The Road Not Taken Is Sometimes the Right Road

Please forgive this late post. Usually I try to have something up by the end of the first weekend of the month. But this weekend was a holiday and I had family in town. So I couldn’t get to writing a post until today. This post will be brief.

August started badly. By about the second week I got very discouraged, and had to admit that I was getting nowhere. The situation was this: although I could hit i and m alternation pretty well at 90, I simply couldn’t crack that barrier. No matter how much I tried, 90 was a wall I couldn’t breach.

Yet today I’m more optimistic. Over the last two weeks, I’ve tried something new. Almost immediately the 90 barrier melted away. This morning I hit 120 on a fairly extended scale. Further, I tried this new approach with one of my students yesterday. Up until then, her fastest scale speed with i and m alternation was also about 90. Within one hour of working with my  approach, she hit 104 cleanly. I asked her to keep at it, and we’ll see how she’s doing at her next lesson.

It’s too early to know whether I’m on to something. And I’d like to try it with some other students, to give me a more varied sample than just two people. Nonetheless, I’ll start writing up in detail what I’m doing. Since I need to cover a lot of ground, I’ll go back to posting every week. I hope I’ll also have some good progress to report.


Ironically, my new approach is something I’d found last year. But rather than pursuing it, I instead drifted off in another direction. Now I’m thinking I might have made more progress had I singlemindedly pursued what I’d found last year. In my defense, there was much to deflect me. Interestingly, I’ve also noticed that the 2011 post in which I discussed this new approach drew no comments whatsoever. Which leads me to think that if I and everyone else fail to see that a different approach might work, then maybe it’s a sign that it’s the right approach.

More anon.

——[My next update will be September 10, 2012]——

Busting on Bach

If I’m going to beat something into the ground, then let it be Bach. More than most composers, Bach has a way of making hard labor worthwhile, however relentless it may be. I can tolerate anything so long as the result is a better ability to play something by Bach. He had the inscrutable ability to transform musical elements into something unprosaic. In his hands, scales and chords no longer seem the hum-drum ingredients of mindless drilling. Rather, they become the finely wrought beams and girders of a grand edifice.

It’s a good thing, too, because my project isn’t getting any easier.

When I play scales, there’s a curious disconnect between what I feel in the moment of playing and what I hear as I listen to a recording. As I play, my whole body screams that it’s too fast. Yet when I listen to a playback, I’m struck by how slow it sounds. Apparently relativity is more than a description of physics. Consider a car on a racetrack: in the driver’s seat is a NASCAR champion, and in the passenger seat is a Nervous Nelly who’s terrified of speed. When I’m listening, I’m the NASCAR driver, perfectly comfortable with the pedal to the metal. But when I’m playing, I’m the Nervous Nelly frantically begging the driver to slow down every time the car moves faster than a crawl.

I need to gradually trick my body into feeling comfortable at faster tempos. At the moment, however, my body ain’t buying what I’m selling. So on it goes.

Over the last week I’ve begun my practice sessions with quick staccato alternation. The tempo isn’t fast—I begin at two notes per click at 55 and gradually work up to 80. What’s fast is the exchange between i and m. There’s nothing new about this. Many guitarists recommend this for developing fast alternation, and I’ve done it before myself. My rationale is that light playing, for all the real good it does, isn’t enough. Light playing by itself fails to develop the quick snap and strength I need to drive a finger directly through a string at speed. So for now I’m walking a tightrope between the lightness needed for ease and the strength and quickness needed for controlled speed.

Below is a video progress report. The piece is Bach’s Two Part Invention No. 8. (I intend to record this with a young student of mine later this summer.) I warmed up for about ten minutes, then turned on the camera and did three takes. The video below is the third take. The metronome is set at 90. I’d be happier with 100, but the Nervous Nelly in me won’t yet allow it. Two things bother me. First, there’s a bit too much scraping on the wound strings. Second, I don’t like the looks of m—it sure looks like it’s pulling to the side as it plays.

But enough about me. Judge for yourself.

A New Posting Schedule

As you might have noticed, there have been no posts for the last two weeks. My apologies for this. I’ve concluded, however, that there’s no point in posting when I’ve nothing new to say. Doing so is an imposition on your time and patience. Further, it waters down whatever useful things I’ve written over the last year and a half.

I am, however, soldiering on. In fact, lately I’m feeling better about my prospects. Over the course of this project, I’ve boiled away some things that don’t work. What’s left is a basic process that needs more time to gel. If things continue to improve, I’ll write up a full report of how I went about it.

Of course, if I don’t improve, then it’s back to the drawing board.

