the midst of the greatest din made by all the participants, and, although he is executing the most difficult parts himself, noticing at once whenever and wherever a mistake occurs, holding everyone together, taking precautions everywhere, and repairing any unsteadiness, full of rhythm in every part of his body--this one man taking in all these harmonies with his keen ear and emitting with his voice alone the tone of all the voices..."
---Johann Matthias Gesner on J. S. Bach in rehearsal!
--J. S. Bach
When it comes to accompanying, it is necessary to multi-task. Of course, you have to be able to turn pages and play simultaneously, often finding clever ways to play the entire passage with one hand while doing so. But more to the point you have to be able to listen to your choir (or soloist) as well as listening to yourself.
As soon as somebody needs help, you've got to be able to provide it. In the course of a standard choir rehearsal, I almost never play the written out accompaniment. This is because generally I am helping one section or another with their notes. I may be playing the voice parts instead of the accompaniment, or some combination of each.
But even if the choir is singing alone, without the aid of the piano, I may step in to help at any time. We encourage the choir to do as much singing alone as possible, even in places where the piano would be there for them in the performance of the music. This is to help strengthen their sense of their own notes, and so that the director and I can listen more carefully to the sound they are making. The point, after all, is to make sure they can do it. They are mostly amateurs, and they don't spend several hours every day practicing. But they can sound quite good when they work at it.
As they are singing "a cappella," I am following along in the score, and, at a nod from the director, or a whispered "help the tenors" (by which point I am probably already poised to do that because I can also hear that they aren't finding their notes) suddenly out pop a few piano notes. I don't play their entire line--they don't need it, and I am not there to hand-hold, just to offer aid when necessary. That may mean I only play a few notes every 30 seconds or so. But they have to be the ones that are needed. The right ones, at the right time.
There are also situations in which I leave out notes. If the accompaniment features an occasional clash between the piano and what the sopranos are singing, during an early rehearsal I may leave those notes out in order not to lead the sopranos astray, because they will think they are supposed to match the piano. Once they know their part well, I'll put those notes back in. This requires me to understand the relationships of the notes at a glance, to categorize not only the important notes in a phrase, but to see the notes that will be helpful (if the composer has written the baritone note in the accompaniment a beat before they come in, for instance) from those that will not be.
I didn't major in accompaniment at the conservatory, and only took a class or two, so I don't know if this is ever taught in music school, but it is certainly important. And it is a case when it helps to be able to improvise and score read, enabling one to play a few beats of accompaniment, a beat or two of some voice combination, back to the accompaniment, just the sopranos---the situation dictates it, what one hears, and no preconceived plan. It is all done in reaction to where the group is, and what they need. In concert as well as in rehearsal.
"....If you could see him...not only...singing with one voice and playing his own parts, but watching over everything and bringing back to the rhythm and the beat, out of thirty or forty musicians the one with a nod, another by tapping with his foot, the third with a warning finger, giving the right note to one from the top of this voice, to another from the bottom, and to a third from the middle of it--all alone, in the midst of the greatest din made by all the participants, and, although he is executing the most difficult parts himself, noticing at once whenever and wherever a mistake occurs, holding everyone together, taking precautions everywhere, and repairing any unsteadiness, full of rhythm in every part of his body--this one man taking in all these harmonies with his keen ear and emitting with his voice alone the tone of all the voices..."
---Johann Matthias Gesner on J. S. Bach in rehearsal!
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Kill the Accompanist!
Last week I said that the most important thing about being an accompanist was being able to defer to an external source--for rhythm, for phrasing, and so on. Sure, you've got your internal metronome going, but the 2nd beat of the measure doesn't really come until the soloist, or the conductor, or your collaborator, or the orchestra, or the choir, says it does. You don't get to decide that. If you are trapped in your own little world, counting off in your head and not paying attention to the proceedings around you, you aren't going to be able to stay together even for a few measures. Anybody with any real musical sense is making constant adjustments to the way they feel the pulse, and the phrase, and you have to go with that.
The simplest apparent way of doing this is to look at your conductor or soloist for the visual cues they provide. But looking up every once in a while isn't nearly the half of it. In fact, it is considerably less than half. Most of it is listening.
There was a fellow in the Ken Burn's Baseball series who talked about umpiring. He mentioned that he never really thought of vision as the most important qualification for being an umpire. He went on to explain that a more accurate way to decide whether the base runner got to the bag first or the ball got to the first baseman's glove first was to listen to the distinctive percussive sounds each event made and determine which one came first. It made sense to me.
Nevertheless, most people would never have believed him--at least until he offered the explanation. What is the first thing people always yell at an umpire? "What are you, blind?!" Which is followed by the old classic, "Kill the ump!" We're a bloodthirsty species.
Several eons ago, when I was at the conservatory, someone noticed after a concert with my violinist partner and I that we never looked at each other. And yet we always managed to stay perfectly together. Odd, they thought.
I thought about it. The music was always in a different direction than the violinist, so I would have to swivel my head, and he would have to nearly turn around; nevertheless, that is how most duos keep ensemble. But I realized that I could hear the sound of his bow being raised, (and probably see it out of the corner of my eye, too, for that matter) and know just where the down-bow was going to come just by listening for it.
