Unorthodox

There is nothing like being backstage to make me wonder why we bother with live performances anymore. In this era of perfect recordings and digital enhancements, I need a compelling reason to walk on stage. I also need a good reason to be an audience member. Truth is, these days I am not tempted out of the house for a generically good version of a piece. I have plenty of recordings that can give me just that and better.

Yet I know that what excites me about live performances is the opportunity to get inside the head of the performer for a brief time. I want to witness a personal relationship between the performer and the music. I want to see the results of the time spent grappling with the program. I want to hear what the performer found magical and intriguing about those notes and rhythms. On a very basic level, I want to know who the performer becomes in the presence of that particular music.

When I think of the musicians I most admire and the performances I most remember, it was not simply the performer’s command of the instrument and the music that most struck me, but also the presence and deep sense of self the musician exhibited on stage. Since the birth of recording technology, something has changed about live performances. It used to be that audiences came to hear a specific piece of music, but now anyone can put in a CD and hear anything they want. Except in cases of performances of new music, what is on trial during a performance is not the music, but rather the performer. How well does he measure up? Does she have anything interesting to offer?

Too often the answer is no. While I can quickly rattle off specific performers and performances that thrilled me, the world seems crowded with good musicians who have nothing new to say. Too many performances of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata sound the same. I can’t drag myself to another fine, but boring, performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto.

But as I mull this over, it occurs to me that if what I am seeking are musicians who possess a unique voice and sense of self, then our current practices of educating musicians often thwart this outcome. While I had excellent training during my years in school, I was merely copying what my teachers told me was correct. I was not taught to listen to my sound or encouraged to establish and develop my own tastes, but rather was taught to replicate theirs. My experience is not unique. It can’t be, because too often when we hear a student play we can accurately guess the teacher. So and so’s students all sound alike, we say. So and so’s students all have great chops. Or a great sound. Or whatever identifying feature they might possess. Entire studios quite frequently sound exactly the same.

But it’s complicated. Particularly in the arts, where the emotional risks are often high, students need a protected place to explore new ideas and creative expression, and ideally, teachers should be the guardians of a safe learning environment. But too often, the threat of an unpolished performance is too much for a reputable teacher, who decides instead to focus on molding students into predictably satisfactory pianists rather than unconventional, but authentic, ones. It is easier to train students into performing respectable renditions of standard literature, than to face the imaginary wrath of our profession and to let them go out in public where they might do something so wild as to be—heaven forbid!—unmusical.            

In my studio, the Saturday before Thanksgiving is historically the night of our fall recital. Last November as I sat there and listened to the program unfold, I realized that, without completely deciding to do so, I had begun to allow students a bit more freedom and space in their interpretations. There were a number of performances that night that were rather unorthodox, but, for one reason or another, in the weeks before the recital, I had stopped arguing the point.

Take George who, with great flair and abandon, had played a rather questionable interpretation of his recital piece on Tuesday afternoon at his lesson. I had started to correct and coach what I hoped would be a more musical performance, and George literally crumbled into a mess of tears. This was not a kid who had ever before been sensitive about anything, but I think he was so taken with his own ideas that he was crushed when I went to fix them. Was this worth it so I could save face in public? Not even.

Even one high school student, who I had thought was putty in my hands, had proven to be more stubborn than I expected. "I hear what you're saying, Amy," Jonathon told me, "But I think my way sounds good too." I was not sure whether to be proud of his confidence or appalled. I would have never had the courage to say such a thing to one of my teachers. In fact, my learned helplessness in the face of an overpowering teacher was so great that routinely I simply cowered, doubting my own creative urges and musical instincts, and wondering if my internal artistic compass was faulty.