For the rest of this project, I’ll report at the end of each month. This will include a video of whatever I happen to be working on at the time. My goal for the end of July is to post a video of Bach’s Invention 8—at least my half of the guitar duet version I’m playing. Lately I’ve been hitting it pretty reliably at 80. But I want my performance tempo to be no less than 90, so I’m trying to inch it upward.

By the way, it’s interesting how the left hand can sabotage the right. For example, in the following passage, I’ve a left hand shift down the fourth string during a sequence of sixteenth notes:

Often this little shift creates a tiny burst of nervous tension that slows down my right hand. Yet in the following passage, all my shifts are either on an eighth note or take advantage of an open string:

...so this passage creates no nervous tension, and I can play it easily compared to the previous example. Obviously I need to practice the previous passage until there’s no nervous tension whatsoever.

You can expect my next post on Monday, July 30. I hope to have good progress to report.

The One Who Won’t Go Away

Yes, I’m still here. My ultimate goal still eludes me. But little things keep me going. For example, this week I decided to see if my free stroke alternation has improved—since my main goal is to improve my rest stroke, I’ve virtually ignored free stroke during my right hand alternation practice sessions. To my surprise, when I tried doing free stroke alternation, I immediately felt awkward. Switching back to rest stroke felt like coming home to a better place. For me, this is momentous. Rest stroke has always felt like something other than my native language. I could do it, but never with the comfort or fluency of free stroke. So when rest stroke starts to feel like home, I don’t take it lightly.

Obviously I’m troubled by the fact that, kilometers from my goal, I’m progressing in millimeters. It heartens me, however, to know that I’m far more patient now than I was in my youth. When I first began playing the guitar in my teens, patience was alien to me. This, by the way, goes a long way to explain the current flaws in my playing. But today I’m far better able to practice with an untroubled mind. Frustration and impatience are symptoms of emotional baggage that throw obstacles in one’s path. If each morning I can confront my recalcitrant right hand with equanimity, then I’m more likely to sustain the work needed to solve my problems. Mind you, I’ll not overstate my serenity. I’m not Buddha, and the toddler in me is still there banging his little fists on the highchair. But he’s faded enough that he no longer runs the show.

As an aside, here’s something I like to tell students who are off to college: you can learn a lot, though it might be something your teachers never intended to teach you. During my project, for example, I’ve noticed that I’m sometimes dismissed as one who willfully ignores good advice by those who are telling me things I’ve tried many times before or things that make no sense. (An example of the latter is one who apparently thinks my technique would improve if I just ditched the metronome.) I get the distinct impression that some would be happy if I just admitted failure and quietly went away. This spotlights a delicate matter that some teachers would rather ignore.

There’s an old saying: “victory has a thousand fathers—defeat is an orphan.” Everyone is happy to associate with someone who succeeds. Guitar teachers are no different. We swell with pride over the students on our watch who get better. But what of the students who don’t? To be sure, some fail because they don’t do what they should. Obviously it’s unfair to blame teachers for the failure of students who ignore them. But what about the students who do what they’re told, and yet they fail? Very often they’re shunted aside. I’m reminded of a story one of my teachers told me. He was working with a student who, after working with another teacher, had come to him with severe hand problems. This student claimed he was practicing many hours a day. To see if this was true, my teacher talked to friends of this student. They emphatically confirmed that the student was an obsessive practicer. Yet when my teacher delicately tried to raise the subject of hand problems with the student’s teacher, the teacher airily dismissed this with “isn’t it amazing what some students will say to get out of practicing?”

To those who don’t teach for a living, it might be surprising to learn that much of what goes into a high reputation for teaching is a carefully manicured illusion. Bear in mind that I’m not talking about teachers who simply do what they do and let the chips fall where they may regarding their reputation. Rather, I’m talking about those who endlessly twiddle with their brand, ensuring the word goes out that they’re a cut above the rest. Some of this is true enough—some teachers really know what they’re doing, and are in essence broadcasting their real success. But much of this branding is hype. Seen from afar, a particular teacher might bear the look of the one who’ll take you to heights you’d never achieve on your own. Close up, however, you’re confronted with a jaded burnout who capriciously cancels lessons and couldn’t be bothered to teach you how to tie a shoe, much less learn how to play a Bach fugue.

Even good teachers hit a wall in what they can do. Most problems they can help you with, but some problems are more subtle and don’t yield to obvious solutions. Various teachers react in various ways. Some are intrigued by a seemingly unsolvable problem, and see it as a challenge. All too many, however, are annoyed. A student who works hard but inconveniently doesn’t progress goes against the brand. Rather than dimming the brand, it’s easier to blame or dump the student.