A few years later I was accompanying a church choir at the organ and the choir was between me and the conductor. I absolutely could not see the conductor's upbeat. And this was one of those anthems where the organ and choir begin exactly together. But we started just fine. How could I tell when to begin? I could hear the sound of two dozen people breathing in unison, taking their first breath a beat before the start. If that isn't enough, it takes a few fractions of a second for a choir to form their first consonant, which give you a little more time to be sure you have it right. By the time they've accelerated to the vowel, and the sound envelope of a group of singers has opened sufficiently, you've have at least a tenth of a second to think about it. That's enough time for a martini, practically.
I stress the importance of listening, and of knowing how to listen, even though it seems evident that music is all about sounds and listening to them. And yet, sight seems to be our primary sense and our first and sometimes only focus. I have never in my life heard anybody yell at an umpire, "What are you? deaf?" You expect, therefore, non-musicians to have a surprisingly unappreciative role for the ear in music, particularly if they haven't had much experience in using theirs. But musicians have the same difficulty. There's a world of breathing human beings out there rhythmically sucking in air, bows being drawn against strings, key actions making little clicking sounds, trucks driving by during recording sessions, conductors grunting, the sound of postures being reclaimed on hard-backed chairs, all of it leaving a signature. And cues. Listen for it.
The simplest apparent way of doing this is to look at your conductor or soloist for the visual cues they provide. But looking up every once in a while isn't nearly the half of it. In fact, it is considerably less than half. Most of it is listening.
There was a fellow in the Ken Burn's Baseball series who talked about umpiring. He mentioned that he never really thought of vision as the most important qualification for being an umpire. He went on to explain that a more accurate way to decide whether the base runner got to the bag first or the ball got to the first baseman's glove first was to listen to the distinctive percussive sounds each event made and determine which one came first. It made sense to me.
Nevertheless, most people would never have believed him--at least until he offered the explanation. What is the first thing people always yell at an umpire? "What are you, blind?!" Which is followed by the old classic, "Kill the ump!" We're a bloodthirsty species.
Several eons ago, when I was at the conservatory, someone noticed after a concert with my violinist partner and I that we never looked at each other. And yet we always managed to stay perfectly together. Odd, they thought.
I thought about it. The music was always in a different direction than the violinist, so I would have to swivel my head, and he would have to nearly turn around; nevertheless, that is how most duos keep ensemble. But I realized that I could hear the sound of his bow being raised, (and probably see it out of the corner of my eye, too, for that matter) and know just where the down-bow was going to come just by listening for it.
A few years later I was accompanying a church choir at the organ and the choir was between me and the conductor. I absolutely could not see the conductor's upbeat. And this was one of those anthems where the organ and choir begin exactly together. But we started just fine. How could I tell when to begin? I could hear the sound of two dozen people breathing in unison, taking their first breath a beat before the start. If that isn't enough, it takes a few fractions of a second for a choir to form their first consonant, which give you a little more time to be sure you have it right. By the time they've accelerated to the vowel, and the sound envelope of a group of singers has opened sufficiently, you've have at least a tenth of a second to think about it. That's enough time for a martini, practically.
I stress the importance of listening, and of knowing how to listen, even though it seems evident that music is all about sounds and listening to them. And yet, sight seems to be our primary sense and our first and sometimes only focus. I have never in my life heard anybody yell at an umpire, "What are you? deaf?" You expect, therefore, non-musicians to have a surprisingly unappreciative role for the ear in music, particularly if they haven't had much experience in using theirs. But musicians have the same difficulty. There's a world of breathing human beings out there rhythmically sucking in air, bows being drawn against strings, key actions making little clicking sounds, trucks driving by during recording sessions, conductors grunting, the sound of postures being reclaimed on hard-backed chairs, all of it leaving a signature. And cues. Listen for it.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
What makes a good accompanist?
What does it take to be a good accompanist? I'll start with with an accompanist is not: a timid soloist. Unfortunately, sometimes in school it looked like pianists who weren't assured enough to be soloists (meaning they got too nervous about being listened to by themselves) were made accompanists, the way violinists who couldn't quite make it sometimes were given violas. Neither situation works very well.
In fact, I recall much complaining about how some of the pianists in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition weren't very good at the chamber music round because they weren't much for playing in an ensemble. In this case, we are looking at the reverse of the idea in the paragraph above: that it is soloists who are in fact inferior accompanists!
Neither of which ought really to be true. What makes a person a good accompanist is really the very same thing that makes a person a good soloist, or just a good musician, period. In a word, it is this: listening.
A soloist listens to him or herself--for balance between the voices, for the acoustics of the hall, and the clarity of the pedaling, and is constantly adjusting to that external feedback. An accompanist is doing the same thing, only now the task includes notes that they are not playing as well as notes they are.
In the case of an accompanist, particularly if you are working with a conductor, this means surrendering your own inner metronome, while at the same time having a good sense of rhythm so that your playing is clear and rhythmically precise--but the moment the conductor makes an adjustment to the tempo, you have to make that adjustment yourself. In other words, the 2nd beat of the measure only comes when the conductor decides it does, not when you think it ought to. This is probably the thing that causes most people to be poor accompanists, because it means constant attention to a force outside of yourself. I'll give two examples of what I mean, both from the Cleveland orchestra.
When I was in college, back before the turn of the century (I'm now an ancient 42), I used to get to hear the Cleveland Orchestra for free every weekend because at the Cleveland Institute of Music if you were one of the first 40 students to sign up you got free tickets. I learned a lot watching one of the great orchestras of the world and its excellent music director, Christoph von Dohnanyl.
