Monthly Archives: December 2010

How Hilary Hahn is like Agatha Christie

One of the more interesting novels I’ve read is called “The Gate to Women’s Country,” mostly because the plot is not what the reader thinks it is. The plot is not quite the events in the book. It is instead the slow realization on the part of the reader just what is happening to the characters … what the real plot is. The plot of the book is the way that the reader comes to appreciate what is really going on.

Music is often said to have a “plot” or narrative as well. Some pieces have self-contained narratives, but others — like Tepper’s novel — include the reader/listener/audience in some way. Mystery novels are often like that — there is the main plot of the book, and the plot including the reader, who must realize what’s going on. That ah-ha moment is the real climax, not the point at which Colonel Mustard is discovered pipe in hand in the library closet. If the book is well-written, the ah-ha moment will come close enough before the reveal that the reader didn’t put the book down two chapters before, but early enough that they feel slightly cleverer than average at having sussed it out beforehand.

Hilary Hahn’s version of the (in)famous Paganini Caprice 24 is like that. Many other performers recite that piece as some sort of showoff event: “Look how wonderful I am!” Very often, this results in robotic performances the point of which is for the musician in question to simply make the audience fall at their feet. These supposed Golden Age renditions remind me of the era of prog and art rock, where the musicians would take the stage in nothing more than an effort to impress the living daylights out of themselves with their own virtuosity. In that case, it doesn’t matter whether I listen — they’ll be just as impressed with themselves if I don’t.

Hahn’s performance is different. Instead, she simply begins tossing the piece off as if it is a light, pretty little confection — which it is! She remembers that it is, first and foremost, a piece of pretty music meant to tell a story, and she is about a quarter through the thing before it becomes evident that she is levitating about 3 feet off of the stage and glowing faintly.

The narrative of the piece when she is playing is the realization on the part of the audience of the full magnitude of just what is going on.

The audience is, in effect, part of the plot. I have to listen when she plays, or else the plot isn’t fulfilled. Hahn’s performance takes the audience on a journey, and that journey is the point of the piece.

For virtuoso pieces like that, I think that is a big part of what the narrative offered by a given musician should be.

The F minor thing evolves …

It seems to have gotten lighter and more optimistic than I wanted on repeat of the main theme. I’d wanted it to be more wistful. Either I’ll run with it as is, try to force it in a more melancholy direction, or opt for another section after this one whereby I can try to get a bit more bittersweet. I’m trying to think Grieg.

Currently, I’m listening to Brahms by the Philadelphia Orch with Muti, so that should put me in the mood nicely … but I may have to do more Grieg or else finally just gorge on Strange Medicine. Raised on Radio would do it, but it might send me to burrowing under the covers, too; that one is so dark that it’s not so much gently melancholy as just painful. It’s very obvious that it was an album written by five men whose personal lives were badly unravelling. Any other band, I could laugh snarkily at their emotional pain, but when Journey is in deep emotional pain, they slip knives into you.

And you enjoy it. It’s a bit much, sort of like latter era Beethoven. And I’m not apologizing for that comparison, either. But it’s very hard to listen to without a half-bottle of wine and a few days ahead of you during which you need not accomplish anything.

It’s so hard to play anything in third position on the A string.

Mostly because I can’t stand the sound of it. It’s hard to pay mind to those notes and try to get them exactly right, since I can’t wait for them to stop. Third position on the A string should be illegal. What’s the point of being up there anyway? If that’s were you want to be, just play the violin. There isn’t a singer in the universe who I like who can hit those notes without going falsetto. Why play them? Even the countertenors I like don’t hang around up there.

*shudder*

Those notes sound so awful, even in tune. Maybe the earplugs will help.

Melody IV (Fitzpatrick)

It’s very redolent of the first one (and to some extent the second and third). I’m definitely improving, but I still expect to have a bit more grey matter left over for higher-level judgments than I do when making music, as I do on the piano. On the viola, I still have to concentrate like a monk and to be very aware of doing so. I’m not sure how that will play out.

I can see myself having to work “less hard” to concentrate like that as I get more used to the thing, but I can also see myself simply becoming accustomed to that level of concentration until I don’t notice it as much. This instrument really does require a type of real-time attention that a piano doesn’t need; that’s why pianists can make handfuls of notes at once. Each one takes less work, so they just tell you to make twelve at a time.

I’m also having an easier time paying attention to bowings. Part of that is because I’ve resigned myself to reading through the piece first, and miming the bowings as I go, so that I can get them into my muscles at least a bit before picking up the thing. If I have to do the bowings correctly for the first time with the viola on my shoulder, it’s a recipe for disaster. I need to know the music first (which means playing it on the piano), then read it and hum it to myself while making bowing movements and thinking about the dancelike aspects of it.

And again, the F minor thing is working out slowly, but I’m seeing some light through the fog on it, so I’m quite happy with that. I’m not sure whether it will be two pages or longer, or whether I’ll revisit it at some point in the future. I’ve also got a very light little bit of fluff bouncing around in GM that sounds like a combination of George Winston and a Clementi student piece, so we’ll see where that goes. Right now, I’ve managed to get into DM, so I’ve hit a semicolon and will probably let it simmer for a bit.

It’s Nothing But The Music.

It's Nothing But The Music.

It’s been irking me lately. What we need in this world is a foodie revolution for music, a rejection of the processed garbage that has as much in common with real music as Cheez-Whiz does cheese.

Next up for my skewer: Beat Detective. We could just actually learn to play the drums, but why do that when this handy little number will do it for you?

Two-octave G major scale

I think I like it. I can finally put the 1-3 shift to use, and there’s a fractal quality to it that’s quite nice, whereby the second part of it is effectively the same as a first, only shifted over one string.

I just have to practice the rest of Melody IV in it, without getting tripped up by the ways in which it’s the same as Melody I. And I’m finally coming to grips with the ways in which the bowing just has to be taken into account. There is simply no choice. Watching good violists and good violinists — and falling asleep at night imagining myself making the same movements from the inside out — helps a great deal. And listening to great singers of course always helps as well. Violists and violinists are technical inspirations, but singers are the artistic and expressive ones. Hilary Hahn’s Caprice 24 helps me imagine myself bowing more smoothly and shifting with more confidence, but it’s still Steve Perry’s vibrato and intensity that I’m after. (I’ll probably spend a lot of time over the bridge when I advance to that point; he’s kind of a sul ponticello kind of guy.)

Of course I’m still awkward as hell on the thing, but I’m feeling more and more comfortable, and settling into the right posture, more and more easily and quickly. I still resent it for taking time away from the piano, but currently, I’m resigned to it.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to wait until the end of my next lesson before I try changing a string under the eye of my teacher. I’ll change the rest when I get home, and just grit my teeth and get through the Tiny Tim phase then.

New strings

So I need to change my strings. I’ve had the set I’m using now on the viola since I bought it, and I should change them.

I really should.

I need to change my strings.

I don’t want to. The Dominants sound fine, I’m worried about screwing it up, and Stevie is going to sound like Tiny Tim for the next few days until the Obligato/Larsen set I bought works itself in.

*sigh*

Just change them.

In other news, I think I made it through the writer’s block in the Fm thing, which is nice. I definitely arrived at something worth writing down and tweaking, at least. It’s delightful the things that vacation can loosen up.

Let’s face it.

I’m never going to stop playing this damn device, am I? After a holiday vacation, I spent the flight back going over viola fingering in my mind. I am just going to have to balance my “free” time like a wirewalker for the rest of my life. *sigh*