Do go on! Or perhaps not....

Quick! What do you do when you are in the middle of a concert and a note on the organ ciphers?

If you are lucky, you happen to be playing a passage for one hand, and you can use the other one to try to tease out the cipher by rapidly playing the affected note again and again until, miraculously, the slider closes, and the cipher goes away.

For those of you quite lost at the moment (which includes everyone except organ nerds), a cipher is a pipe that will not stop sounding when you take your finger off the key because the mechanism that blows the air through the pipe has gotten stuck in the open position. Sometimes the only thing you can do about it is to turn the organ completely off, and then, if the problem is still there when you reboot, try to find the ciphering pipe and stick a piece of paper in between the toe of the pipe (at the bottom) and the wind supply, which will disable the pipe, meaning it will not be able to play, but it will at least stop droning on and on. In the middle of a concert those last options aren't really available--not the last one, at least--but I did spend part of a sermon once crawling around a pipe room trying to fix a cipher. I got it, eventually.

That's part of the fun when you play the organ. Not that the piano can't have its challenges. I was once in the middle of a performance of Scriabin's Fifth Sonata, which is a tricky piece, and the F# above middle C just did not want to go down. I kept trying to unstick it whenever I had a hand free, which was only fleetingly, and required some serious acrobatics. Eventually I got it to cooperate. It must have taken the entire exposition and about half of the development to get there.

With the organ, though, there are all manner of intricate details in the way it is operated, and these vary from instrument to instrument, which is why it is such a useful opportunity to be asked to play concerts in different locations.

Yesterday, when I was at the cathedral, I noted with dismay that the trumpet I was going to use toward the end of the opening piece wouldn't sound at all. Given that an unfortunately large percentage of the organ is in disrepair at the moment, I assumed the stop had somehow given up just in time for the concert. I told the organist, and he was also dismayed, and assumed it was not working. Fortunately there was another trumpet on the same division that I employed instead. After the concert he realized that the rear gallery of the cathedral, generally known as "west" (whether a church faces east or not the altar is still considered to be on the east end of the church in liturgical parlance) had not been turned on. On this organ, each division (or at least three of them) have their own keys and must be turned on separately. It is something to file away for the next time something doesn't go according to plan. I've also come across three different locations for manual transfer switches recently.

I have written that the organ is a great instrument for problem solvers. And the more often I go "on location" the better I get. I can now register an entire concert pretty fast. If one stop isn't working, or the reed just doesn't sound right, or is too soft or too loud, I can find a synonym (alternate reigstration) quickly and move on.

Of course, one shouldn't discount the importance of dumb luck. This summer, at a large cathedral with lots of reverberation, I joked to some people who had missed my concert that if they went to the cathedral in the next few days, they might still be able to hear some of the previous week's concert before the sounds completely died away. Yesterday's cathedral was smaller and drier, and the long held soft reed was not at all intentional. But after a few desperate attempts to get it to stop, it did. Things could have been worse.

Of course, that wouldn't have been the end of the world, either. Maybe next time I'll take along some piano literature, just in case. Or improvise on a drone note for a while!

Now that could be interesting.
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It is the last week of September at www.pianonoise.com where you will soon be able to hear the music for the concert I gave at Trinity Cathedral on Wednesday. In the meantime, you can hear the Mel Bonis Toccata, the featured recording of the week, and....I forget what else.

Another week, another concert (or two, or three)

Life ebbs and flows. For me, this year feels like high tide.

So far this year I've played an estimated 11 different concert programs, with about 6 more to go. No, 7. Anyhow, I'm busy. I don't mean there will be 19 times I have hit the stage in 2019, I mean there will have been at least 19 different programs to prepare, which is kind of a lot of music. I don't know what the total total is, although there haven't been many chances to repeat concerts, so it can't be much higher (25, maybe?). And of course, for a musician, that kind of activity is glorious, and also frightening, because those are a lot of close deadlines. I hadn't planned it that way when the year began, it's just that it all came together at once.

One of the highlights of the year is the fact that I've been invited to perform on every available organ-only concert series in the area. There are only three of them, though two take place in cathedrals, and one in a very nice large church with a terrific organ. In the midst of that, I was asked by a colleague to play the beautiful Heinz Chapel again, which is a series for organists and lots of other instruments (and singers). This, I think, makes it qualify for the Grand Slam, as it is four concerts. All four being in the same metropolitan area, I felt obligated to prepare different programs, which helped me solidify my hold on some of the repertoire I learned hurriedly and one several years ago. Actually, I'm not sure if anybody did go to more than one of those concerts. And I did allow myself to repeat one piece on two concerts.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to gain a toehold as a pianist, and between two series of lecture recitals I've designed myself, and 3 piano recitals in Ohio earlier this year, I will have managed to play more piano recitals than organ recitals.