One night an insufficiently prepared soloist did something very rare on the stage of that august hall. He skipped two beats in the middle of a solo section. The conductor reacted instantly. Having been trained in opera, he gave a very fast four beat pattern, smaller than the usual beat pattern, in the manner that a conductor might do if a soloist were singing a recitative portion of an opera to tell the orchestra that the downbeat of the next measure could come at any time without counting out the regular four beats in sequence. Without any ceremony he therefore rushed through the next measure's beat pattern in time to give the downbeat to the following measure right in time with the soloist. This meant that within one measure of the pianist's skipping those two beats, the orchestra was right back with the soloist. The entire orchestra, watching their conductor like 70 well-trained hawks, nailed the sudden change, and I doubt whether anyone in the hall who didn't just happen to be playing the very same concerto with another orchestra later that month (such as myself) and thus know the piece really really well, would have heard anything wrong whatsoever. Amazing!
The next example is even rarer: when the maestro himself made the only mistake I ever remember seeing him make in a rarely performed 20th century American symphony, the entire orchestra had a momentary (but oh so short) collapse--he failed to give a clear second beat in a single measure and the whole orchestra was depending on it. Now if they hadn't been that tuned in to their music director, and had all been operating on their internal metronomes and not paying him that much attention, that wouldn't have happened. Ironic that it was their greatness that caused their downfall! But, like I said, this miasma lasted for only a fraction of a second. So many other golden moments occurred because their own sense of rhythmic precision, as finely tuned as it was in the case of each individual player, was completely given over to the maestro. Where he put that second beat--slightly later or slightly earlier as he sculpted each phrase--that was were the entire orchestra put it, to a player.
I have plenty of my own stories about skipping beats are adding beats to accommodate soloists or choirs or conductors, most or which are not glamorous--but they are good training! The most training I ever got in a single evening involves a young woman who was not prepared for a school recital and kept skipping ahead or behind as her memory failed her: now a line ahead, now a page back--causing her nervous accompanist to have to find where she was in the music as quickly as possible. Now that's accompanist boot camp! (She failed the recital, of course.)
There are many situation that require being in sync with an external force. You can't be a good outfielder unless you put your glove is where the ball is, not where you'd like it to be. Until then you have to constantly track where it is headed. It is not dissimilar with the conductor's downbeat. You can find it if you are tracking the preparatory beats and making adjustments are needed. That requires a good deal of refined focus. It is being able to meet lots of little deadlines--only, they are not marked on the calendar, and they are continually subject to change.
In fact, I recall much complaining about how some of the pianists in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition weren't very good at the chamber music round because they weren't much for playing in an ensemble. In this case, we are looking at the reverse of the idea in the paragraph above: that it is soloists who are in fact inferior accompanists!
Neither of which ought really to be true. What makes a person a good accompanist is really the very same thing that makes a person a good soloist, or just a good musician, period. In a word, it is this: listening.
A soloist listens to him or herself--for balance between the voices, for the acoustics of the hall, and the clarity of the pedaling, and is constantly adjusting to that external feedback. An accompanist is doing the same thing, only now the task includes notes that they are not playing as well as notes they are.
In the case of an accompanist, particularly if you are working with a conductor, this means surrendering your own inner metronome, while at the same time having a good sense of rhythm so that your playing is clear and rhythmically precise--but the moment the conductor makes an adjustment to the tempo, you have to make that adjustment yourself. In other words, the 2nd beat of the measure only comes when the conductor decides it does, not when you think it ought to. This is probably the thing that causes most people to be poor accompanists, because it means constant attention to a force outside of yourself. I'll give two examples of what I mean, both from the Cleveland orchestra.
When I was in college, back before the turn of the century (I'm now an ancient 42), I used to get to hear the Cleveland Orchestra for free every weekend because at the Cleveland Institute of Music if you were one of the first 40 students to sign up you got free tickets. I learned a lot watching one of the great orchestras of the world and its excellent music director, Christoph von Dohnanyl.
One night an insufficiently prepared soloist did something very rare on the stage of that august hall. He skipped two beats in the middle of a solo section. The conductor reacted instantly. Having been trained in opera, he gave a very fast four beat pattern, smaller than the usual beat pattern, in the manner that a conductor might do if a soloist were singing a recitative portion of an opera to tell the orchestra that the downbeat of the next measure could come at any time without counting out the regular four beats in sequence. Without any ceremony he therefore rushed through the next measure's beat pattern in time to give the downbeat to the following measure right in time with the soloist. This meant that within one measure of the pianist's skipping those two beats, the orchestra was right back with the soloist. The entire orchestra, watching their conductor like 70 well-trained hawks, nailed the sudden change, and I doubt whether anyone in the hall who didn't just happen to be playing the very same concerto with another orchestra later that month (such as myself) and thus know the piece really really well, would have heard anything wrong whatsoever. Amazing!
The next example is even rarer: when the maestro himself made the only mistake I ever remember seeing him make in a rarely performed 20th century American symphony, the entire orchestra had a momentary (but oh so short) collapse--he failed to give a clear second beat in a single measure and the whole orchestra was depending on it. Now if they hadn't been that tuned in to their music director, and had all been operating on their internal metronomes and not paying him that much attention, that wouldn't have happened. Ironic that it was their greatness that caused their downfall! But, like I said, this miasma lasted for only a fraction of a second. So many other golden moments occurred because their own sense of rhythmic precision, as finely tuned as it was in the case of each individual player, was completely given over to the maestro. Where he put that second beat--slightly later or slightly earlier as he sculpted each phrase--that was were the entire orchestra put it, to a player.