But lately I have sensed that something significant in me has shifted, and I find myself more willing to entertain the notion that a kid might go out in public with an interpretation of a piece that I or my colleagues might be less than keen on. Maybe I'm just getting lenient, but after years of accepting the conventional wisdom of my profession, I am starting to question seriously the assumption that my job is to always force students to play music my way. I'm wondering about the very real danger of sucking the enjoyment right out of them, or even, God forbid, making them doubt their own artistic sensibilities. Taken too far, this attitude could be irresponsible, because it is my job to teach not only basic musical skills but also taste and musicality too. However, too often that becomes the default when the act of giving a child permission to do something joyfully outrageous (in public nonetheless!!) might be a very courageous thing to do.

I know the argument here: students have to be taught taste. They have to be taught what is correct in terms of style and technique. Yes, that is true. I am not suggesting we throw out all the rules. Nor am I suggesting that performers don’t have a responsibility to composers, historical context, and performance practice. Clearly, a performer’s job as a “re-creative” artist is to try to discern composers’ intentions within their historical context. We have an obligation to do research, study composers’ styles, and listen to as many recordings as we can find. We should analyze the music for theoretical concepts and details of form and key scheme. Our playing should reflect the depth of our knowledge and understanding. 

But in the end, after careful study and attention to musical details—notes, rhythms, phrasing, etc—there is still a lot of discretion left to the performer. At least there are more personal, more subjective approaches to music than are often allowed in our conservatories and private studios to be sure. Pianists can and should have different sounds based on their individual tastes and personalities. Cellists should have different opinions regarding which note a phrase is leaning towards. All vocalists should not have the exact same sense of timing (Beware: I am not suggesting incorrect rhythm, but a difference in tempo, or of timing within a phrase.). Despite the similarities in performances demonstrated among many musicians, there simply does not need to be one right answer to these musical questions.

I know this sounds dangerous. But what if, as teachers, we spent more time asking our students questions: what kind of sound do you want in this passage? What note do you feel most drawn to in this phrase? How do you most like this chord voiced? What line in this texture are you most interested in? How do you think the composer wanted this passage to be played? By asking questions, we come closer to the etymology of the word “educate”: to draw out. We should be drawing out of our students their own sense of musicianship and style. Perhaps our first job as teachers is simply to ask the questions, rather than imposing our opinions.

Instead, I’m afraid that we are far too accustomed to saying to our students, let me show you. Let me show you which note to go to, which voice to bring out, which measures to add rubato. What if we modeled, however, not an example of what was “correct,” but rather our own search for identity and our openness to new ideas and voices? What if our students learned not how to emulate our musical preferences, but rather how to follow our examples when researching and studying matters of historical context and performance practice as we search for musical authenticity? What if our studios were places where musicians were given the encouragement to find their own voices? Their own sense of timing? Their own sound? We might well end up with a whole generation of musicians more willing to share their character and personality.

Years ago I read an article in The New Yorker by Joan Acocella about ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell and choreographer George Balanchine. The author wrote, “Farrell, as a dancer, had certain technical shortcomings--she wasn’t a jumper, and she couldn’t really do allegro....but no one in the world was more musical.” Acocella claimed that the key to Balanchine’s success with so many brilliant, but spectacularly different, dancers was that he figured out what each dancer “wanted to do, and made it as interesting as he could.” The idea that Balanchine could make a star out of a dancer with “technical shortcomings” has stayed with me all these years. What if that was the gold standard of music teaching: this idea that it is our responsibility to discover what is unique about each student and guide them into developing those qualities.

Back at the piano, I turn this challenge upon myself and my own practicing, trying desperately to distinguish among the voices in my head which ideas are mine and which are the opinions I think I ought to have. I force myself to listen and listen and listen some more, all the while asking, do I like this sound? What do I really want to do in this phrase? I try to have the courage to applaud students’ unorthodox interpretations in my studio. Or at least to let a few go for every one I step in and “fix.” It’s a start.

Because we owe our audiences the chance to hear, through our playing, our internal dialogue with composers and music. If we can’t give them that, they should go out and buy a recording. I have plenty of recommendations.