All of this probably does not add up to very exciting blogging, but it does promise that when I get more time to release some of the recording, the sound catalogue is going to get very interesting. This year I've played several fine organs by fine organ builders including Austin, Beckerath, Casavant, Rueter, and whatever they have at Trinity Cathedral (I'll know next week). And when I get the time, I now have four microphones and a recently tuned Steinway, so there should be some fine classical repertoire coming your way relatively soon.

Meanwhile, forgive me if I owe you an email or have forgotten to do something. I'll get to it. After next Wednesday's concert, things get a little more focused (just piano, just one series of concerts, no organ).

When that happens, we'll all take a breath, remember the fascinating year that was, and I can get back to some hopefully helpful observations for musicians, as well as sharing more music and ways to listen to it. In the meantime, I've learned a lot about multi-tasking.

The other day I practiced for three recitals in the same day--all without wearing out my mind or beating up my fingers, or losing my head with stress. That is something I couldn't possibly done a few short years ago.

As to what's in it for you--surely I'll figure out what we can all learn from this, besides trying not to get into a situation like this in the first place! Besides, between all of the fear (which is, after all, a great motivator) I'm also having a blast.

See you again next week, after the concert.

The Hobbit strikes again

You don't mind if I take another week away from musical matters to write about re-reading The Hobbit, do you? I tried to resist making this blog series into a trilogy, but I seem to need a little more time to escape the deadlines and the stress, at least on this blog. In real life, I'm practicing for multiple concerts again. The other day I practiced the bulk of three in one day. I just got invited to play at another cathedral--on two week's notice. It's a great opportunity, and I'm enjoying dusting off some old music that I enjoy playing, but I don't really have the time. But I'm doing it anyway. It's exciting, but it's also a very tight schedule, and after another day full of practice, I'm tired.  Let's talk about Bilbo instead.

The first thing that is obvious to me about reading The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings is the vast difference in style. The Hobbit sounds as if it were written for children--at least the first part. Eventually, the author gets more serious in tone and indulges in fewer silly asides. But there is ever the sense that the book is meant to be read aloud, narrated, and that the author is conscious of the reader being in the room with him.

I don't have Peter Jackson to holler at personally, but this book IS NOT AN EPIC! It is not on the scale of the Lord of the Rings, and it should not have been made into three movies. It does not take a hundred pages to just make it out of the Shire, or 25 pages to visit Rivendell; these things occur much more quickly, sometimes just in a few paragraphs. Absent are entire page weather reports, or vast descriptions of fauna. The sense of evil is still there, but it is not so overpowering, nor does the author spend so much ink building up to it and holding us paralyzed by an all-encompassing malevolent uber-force, however much the movies insisted all the bad guys knew each other and were working to fulfill some epic, single-minded vision, as they all prepared for the final showdown that was Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, for one, had no idea where this story was headed when he wrote The Hobbit. Take it down a notch, guys.This one is a lot more relaxed in tone.

Tolkien's world was not so ready-made when he wrote the Hobbit. There are places where the "omniscient" author tells us that he does not know things: this would never do in the world of The Lord of the Rings.

Where the author is already wise is in the conclusion; the dragon has been vanquished, but all does not go well, and indeed, we are assured that it will be some time before everything is put back to rights. Bilbo returns from his journey to find his things being auctioned off, and it takes a long time to get most of it back (but never all), and, having been on the kind of adventure that most hobbits would not countenance, much less dream of, he has lost the respect of most of his neighbors. Like many artists, Tolkien seems to have a keen sense of being alone among his fellow creatures, even despised, for not adhering to the routines of ordinary life, and his protagonist lives not only the drama of wishing for adventure and then wishing he could have stayed home once it was given to him, but the fracturing of normalcy that results from his exploits. Things can never be the same, and they are certainly not going to be happy ever after. That, at least, is some nonsense Tolkien avoids, even in this book, to say nothing of the ones that came next.