I have plenty of my own stories about skipping beats are adding beats to accommodate soloists or choirs or conductors, most or which are not glamorous--but they are good training! The most training I ever got in a single evening involves a young woman who was not prepared for a school recital and kept skipping ahead or behind as her memory failed her: now a line ahead, now a page back--causing her nervous accompanist to have to find where she was in the music as quickly as possible. Now that's accompanist boot camp! (She failed the recital, of course.)
There are many situation that require being in sync with an external force. You can't be a good outfielder unless you put your glove is where the ball is, not where you'd like it to be. Until then you have to constantly track where it is headed. It is not dissimilar with the conductor's downbeat. You can find it if you are tracking the preparatory beats and making adjustments are needed. That requires a good deal of refined focus. It is being able to meet lots of little deadlines--only, they are not marked on the calendar, and they are continually subject to change.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Willpower
A month ago I wrote about a nearly disastrous page turn during a concert. Now, to balance the universal chi, I'll mention one of my favorites. (Favorite page turn? You are strange. I know that. Just listen.)
It was another holiday concert, a year ago last month. I have a strong desire not to leave out any notes on a page turn if I possibly can--besides, publishers like to put the piano interludes on the page turn so it is particularly obvious if you are leaving out one hand in order to get the page turned. Their theory is that the people with the free hands can't sing and turn pages at the same time, so the one person employing both hands to make music has to give up one of them to turn their page. I try to pretend I have a third hand and play everything on the page AND get the page turned. In this particular case I remember only wanting very badly to play the full chord on the next page. The next thing I knew, my left hand hand played the chord in the bass and instantaneously leapt two octaves to capture the right hand notes. I look down at my hand and grinned sheepishly as if to say "I didn't know you were going to do that!" This was also the concert at which I realized that if I put my music on both sides and left a spot open in the middle of the music stand I could see the reflection of the conductor in the brightly polished wood without the need to keep turning around to see the conductor who was off to my right and behind me. I put that one in the observation and problem solving category. The page turn is just a matter of will.
Things like that don't just happen, however. I practice page turns for efficiency and impossible hand jumps at every rehearsal. I never stop the choir if I play wrong notes, get lost, or my music falls on the floor, which is one reason why I was able to get through last month's debacle. Instead I pretend it is a performance and try to get out of any tight spot the best I can, learning to minimize mistakes and get back on track so fast there is hardly time to notice something was wrong in the first place. This explains why I am so tired after a rehearsal. It also explains why I can deal with adverse situations well--I get as much practice dealing with them as I can. Which means every chance I get.
I have to chuckle when I read exhortations from piano teachers about practicing slowly and fingering everything. It isn't because it isn't important. I've had teachers who insisted on that and I'm grateful. It's just that these days I can't possible do it anymore. There just isn't time in the (what is it? 60-odd pieces of music per week?) mass of material I have to deal with, all the concerts and rehearsals and church services and compositions, to sit down and studiously write in all the fingerings. Instead, my fingers have to think on the fly. They can do that, however, mostly because they've absorbed scale and arpeggio patterns, and thousands of other patterns from pieces I've played and memorized in the past.
In other words, I couldn't do what I do without a firm foundation. But for a professional musician there comes a time when you have to be so fluent that you can "leave out" those steps and still fly. It isn't a matter of choice, really. You just don't have the time anymore. Play a piece through once and it's time to hit the stage, practically. Your fingers better know what they are doing!
One of my teachers at the conservatory told me that I had a real luxury of time to prepare and that I should enjoy it while I could. Now I know what he meant.
Will power isn't a substitute for training. But here is what is interesting. It will often get you through a concert for which you were unable to adequately prepare. It will help to make your performance more interesting musically if you are so engaged in the moment that nothing can get in your way. It allows your instinct to have something to say, even if your premeditated, along the ground self hasn't had time to catch up yet. It is often improvised, the result of just wanting something to come out, and it focuses on the end result rather than on process. And yet, though the method is inconsistent, it is practiced. Just wanting it real bad isn't going to get you there. And yet, that may be what drives you to practice hard in the first place.
It was another holiday concert, a year ago last month. I have a strong desire not to leave out any notes on a page turn if I possibly can--besides, publishers like to put the piano interludes on the page turn so it is particularly obvious if you are leaving out one hand in order to get the page turned. Their theory is that the people with the free hands can't sing and turn pages at the same time, so the one person employing both hands to make music has to give up one of them to turn their page. I try to pretend I have a third hand and play everything on the page AND get the page turned. In this particular case I remember only wanting very badly to play the full chord on the next page. The next thing I knew, my left hand hand played the chord in the bass and instantaneously leapt two octaves to capture the right hand notes. I look down at my hand and grinned sheepishly as if to say "I didn't know you were going to do that!" This was also the concert at which I realized that if I put my music on both sides and left a spot open in the middle of the music stand I could see the reflection of the conductor in the brightly polished wood without the need to keep turning around to see the conductor who was off to my right and behind me. I put that one in the observation and problem solving category. The page turn is just a matter of will.