I am that inconvenient student. And I’m not going away. How one reacts to this can offer a glimpse into what one is (or would be) as a teacher.

——[My next update will be June 17, 2012]——

Review: Jason Vieaux & Jung Eun Oh

Jason Vieaux & Jung Eun Oh
4:00 pm—June 3, 2012
Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

It’s become a Guitar Weekend tradition that a Jason Vieaux performance closes out the entire festival. This puts pressure on him. First, he often performs in the greater Cleveland area. So designing a program that’s fresh to an audience already familiar with him takes some planning and adds to his already daunting practice schedule. Further, as the anchor leg of the weekend, Vieaux follows three recital by artists who, inspired by the presence of their fellow artists, make a point of hitting it out of the park. Certainly all three performers did so this time around. Add to that an audience with an appetite whetted by what’s gone before, and you begin to understand why musicians spend so much time in the practice room.

As anyone who’s followed his career knows, Vieaux is up to the challenge. The centerpiece of his concert was the Britten Nocturnal. This is a piece he’s learned fairly recently, but now he has a handful of public performances under his belt. I first heard him perform this in September of last year—it was, I think, his first performance of the Nocturnal. His performance yesterday sounded more lived in, with a heightened eeriness that suits the piece. I’ve long felt that the Nocturnal isn’t quite music, but rather an aural description of somewhere alien and disquieting. After yesterday’s performance, Vieaux noted that the Nocturnal always takes him to another place. “I can be sitting backstage talking about baseball, but when I begin playing the Nocturnal, it just takes over.” Intriguingly, Vieaux compared the Nocturnal to a Mozart sonata: “Every note counts. It’s a very tight piece.”

For the rest of the concert, I must admit to a personal bias. Vieaux and soprano Jung Eun Oh performed both Britten’s folksong arrangements for guitar and voice, and also his Songs of the Chinese. To my ears at least, the shadows of Julian Bream and Peter Pears hung heavy over the concert. Mind you, I’m no fan of the notion of definitive performances, whereby all subsequent performances must inevitably fall short. But the 1965 recording by Bream and Pears is a special case, and has against my will become a template for how I hear the Britten songs. Try as I might to hear these songs with fresh ears, I always miss the imagination and flair that Bream and Pears brought to this music. Certainly some of Bream’s best playing is lavished on this recording. The bar is a high one—even artists on the level of Jason Vieaux and Jung Eun Oh don’t quite match it.

Perhaps it’s just me, but there it is. I doubt the audience shared my reservations.

——[My next update will be June 10, 2012]——

Reviews: Gaëlle Solal—SoloDuo

Gaëlle Solal
4:30 pm—June 2, 2012
Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

If you’re in a blue mood and need some cheering up, attending a Gaëlle Solal recital might be just the ticket. She’s a bundle of high spirits who seems unjaded about being a concert artist and can’t wait to get before an audience. If you’ve ever seen a musician who appears to need a gun in the back to go on stage, well that ain’t Solal. A couple of times she literally skipped on stage—incidentally, not an easy thing to do in the long and flowing dress she was wearing. And once there, she knows how to hold the stage.

Solal’s program was almost entirely Spanish and Latin American, with a side trip to Turkey. This isn’t a safe choice, as it might quickly prove monotonous. Fortunately Solal has the emotional and imaginative range to pull it off. Her playing is by turns passionate, driven, soulful, moody, or dark, depending on the needs of whatever she’s playing at the moment. Solal also eschews the traditional program notes, instead working written commentary into the program listing itself. We unfortunately missed the full effect of how Solal puts together her recital—she normally includes some creative lighting instructions for her performance. But Mixon Hall has a large glass window behind the stage, and since this was an afternoon recital we couldn’t provide the full darkness that Solal wants at a certain point in her performance. After hearing Solal without her preferred lighting changes, I’m intrigued by what must be the full effect when she plays in a hall that can accommodate her wishes for lighting.

I must confess that I inadvertently almost prevented Solal’s recital from happening. It was my responsibility to drive her from the inn she was staying at to the recital hall. The inn and hall are close by—only about a three minute walk—but I figured she’d be in full concert dress and would appreciate getting to the hall by car. I met with her beforehand to confirm what time she wanted me to pick her up. But we must have gotten our signals crossed, because we ended up with an understanding that was a half hour apart. So when I didn’t show at the time she expected, Solal nonchalantly picked up her guitar and, in full concert dress, hiked over to the hall. I’m relieved to report that she found the incident funny, and her recital went smoothly. Indeed, after the recital she seemed more concerned that I would be embarrassed by the mixup, and assured me that it was her fault. I replied that, no, I’m really trying to sabotage her career, and must try harder next time.