The poetry is no better this time, and doesn't try to be, though for some reason, it was more memorable. Somehow, The Hobbit must be ingrained in an even younger part of me, and its less grand and dangerous narrative is more comforting and entertaining, and familiar, and delicious. I enjoyed reading it again. That is why I did it in the first place.
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I'm playing at Heinz Chapel in Pittsburgh this weekend (Sun at 3p.m. if you're interested); one of the pieces on the concert is this week's featured recording on the homepage at www.pianonoise.com. Check it out. 

On Re-reading The Lord of the Rings part 2

Last week I mentioned that Tolkien's tale had seemed changed in the thirty years since I last read it. But I didn't want to tax your patience, so here is part two.

Although the writing is uneven, and sometimes no more than passable, I don't know whether this is really a fault. I've read all kinds of literature in the last 3 decades, some of which dazzles by the author's use of language. But Tolkien wants us to concentrate on the story, which he tells artfully enough for his purposes.

By the way, I still get irritated by much of the poetry, even if I did find the odd rhyme scheme of one of the poems admirable. There also seemed to be a multiplicity of forms. I am an experimenter, and can appreciate when someone else isn't content to stick to the same template again and again. Nonetheless, he isn't Keats.

As a fashioner of words and notes myself, I now read with the constant voice in my head asking whether or not a particular passage ought to be improved, or if a word choice was adequate, or if the pacing is correct. I can't help that. That's who I am, now. Maybe it distracts from the tale, but it also enriches the experience.

Interestingly, my emotional reaction to Theoden's initial suspicion of Gandalf and the circumstances in which he refused to accept the truth of the situation when I was much younger seems to have gotten in the way of realizing that the king is finally persuaded and the situation ends happily. And only after a few tense pages. They must have seemed a lot longer, then. There are still times, I will admit, when no amount of happy resolution seems to make up for the destructive nature of the first part of things. Real events often seem to adhere to this depressing pattern.

One thing that was disturbing this time was how the author used the words "black" "foul" and "evil" in close connection. He did this many, many, many times throughout the books. Similarly, "white" "purity" and "good" were inseparable. Tolkien's associate, C. S. Lewis, was more sophisticated on this matter: he permits his evil witch to be white (and before my fragile white readers complain about how it is ok to pile on to white people alone, let's remember that all of the good characters in the book were also white; there are no black characters to be found anywhere). George Lucas, in Star Wars, bests both of them. While still color-coding evil, he makes earthy colors good and represents evil by black and white; that is, lack of bright color, and the presence of very artificial (non-natural) environments. While I don't know that Tolkien was being more than insensitive, and likely no more prejudiced than his society, it is still worth imagining that a modern editor would have at least raised the question with him. Tolkien doesn't usually specify that the evil characters have black skin; there is only one occasion that I can remember in which he specifically does say so, and then all of the dark skinned men he mentions are in fact fighting for the bad guys. I would imagine this to be uncomfortably uninviting for any of his non-white readers, but then I think this also shows a very naive approach to the question of good and evil, as if you can label all members of a group as being uniformly one or the other.

There aren't many female characters in his books, and they are mostly there to be pretty and keep house. Again we could argue that this tale basically takes place in an ancient society and reflects its values, though that doesn't have to be the case. An author is not bound by what is; they can show us what can be if they choose. In any case, one of the women does refuse her role of sitting quietly while the men fight and rides off to war. She does a brave deed and suffers a grievous wound. The men around her do not support her restlessness, but maybe Tolkien does in a subtle way. In another case, both Tom Bombadil and his wife set the table (even if she cooks the meal).

Such reflections on the author's worldview--even noting that he has one--suggest I'm no longer simply swallowing wholesale the images and ideas put before me. If there is anything about a society that needs changing it won't come about unless we are willing to examine our ideas rather than simply ingest them. It will, of course, ruin the story for some, and make me the worst kind of nerd for not only peeking behind the curtain but examining the readership (all of us) in the process.

One thing I seem to remember accurately from the last reading is the pacing of the approach to Mt. Doom. It was slow and quiet. There were no more fights with evil creatures, just a long slow wearisome, numbing, grinding trudge to the mountain. I think it works, even if it is exhausting reading.

Generally I agree with Tolkien's pacing. When the films came out, people complained about how much more movie was left after the climax, wrapping up all the loose ends. I defended that, and found, in the books, while there was slow going at first, there was much of interest in the "life goes on" department. Tolkien permits the Shire to be ravaged, and have to be retaken. The movies wrap everything up nice and neat. That bugs me.