Things like that don't just happen, however. I practice page turns for efficiency and impossible hand jumps at every rehearsal. I never stop the choir if I play wrong notes, get lost, or my music falls on the floor, which is one reason why I was able to get through last month's debacle. Instead I pretend it is a performance and try to get out of any tight spot the best I can, learning to minimize mistakes and get back on track so fast there is hardly time to notice something was wrong in the first place. This explains why I am so tired after a rehearsal. It also explains why I can deal with adverse situations well--I get as much practice dealing with them as I can. Which means every chance I get.
I have to chuckle when I read exhortations from piano teachers about practicing slowly and fingering everything. It isn't because it isn't important. I've had teachers who insisted on that and I'm grateful. It's just that these days I can't possible do it anymore. There just isn't time in the (what is it? 60-odd pieces of music per week?) mass of material I have to deal with, all the concerts and rehearsals and church services and compositions, to sit down and studiously write in all the fingerings. Instead, my fingers have to think on the fly. They can do that, however, mostly because they've absorbed scale and arpeggio patterns, and thousands of other patterns from pieces I've played and memorized in the past.
In other words, I couldn't do what I do without a firm foundation. But for a professional musician there comes a time when you have to be so fluent that you can "leave out" those steps and still fly. It isn't a matter of choice, really. You just don't have the time anymore. Play a piece through once and it's time to hit the stage, practically. Your fingers better know what they are doing!
One of my teachers at the conservatory told me that I had a real luxury of time to prepare and that I should enjoy it while I could. Now I know what he meant.
Will power isn't a substitute for training. But here is what is interesting. It will often get you through a concert for which you were unable to adequately prepare. It will help to make your performance more interesting musically if you are so engaged in the moment that nothing can get in your way. It allows your instinct to have something to say, even if your premeditated, along the ground self hasn't had time to catch up yet. It is often improvised, the result of just wanting something to come out, and it focuses on the end result rather than on process. And yet, though the method is inconsistent, it is practiced. Just wanting it real bad isn't going to get you there. And yet, that may be what drives you to practice hard in the first place.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Page Turn
If you've been reading this blog you know I sometimes write about some rather strange topics. Starting a series on what makes a good accompanist, I spent two entries on giving pitches to choirs (what's to know? you simply play the starting note for each part one part at a time and then they sing. Nothing to it. Well...)
Soon I'll get around to some of the most important issues for accompanists, the ones that happen while you are actually playing! First, however, another bit of minutiae--important minutiae though it is, involving the turning of pages.
Actually, I should mention this is a curiously popular topic around here. I have a humorous yet informative article over on pianonoise.com on the art of the page turn for people who are not pianists, or who are helping other pianists, and it is one of the most popular pages on the site. It's recently been mentioned on classsicfm.com and in the online version of the British newspaper The Guardian.
I have a policy of rehearsing as hard as I perform, and have for years been making a practice of trying to maximize the page turn whenever I have to do it myself while playing. The fact is, that much of the time, if not the vast majority of the time, accompanists wind up doing most of their own page turning. That is certainly going to be true during rehearsals. It is usually true during performances as well, and I like to be prepared for any emergency caused by anything like an unwarranted amount of zeal when turning the page to a gust of wind or a poor excuse for a music rack. I also try every way possible to not have to leave out notes during a page turn, particularly the important ones. All this keeps me continually on my toes during rehearsals.
Which might be the only reason I managed to get through what happened to me on Saturday. I don't know how it started, but the next thing I knew the music was tottering off the stand, and into the piano. Now, I have a patented method for turning a page wherein my right hand leaves the keyboard and suddenly shoots up to the page like a frog catching flies with its tongue and I whip the page to the left in one snapping motion-- just like most accompanists. I then zip back down to the keyboard in time to play the next chord with my right hand. Got that? The sequence is play--whoosh! (page turn)--back to the keyboard, play the chord. Then I shoot my hand back up to the music again, which has not been able to keep up with my sudden moves, and has taken the time while I was playing the next chord to saunter leisurely across to its resting place. Only if the music is new, as it often is, what has happened is that the music has ricocheted--softly, we hope--back, and is thinking about either flipping right back to where it was, or else inconveniently coming to rest at some funny angle so I can't read the music. In any case, the book just doesn't want to stay open. So a beat or two later my hand shoots back up to the music and I make whatever adjustment is necessary. Occasionally I have to do it a couple of times. This is all predicated on the fact that I can't spend two beats waiting around for the page I've set in motion to actually arrive where I've sent it. I have music to play. Therefore my patented two-step, or three or four step, ninja moves.
Some of these octavos are rather thick, and heavy, which might explain the music's behavior. It apparently developed some excess momentum and continued into the piano, still upright, and then, a moment later, slid down out of the piano to rest on my legs.
The reason I am having trouble recalling exactly what the music was busy doing in those moments is because I was using all of my available bandwidth at that point imagining various disaster scenarios and how to deal with them. Someone who witnessed the episode remarked how calm I appeared during the whole thing and I explained that I have learned that in such situations one has no time at all to panic; everything you have must be concentrated on how to fix the situation you are in.
Which is how, within a second of the music's falling off the piano, I had realized that up ahead in the music there was a place where the singers answered the piano motive and that all I was doing at that point was playing an octave D in the left hand for an entire four beat measure. If I could make it that far I would have my right hand free to grab the music and put it back up on the rack. In the meantime it was imperative that I not breathe too heavily or make any sudden moves. That music needed to stay where it was, balanced precariously on my legs.