SoloDuo—Matteo Mela & Lorenzo Micheli
8:00 pm—June 2, 2012
Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

SoloDuo is a sure bet—when you go to their recital, you’ll get the highest quality of ensemble playing. Indeed, they’re so reliable that it’s easy to forget just how hard this is to pull off with the guitar. Just keeping it in tune throughout a concert is a full time job. That two players can shape it to their musical will is a minor miracle.

Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli first played together a little over ten years ago. Though they’re both Italian, they met in, of all places, San Antonio, Texas. Right away, they hit it off musically. Of course, the notion that two Italians will inevitably be simpatico is a notion that even an Italian would find amusing. Indeed, Mela and Micheli are something of an odd couple, with differing techniques and personalities. But almost immediately they vaulted to the top of their field. And they’ve quickly built a discography noted for both its musical excellence and its exploration of little known repertoire.

The hallmark of SoloDuo is its tight ensemble. They favor quickish tempos, though never hectic. Their touch is light and rhythmically incisive. Most remarkable is their ability to maintain a fluid pulse in tandem. Talking to Micheli after the recital, he said that he and Mela are so attuned to each other that when one tries something new, the other seems to know before it happens.

Their program at this recital was a tip of the hat to Presti-Lagoya, the duo par excellence of an earlier generation. SoloDuo proved once again that they take a back seat to no one. It may well be that future guitar duos might find themselves paying tribute to SoloDuo. But for now, SoloDuo is building its legacy one great performance at a time. We’re the lucky ones who’ll someday say we knew them when.

—(Next up: Jason Vieaux & soprano Jung Eun Oh )—

Pavel Steidl Review

Note: I’m attending the 2012 Guitar Weekend, jointly sponsored by the Cleveland Institute of Music and Guitars International. As a nice break from my ongoing project, I’ll review each of the four recitals.

Pavel Steidl
8 pm—June 1, 2012
Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music

In this cookie-cutter world of concert guitarists who are often indistinguishable from one another, Czech guitarist Pavel Steidl is an original. If you want poker-faced seriousness in the straight-laced tradition of stuffy classical concerts, you’ve come to the wrong man. But if you want to see and hear an artist who makes music jump off the page, Steidl is your man.

And see him you must, as well as hear him, for Steidl’s performance is a visual extravaganza. When appropriate to the music, his playing is choreographed with facial tics and hand gestures that convey every emotional twist and turn. If Marcel Marceau had been a guitarist rather than a mime, he might have performed something like this. In a lesser hands, this approach might devolve into rampant silliness. Happily, Steidl isn’t a lesser artist.

Steidl performed his entire recital on a copy of a 19th century Stauffer, built by luthier Bernhard Kresse. This was an apt choice for a program of almost all 19th century music, with one side trip to Bach. It also put to rest any suspicion that a 19th century guitar lacks the punch to put across the virtuoso music of its time. Okay, it’s not going to out-shout a modern Gernot Wagner. But with the right player, it can certainly hold its own.

Steidl’s playing of 19th century music is thoroughly in the atavistic tradition of the improvising virtuoso who sees the printed page as a starting point. This tradition sadly is rare in our own age of strict fidelity to the score. To be sure, some of today’s classical players gingerly step beyond the written text. But where most others dip a toe in the water, Steidl shouts “cannonball!” and flings himself into the pool. He’s a welcome reminder that in an earlier age audiences wanted to be astonished, and weren’t shy about voicing displeasure when the artist didn’t deliver. I doubt Steidl would ever be hooted out of a 19th century drawing room.

To be sure, this is a dangerous game to play. On last night’s program, Steidl’s approach worked best for the Ferrante, Mertz, and Paganini. I’m not convinced that it suits Sor, which was also on the program. Be that as it may, Steidl wasn’t put on this earth to play music as I think it should be played. I’m glad to hear another opinion of how Sor should be played, even if it crosses a line that I wouldn’t cross. To Steidl’s credit, he had the good judgment to tone down his unbuttoned approach during his performance of Bach’s Chaconne. Here Steidl was all business, albeit somewhat more romanticized than most. It suited me, as I often find performances of Bach too sterile.

Steidl closed with a encore of his own composition, an eerie work that included a bit of Tuvan throat singing. You read that right, and I won’t try to describe this otherworldly effect. Suffice it to say that if you haven’t yet experienced Steidl live, you owe it to yourself to do so. He had last night’s audience eating out of his hand.

—(Next up: Gaëlle Solal and Soloduo)—