Invariably, the very newest students here at the Well Tempered Gymnasium, those who have not yet achieved the goal, nor even begun up the ladder who's highest rung is reserved for politeness and philosophical astuteness, learn a valuable lesson.
Their fingers will want to go where their fingers want to go. Or as that famous dedicated amateur clarinetist, Woody Allen once said: "The heart wants what the heart wants."
Their fingers will want to go where their fingers want to go. Or as that famous dedicated amateur clarinetist, Woody Allen once said: "The heart wants what the heart wants."
 BUT, In learning a piece on the piano, Want must play servant to Needs. Fingers will need to know where to go and when and how quickly or slowly to get there. And how loudly or quietly. And how smooth or detached or flamencoed the composer and/or I dictate. And while there is slight latitude for the discretion and poetic license of the student, Where and When remain immutable. There are two universal obstacles on this first rung of enlightenment. 1. The student will not want to play a repeated note. He will travel up or down the scale stepwise heeding little the melodic integrity of the composition. If a middle C follows a Middle C, dollars to donuts, you will hear Middle C followed by B or D. Even if the repeated note has the same time value!!! Believe it or not. 2. The very same student will not want to skip notes, hop fourths or leap to fourths and fifths and God Forbid octaves or yes, these do exist, tenths. A venerated founder of All Things Well Tempered was fond of the following maxim: "Nature does not make great leaps." The rotation of the earth around its axis is imperceptible. Summer eases ever so gently towards Autumn. But ah ... that is why the study of music is the study of art. We pianists can transcend the bonds of physics as long as we keep in relative time. Imaginary ponds we are granted. But within there can only be real frogs. Left to his own druthers, the beginning student, and by that I mean all students, will want to march forward or backward stepwise and not necessarily in the proper direction nor even, alarmingly, with the proper hand and leave of his fingers a tangled sodden mess, We are creatures of habit and comfort who prefer not always to stay in the same place nor travel any great distance against our will. We here at the Well Tempered Studio however, will be traveling a great distance, if not freely than at least on Economy Plus, to have a tiny piano adventure and will report back soon. |
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