At that point I needed to play the next 8 bars or so from memory. This is a situation in which you do not ask yourself whether you happen to have the music memorized; you simply do it. I had been rehearsing the music with the choir for several weeks and can report back reasonable success. I'm not sure whether I missed any notes during the whole incident!
After a great span of time had passed--probably upwards of 7 seconds--the coming of the great octave D arrived and I was able to put the music back up on the rack with my right hand, then to notice, annoyed, that it was on the wrong page, and then, somehow, to effect two page turns over the next three measures in order to get the music back to where it should have been in the first place.
For full effect I should probably mention that the conductor likes her tempi crispy and that the piano part was not especially easy, particularly at high speed. I should also confess that some of the notes in the section that followed were not technically approved by the composer's union because, determined to stay focused though I was, having had my accompanying life flash before me did nonetheless make it hard not to mentally stammer a little. I paraphrased a few things which would not have assaulted the ears of the populace, but were not necessarily what was written before me. Nevertheless, we finished the piece, I heaved a mental sigh, and we went on to a piece that was longer and harder, and I took extra care on the page turns.
Soon I'll get around to some of the most important issues for accompanists, the ones that happen while you are actually playing! First, however, another bit of minutiae--important minutiae though it is, involving the turning of pages.
Actually, I should mention this is a curiously popular topic around here. I have a humorous yet informative article over on pianonoise.com on the art of the page turn for people who are not pianists, or who are helping other pianists, and it is one of the most popular pages on the site. It's recently been mentioned on classsicfm.com and in the online version of the British newspaper The Guardian.
I have a policy of rehearsing as hard as I perform, and have for years been making a practice of trying to maximize the page turn whenever I have to do it myself while playing. The fact is, that much of the time, if not the vast majority of the time, accompanists wind up doing most of their own page turning. That is certainly going to be true during rehearsals. It is usually true during performances as well, and I like to be prepared for any emergency caused by anything like an unwarranted amount of zeal when turning the page to a gust of wind or a poor excuse for a music rack. I also try every way possible to not have to leave out notes during a page turn, particularly the important ones. All this keeps me continually on my toes during rehearsals.
Which might be the only reason I managed to get through what happened to me on Saturday. I don't know how it started, but the next thing I knew the music was tottering off the stand, and into the piano. Now, I have a patented method for turning a page wherein my right hand leaves the keyboard and suddenly shoots up to the page like a frog catching flies with its tongue and I whip the page to the left in one snapping motion-- just like most accompanists. I then zip back down to the keyboard in time to play the next chord with my right hand. Got that? The sequence is play--whoosh! (page turn)--back to the keyboard, play the chord. Then I shoot my hand back up to the music again, which has not been able to keep up with my sudden moves, and has taken the time while I was playing the next chord to saunter leisurely across to its resting place. Only if the music is new, as it often is, what has happened is that the music has ricocheted--softly, we hope--back, and is thinking about either flipping right back to where it was, or else inconveniently coming to rest at some funny angle so I can't read the music. In any case, the book just doesn't want to stay open. So a beat or two later my hand shoots back up to the music and I make whatever adjustment is necessary. Occasionally I have to do it a couple of times. This is all predicated on the fact that I can't spend two beats waiting around for the page I've set in motion to actually arrive where I've sent it. I have music to play. Therefore my patented two-step, or three or four step, ninja moves.
Some of these octavos are rather thick, and heavy, which might explain the music's behavior. It apparently developed some excess momentum and continued into the piano, still upright, and then, a moment later, slid down out of the piano to rest on my legs.
The reason I am having trouble recalling exactly what the music was busy doing in those moments is because I was using all of my available bandwidth at that point imagining various disaster scenarios and how to deal with them. Someone who witnessed the episode remarked how calm I appeared during the whole thing and I explained that I have learned that in such situations one has no time at all to panic; everything you have must be concentrated on how to fix the situation you are in.
Which is how, within a second of the music's falling off the piano, I had realized that up ahead in the music there was a place where the singers answered the piano motive and that all I was doing at that point was playing an octave D in the left hand for an entire four beat measure. If I could make it that far I would have my right hand free to grab the music and put it back up on the rack. In the meantime it was imperative that I not breathe too heavily or make any sudden moves. That music needed to stay where it was, balanced precariously on my legs.
At that point I needed to play the next 8 bars or so from memory. This is a situation in which you do not ask yourself whether you happen to have the music memorized; you simply do it. I had been rehearsing the music with the choir for several weeks and can report back reasonable success. I'm not sure whether I missed any notes during the whole incident!
After a great span of time had passed--probably upwards of 7 seconds--the coming of the great octave D arrived and I was able to put the music back up on the rack with my right hand, then to notice, annoyed, that it was on the wrong page, and then, somehow, to effect two page turns over the next three measures in order to get the music back to where it should have been in the first place.