It turns out that the books don't get off completely free, either. As soon as Frodo casts the ring into Mount Doom, he is rescued from certain death by an eagle which flies him far away from Mordor. I remember finding that annoyingly simple when I saw the movie, and was disheartened to see that that actually goes back to the book. Stories, particularly in movies, tend to vanquish all evil completely and at once, as if the problem were simple: kill the leader, or cast his ring into a volcano, and with one dramatic act, everyone can live happily every after. At least in Tolkien's estimate, there are mentions of foul creatures that must still be dealt with, and a sense that there will be more effort required.

Gollum's death is also a useful trope; proven to be irredeemably evil (unlike other such characters in recent mythic sagas, like Severus Snape, or Darth Vader) his last selfish act nevertheless saves the world, and he conveniently dies. Similarly, the evil wizard Saruman (previously know as "the white" before his traitorous deeds were censured and his place taken by a new white wizard, Gandalf) is killed by his own servant, so that he does not stick around to do more mischief. The well-known problem in such stories is how to dispatch with the evil character once and for all without allowing the good characters to bloody their own hands; given a chance to repent, these characters at last refuse and are killed by assistants. It is a trope that has lost its charm in the intervening years; the world is not so accommodating. But then, that is supposed to be why we wish to escape to such places, and perhaps why I, in the midst of so many demands, felt to the need to do likewise.

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 check out the homepage this week at pianonoise.com. It's September and the site has gotten a very slight facelift!

On Re-reading Lord of the Rings

I recently I re-read J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." From time to time I'll glance at my bookshelf and something I've previously read will ask to be read again. Why the Tolkien this time is curious.

I am in the middle of preparing a series of lecture-recitals with not nearly enough time to do it, a circumstance that was made possible by having multiple concert programs earlier this summer and a few others that have popped up since. So, like Sam and Frodo, who keep groaning that their quest is completely impossible and doomed to failure, but do what they can anyway, perhaps my sub-conscious is trying to get through! When I'm finished with this blog I'll get back to practicing. I've learned on dozens of occasions that it is ultimately possible to accomplish things that seemed impossible if you just put your head down and plow on. No time to worry about it, just do it.

The last time I read this epic tale must have been at least 30 years ago when I was a young teenager. Works of art conveniently stand still, but we do not--this is an observation I made first as a survival skill in college when I noted that Rachmaninoff could not make his concerto any harder than it already was but that I had the ability to keep gaining skill until I could overcome it. The fact that a work of art does not change and yet its observer cannot stand still can lead to all sorts of interesting observations, particularly if the last time you engaged with such a work you were a completely different person. Since my last exposure to the tale, as written, college, graduate skill, and miles of other books, movies, conversation, thoughts, and experiences have intervened. I have noticed any number of things about the books this time on any number of different levels that would not have made it into my system on the first pass. Here are a few:

As a teenager, I much preferred reading about Sam and Frodo to the portions of the book dealing with the kings of Gondor and Rohan and their battles and so on. I became rather impatient when Tolkien split the fellowship up into "books" and would write some 200 pages in each of the last two volumes about the adventures of Merry and Pippen before finally getting around to Frodo and Sam. This time, that didn't bother me as much. I have a much better attention span, and, while it is still a property of my brain to want to gloss over the names of this king and that soldier and these guys doing these glorious deeds (I don't think I'll ever be able to sit through the Silmarillian) I am a lot better at concentrating and can appreciate those intricate plot details much more. Not to mention being more comfortable with a story that fragments into multiple portions and has to follow the action in several directions. My world has expanded, why shouldn't my literature?

I've always enjoyed the idea of the epic tale, but this time, even though I spent most of a month leisurely reading my way through at intervals, it didn't seem so large. I think the first time it may have taken me all summer. I also remember reading it aloud to my brother on a car trips. That must have taken ages. And I have no idea how I would have pronounced some of the words I didn't know yet or what I would have made of some of the English expressions that don't make sense to Americans. The language seems to have changed on both sides of the Atlantic since then. I was struck by some of the expressions Tolkien used, including how a character was "in amaze." Not amazement, just amaze. If Tolkien were a Millenial he might have written "in amaze-balls!"

