George Sand shed light on Chopin's tormented creative process by writing “Chopin's creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk when he was impatient to play it to himself. But then he began the most heart-rending labor I ever saw. It was a series of efforts, of irresolutions, and of frettings to seize again the certain details of the theme he had heard; what he had conceived as a whole he analyzed too much when wishing to write it, and his regret at never finding it again, in his opinion, clearly defined, threw him into a kind of despair. He shut himself up for whole days, weeping, walking, breaking his pens, repeated and altering a bar a hundred times, writing it and erasing it as many times, and recommencing the next day with a minute and desperate perseverance. He spent six weeks over a single page to write it at last as he had noted it down the very first.”
In 1835, Robert Schumann commented on the piece "it seems to be a work closest to his genius and I told him I like it best of all his compositions." To my untrained ear the student's rendition is pretty good. she plays all the right notes. she even looks serious as she contorts her body 'channeling' the music. i think about how weird it is performers dress up to play music. you never see a pianist in a t-shirt performing a concert. why do people care what people wear in hearing their music? would your perception of music vary if the orchestra wore t-shirts and shorts rather than tuxedos? and why do concert goers feel compelled to dress up to watch a concert? every so often she stares into space making 'piano faces' -- the faces that pianists make as if they're experiencing some sort of cosmic orgasm on stage. i thought it would be funny to make a photo gallery of 'piano faces'. at the end she makes a flourish with her hands as if pressing off the piano and walks to the edge of a stage, smiles and takes a bow.
After the student's performance, HKC comes onto the stage, addresses the crowd. holding spiral bound sheet music and pencil. fidgeting nervously as he prepares in his mind how to organize his thoughts. he paces forward towards the audience. he looks as though he is finding a way to teach and offer criticism without crushing the student's soul. just as a good piece of music has the ability to lead a listener on a suspenseful journey, a good critique is like a suspenseful journey inciting interest and wonder. "well congratulations, bravo, that was fantastic playing. it reminds me of the famous and great pianist and pedagogue Vlado Perlemuter. he used to say anyone who can play the g minor ballade coda, well that's a pianist. she plays it well. a real pianist." he laughs. pulls his long hair back flips the sheet music around it's spiral binding, and stands next to the piano. "it's amazing to hear a wonderful amazing coda after a wonderful first part."
Finished with the pleasantries. now with a very serious face he furrows his brow. then looks her in the face dead seriously. "i'd like to sum up perhaps just one thing that i think is the most prevalent thing that you could do that would instantly change everything. and that is the ending of a line." as he talks about the ending of lines in music, he reinforces the idea of ending by concluding his sentence with a piercing stare that lasts 3 seconds. the student becomes uncomfortable and flicks her hair back nervously.
"One of the things i love to stress is 'end of everything'. there are primarily three stages of life... three stages of sound. there is the beginning of the sound, then there's the duration of it, and then there's how you finish it. that applies to if you play a single note, that applies to if you play a phrase. and perhaps that even applies to how you play a piece. a movement. you have the beginning, you have a duration and how it develops and how you finish it. and of course i often love to add 2 more elements. before you begin, and after you finish. so that makes it five." these were deep lessons to lay on a 17 year old. in his critique, he was showing how he thinks... that sound is life. i was now getting the sense the pianist he was teaching had not conveyed much more than playing the right notes in her performance. he waves his pencil like a baton to mark out the five stages of a note.
He flicks his hair back "lemme just quickly demonstrate." he sits at the piano closest to the audience. he presses a note. then slowly lifts his foot off the pedal. looks to ground in the far distance tilting his head forward as if to hear the sounds better. "that was the pedal decay." listening. his student stands by his side with wandering eyes wondering what is this HKC talking about? it's very uncomfortable to be in a piano lesson where the teacher is taking you back to square one showing you how to play and listen to a single note... when you've been playing piano 12 years of your life. he then asks, "when do we think a note has finished?" my grandfather used to ask questions and wait for responses. but HKC pauses for a couple seconds and then offers up his scientific answer. "i tell myself around when the sound is decreased by about 40% we can say that note has finished. the sound is still there, but you can start to play the next note. our minds have a tendency to think about the next note or phrase to play, but part of the mind has to stay behind to make sure you finish a note before starting another." HKC makes a visual analogy to imprint the importance of finishing notes. "i was watching a swimming medley where one swimmer was arriving but next swimmer left the piste before the previous finished his leg" his hands move horizontally as if swimming a relay on a pool "and so their team was disqualified and it was really sad. i was thinking here while you're playing it. your hand is ready to play the next note but you have to finish the prior note before you go on." his hands imitate 1 swimmer arriving and another jumping prematurely into the pool.
"You know. it's something. piano playing a lot of it is awareness. you have to slowly cultivate that part." his hands move up and down as if molding a clay figure. "i think this awareness could really change you and elevate you to a different level." she plays the intro again. he's standing behind her watching like an intense yoda. over the course of the next 30 minutes he teaches by playing passages, describing things to look out for, hearing her play to see if she understands his reasoning. "what underlying feeling do you have when you play this?" she answers "nostalgia" "well the title of this piece is a ballade. but it can be understood as a dance. you can play it as a dance." his hands rise and fall gently as if in dance motion. "feel the dance between your hands. you know this is always something fantastic you play something that is split between hands. in order to play it, you have to combine your whole body from left hand to right hand, from right hand to left hand you have to complete the circle its a very fulfilling feeling when you play if you are aware of this that it is really together." the student plays passages with HKC snapping waltz beats, singing passages, gesticulating like a conductor to emphasize the 1-2-3 waltz dance rhythm.
At the end of the dialectic, HKC reveals his particular love for the ballade. "i want to show you a little interesting fact. we have many A's." he plays a main passage simultaneously pointing out all the A's. "the first A with this harmony, just this feeling. then the next A, this feeling... while this is tension is building then you reach this final A. so you have a very beautiful little moment on the note. like when you're thinking about the word and you say it this way, say it that way. my favorite poet" he stands up, strokes his hair back "was stanley kunitz. i think on his 90th birthday, he was interviewed 'sir what do you all day?' HKC now acting like a 90 year old man. "in the morning i walk to the beach to collect seaweed and then bring the seaweed back home an put it on my flower beds and use it as fertilizer and then when i'm all satisfied with myself. then i sit down. i study one word and so while i'm at the beach getting the seaweed and doing to the work in the garden. I'm speaking the word out loud. I have to have the feeling for the word to create a connection to it. what does that word feel like? what does it feel like in me? and only then i know how to use that word. so I spends all day with that one word and then eventually I have a specific feeling for it and then I sit down and write." HKC sits back down at the piano and plays the passage over. "you can just sit there for a long time and enjoy this sonority that this one word A provide us. there chopin was, the connosier tasting his A's. now i'm going to show you something cute in here." he continues the passage. "the left hand's tenor says this. the right hand there's a little mouse there singing with you. secretly agreeing with you."
Approaching the end of the class, HKC talks of the 2 cadences "out of the 2 cadences the most sublime thing comes. when we play with this second cadence. don't worry. the cadence will take care itself. we're at ease. we don't have to elaborate too much." to conclude his masterful performance of verbal and body language, he tapped the student on the shoulder, handed her the sheet music, and walked off the stage. he gave no bow. there was no ego in his organic response to address the student's main issues. He was able to convey the abstract notions of how to end notes, how to think like a musician, how to convey the spirit of the dance, how to appreciate the sublime of the music through a mouse, a connoisieur, a 90 year old poet, and a failed swimming medley.
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