For full effect I should probably mention that the conductor likes her tempi crispy and that the piano part was not especially easy, particularly at high speed. I should also confess that some of the notes in the section that followed were not technically approved by the composer's union because, determined to stay focused though I was, having had my accompanying life flash before me did nonetheless make it hard not to mentally stammer a little. I paraphrased a few things which would not have assaulted the ears of the populace, but were not necessarily what was written before me. Nevertheless, we finished the piece, I heaved a mental sigh, and we went on to a piece that was longer and harder, and I took extra care on the page turns.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
more on the art of pitch giving
It may seem a little like overkill to spend two blogs talking about the fine art of giving pitches to choirs, but actually it is just this sort of attention to detail that makes one not only obsessive, but also a fine accompanist.
Therefore, a few more thoughts on last week's topic:
In a performance, one's role is generally restricted to playing the first chord of the piece, rolled bottom to top (bass, tenor, alto, soprano). In a rehearsal, the point is to give as much, and no more than, is needed. If the director is starting over again from the same spot, the choir may be able to remember their pitches and you won't have to remind them at all. Or, you may be able to get away by playing the chord all at once, not a note at a time. It saves time.
If one of the parts has a note that may be hard to find, I usually linger on that note a bit before proceeding to the top. Let's say its the tenor part. I would play bass...tenor....(slight pause)..alto..soprano.
I usually give the pitches fairly quietly, as it allows the director to interject something over the top, and it forces the choir to have to listen a bit harder than when you are basically shouting pitches at them.
Sometimes you not only want to give the opening pitch, but the next note they will have to sing, particularly is it is a difficult interval, or something that sounds difficult in context (in other words, it is simply a fifth, which seems easy until you put it with the altos, who are singing something that clashes violently with that pitch).
Think like a choir member. If I'd want to hear something to help me out I play it. If it seems easy enough that they don't really need the hand holding I don't play it.
A lot of these suggestions rely on judgement calls. If you have to discuss everything with the director it just kills time; therefore, as long as I am not getting dirty looks from that quarter I decide on how to give the pitches, beyond the following obvious cues from the director:
The words "pitches, please"
A look in my direction
Air pitch giving, in which the director mimics playing the notes in the air. If you get the timing right, it looks like magic.
After you've worked with a director for very long you develop a rehearsal rhythm, and you can generally tell what they want and when they want it, which is also a helpful time saver, particularly as there is an awful lot to communicate in a rehearsal and there are a surprising number of false assumptions one can make when attempting to communicate about anything, never mind when giving out musical information in a hurry.
One last thing: you'll note that none of this has anything to do with technical achievement on the piano. And yet it makes a huge difference. There are a lot of things that fall into this category. That is good news and bad news. The bad news is they don't teach this is school. The good news is that it is very simple, and yet it is something that has to be constantly honed and attended to. And, it is one more way to avoid boredom and have a grateful choir.
Therefore, a few more thoughts on last week's topic:
In a performance, one's role is generally restricted to playing the first chord of the piece, rolled bottom to top (bass, tenor, alto, soprano). In a rehearsal, the point is to give as much, and no more than, is needed. If the director is starting over again from the same spot, the choir may be able to remember their pitches and you won't have to remind them at all. Or, you may be able to get away by playing the chord all at once, not a note at a time. It saves time.
If one of the parts has a note that may be hard to find, I usually linger on that note a bit before proceeding to the top. Let's say its the tenor part. I would play bass...tenor....(slight pause)..alto..soprano.
I usually give the pitches fairly quietly, as it allows the director to interject something over the top, and it forces the choir to have to listen a bit harder than when you are basically shouting pitches at them.
Sometimes you not only want to give the opening pitch, but the next note they will have to sing, particularly is it is a difficult interval, or something that sounds difficult in context (in other words, it is simply a fifth, which seems easy until you put it with the altos, who are singing something that clashes violently with that pitch).
Think like a choir member. If I'd want to hear something to help me out I play it. If it seems easy enough that they don't really need the hand holding I don't play it.
A lot of these suggestions rely on judgement calls. If you have to discuss everything with the director it just kills time; therefore, as long as I am not getting dirty looks from that quarter I decide on how to give the pitches, beyond the following obvious cues from the director:
The words "pitches, please"
A look in my direction
Air pitch giving, in which the director mimics playing the notes in the air. If you get the timing right, it looks like magic.
After you've worked with a director for very long you develop a rehearsal rhythm, and you can generally tell what they want and when they want it, which is also a helpful time saver, particularly as there is an awful lot to communicate in a rehearsal and there are a surprising number of false assumptions one can make when attempting to communicate about anything, never mind when giving out musical information in a hurry.
One last thing: you'll note that none of this has anything to do with technical achievement on the piano. And yet it makes a huge difference. There are a lot of things that fall into this category. That is good news and bad news. The bad news is they don't teach this is school. The good news is that it is very simple, and yet it is something that has to be constantly honed and attended to. And, it is one more way to avoid boredom and have a grateful choir.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Pitch perfect
disambiguation: This article is about giving pitches. For perfect pitch, see another blog I haven't written yet. Or you can go here for a brief discussion of same.
Choral accompanists: hello. Good morning/afternoon/evening and welcome to my first entry on how to improve your craft. If you've been to Pianonoise before you are probably aware that I can be relied upon to fixate on what appear to be some pretty strange things. Today we are going to focus entirely on the art of giving pitches to choirs.
Say what?
This is usually the first thing you do after the choir is warmed up, and, if the piece being performed is without accompaniment, it may be the only thing you do. Most people may be under the impression that any reasonably talented baboon can give pitches, but there are, in fact, several subtle things to be considered that can actually make you a much better accompanist if you take them into account.
it's all about the pacing.