When Tolkien writes of the battles and the doings of the various kings, lords, and noble people, he shifts into a kind of epic style. Mostly this is characterized by beginning multiple sentence with the word "and." Although he never uses the phrase "and it came to pass" this seems to be the effect he is driving for. It can be a little off-putting, and it is either cheap or subtle depending on your predilection, but it is a conscious stylistic shift that is not present during the wanderings of Sam and Frodo, or the chronicling of day to day events, but only when the writer is concerned with the kinds of things that would, in a world such as ours, later make it into epic poetry to memorialize the event; in other words, policy decisions and the recording of battles and other mighty deeds.

In order to not turn this into an epic post I'll save my remaining observations for next time.

pictures from Smith Mountain Lake

 A bald eagle through binoculars, in case you wondered.

Playing with fire

It's the eerie music that runs through the subconscious of every conservatory musician.The fear of injury.

Fingers are muscles. Muscles can be pulled. Strained. Stressed. And if not attended to, bad things can happen. Career ending things.

The problem being that the "attending to" part usually involves not using said muscles. Not practicing. This is a no-go for a lot of young folks trying to cram for an important performance. And when you are young they are all important performances. So they just go for it.

One very talented individual went for it. He was scheduled to play Bach's Goldberg Variations at a Conservatory Convocation. It was his last performance. For several years, anyway. Possibly for good. (don't know for sure)

I've seen the t-word happen to a few musicians who were my colleagues at the conservatory. It was usually very talented, very industrious ones. It didn't necessarily end their careers, but it may have sidelined them for a while.

See, the t-word is cumulative. Once you've got a full-blown case of it, even taking a break for months, or years, doesn't really work very well. Only an hour of practice can bring it roaring back. This is what makes it so frightening. So much that I call it the t-word.

If you're curious, it ends in -itis, and beings with "tendon." Shh! Don't say it out loud!

It usually announces its presence less than subtly. You can tell when your wrists are on fire, or your fingers feel stiff. That usually freaks me out, and I stop practicing right away. Once, in college, I was playing a Brahms concerto in which the cadenza involved a lot of accented notes with the pinkie finger of the left hand. I overdid the accents. I could feel it afterward. And I dialed it back for a few days.

Efficient practice, the kind where your fingers release into the keyboard exactly the way they are supposed to, tends to keep this sort of thing from happening. But practice a difficult passage with even a little bit of unnecessary tension in the hands, or try to stretch or pull the hand over a jump instead of rotating the wrist to get there, or fail to relocate the rest of your fingers to support the little fingers on the ends of your hands so that the pinkie just sticks out there like it is hailing a cab one too many times, and you'll be sorry. Not right away. You can usually get away with it for a day or to, but not for very long.

I was working on all four of the Chopin Ballades this week for a program in Pittsburgh next week. On short notice I was trying to cram 50 pages of music I haven't played in a quarter century. That is a good way to get hurt. I was aware of this. I was also aware that we have a vacation coming up and some enforced time away from the piano which would give time for the fingers to heal if I strained anything just a bit. But also fewer days to get the music ready.

Chopin can be really unforgiving on the fingers. Especially if your technical approach isn't spot on. And when you are just learning the notes, or trying to achieve speed perhaps a little too early, that can be dangerous.

It's good to know this, recognize the symptoms, and know when to back off. Being able to learn quickly also helps, and having the maturity not to panic at the thought of another recital without enough preparation time.

It's been a while since I felt any fire in my wrists, but one day last week it happened. The ending of that first ballade is a real challenge at performance speed! I threw a little too much caution to a little too much wind before I really understood how to move quickly among the forest of notes. The will is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a bit like a bull in a china shop. It was probably only a span of about 10 minutes that did the real damage--fortunately, it wasn't anything irreversible. For all its horrors, the t-word does give you time to decided whether to forge ahead and risk real injury, or to get out while all you've got is a minor strain. One day is not going to completely wreck your fingers in perpetuity.

My fingers could be feeling better, but they are doing fine--a little tired from their ordeal, but recovering. There is a time to cram and a time to be careful, and always a time to balance those two ends. I hope the cadre of students entering music schools all over the world this week are able to do that.

There is, of course, also mental practicing, slow practice, listening to recordings, and knowing when staying glued to the piano is getting you diminishing returns and a nice walk would be a good idea.

We live, we learn, and we achieve.  And we try to be able to live another day, with fingers and bodies and minds whole so we can experience the hearts and minds of all of those wonderful composers.

Careful out there, my friends.

Happy practicing.

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The St. Paul Cathedral Pittsburgh concert is up at pianonoise radio this week. And of course, the homepage is new like it is every week. Enjoy!