Keeping the pace of the director is important. I would guess I can save my choral organizations a couple of hours of rehearsal every year by giving pitches as soon as they are needed: usually the director does not need to say the word. As soon as the piece is announced, the choir seems reasonably quiet, and the director is finished giving instructions, that opening chord sounds. Whenever the director stops, gives instructions, and then says, "start at the pickup to measure 59," the chord sounds. This happens not only because I am focused on the proceedings, but also, as soon was we stop, I am also diagnosing the problem, listening to the director, and guessing where we are going to be asked to start up again, based on where the last reasonable place to start might be. In other words, I have already
read the director's mind
so that by the time he/she gets the words out of his/her mouth, I am probably already looking at the chord I will have to play. If I have guessed wrong, I will have to find the correct one pronto, but I am a pretty good guesser. Ten to one, if I have a well-developed sense of where each musical unit begins, and my director does too, I can guess where a good spot to begin again will be. If I am listening to the choir, I probably already know what the director is going to fix (although there may be multiple issues, and my first plan of attack may not be theirs). If I am listening to what comes out of the director's mouth regarding what he/she didn't like about what she heard, that is an even better indication of where we are going to start!
Of course, all of this depends on one important thing, which is that, whether I am actually playing anything or not, I have to be a part of the music making. So, let's back up a bit and say
no reading magazines during rehearsal!
Musicians can often be disengaged during what appears to be downtime--times when they aren't doing anything active, like actually playing notes. My theory is that this isn't downtime at all, in fact, by listening to the choir during unaccompanied pieces, I can actually become another coach--sometimes quietly playing a few notes to remind the tenors they are flat, or that they missed an interval, and even subtly making a suggestion to the director (who has good ears) of something that ought to be fixed. It has gotten so that my director, confident that I am following along, may sometimes cue me back in if she has asked me not to play a passage with the choir. After several pages, suddenly, on measure 109, I get the cue, and join the choir in progress without a hitch. Or, she'll ask me to help the basses, and if I am silently following their part I can usually pop right back in within a beat or two.
Primarily, then, the point in all of this is not to in any way disrupt the flow of the rehearsal. In fact, you should be able to give pitches so that the director says what they want to say and is able to count off with no waiting at all. If you are canny, you can get the pitches in during the narrow space between the final word and the start of the count-off, so that there is no waiting at all. Be engaged, and be quick!
Choral accompanists: hello. Good morning/afternoon/evening and welcome to my first entry on how to improve your craft. If you've been to Pianonoise before you are probably aware that I can be relied upon to fixate on what appear to be some pretty strange things. Today we are going to focus entirely on the art of giving pitches to choirs.
Say what?
This is usually the first thing you do after the choir is warmed up, and, if the piece being performed is without accompaniment, it may be the only thing you do. Most people may be under the impression that any reasonably talented baboon can give pitches, but there are, in fact, several subtle things to be considered that can actually make you a much better accompanist if you take them into account.
it's all about the pacing.
Keeping the pace of the director is important. I would guess I can save my choral organizations a couple of hours of rehearsal every year by giving pitches as soon as they are needed: usually the director does not need to say the word. As soon as the piece is announced, the choir seems reasonably quiet, and the director is finished giving instructions, that opening chord sounds. Whenever the director stops, gives instructions, and then says, "start at the pickup to measure 59," the chord sounds. This happens not only because I am focused on the proceedings, but also, as soon was we stop, I am also diagnosing the problem, listening to the director, and guessing where we are going to be asked to start up again, based on where the last reasonable place to start might be. In other words, I have already
read the director's mind
so that by the time he/she gets the words out of his/her mouth, I am probably already looking at the chord I will have to play. If I have guessed wrong, I will have to find the correct one pronto, but I am a pretty good guesser. Ten to one, if I have a well-developed sense of where each musical unit begins, and my director does too, I can guess where a good spot to begin again will be. If I am listening to the choir, I probably already know what the director is going to fix (although there may be multiple issues, and my first plan of attack may not be theirs). If I am listening to what comes out of the director's mouth regarding what he/she didn't like about what she heard, that is an even better indication of where we are going to start!
Of course, all of this depends on one important thing, which is that, whether I am actually playing anything or not, I have to be a part of the music making. So, let's back up a bit and say
no reading magazines during rehearsal!
Musicians can often be disengaged during what appears to be downtime--times when they aren't doing anything active, like actually playing notes. My theory is that this isn't downtime at all, in fact, by listening to the choir during unaccompanied pieces, I can actually become another coach--sometimes quietly playing a few notes to remind the tenors they are flat, or that they missed an interval, and even subtly making a suggestion to the director (who has good ears) of something that ought to be fixed. It has gotten so that my director, confident that I am following along, may sometimes cue me back in if she has asked me not to play a passage with the choir. After several pages, suddenly, on measure 109, I get the cue, and join the choir in progress without a hitch. Or, she'll ask me to help the basses, and if I am silently following their part I can usually pop right back in within a beat or two.
Primarily, then, the point in all of this is not to in any way disrupt the flow of the rehearsal. In fact, you should be able to give pitches so that the director says what they want to say and is able to count off with no waiting at all. If you are canny, you can get the pitches in during the narrow space between the final word and the start of the count-off, so that there is no waiting at all. Be engaged, and be quick!
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