By |

Lynne14What is your first memory of the piano?

I first learnt to play the piano when I was very young and living in Vermont, USA.  I have a distinct memory of my first piano – a vast white upright with a black-leaf Art Nouveau design on the front.  I can remember learning Mary Had a Little Lamb on black notes, and I have a very clear recollection of my first teacher, us sitting next to each other on the piano stool, me marvelling at not just her piano playing, but also her incredibly long hair! I can also remember playing a peculiar electric organ upstairs in the house, with my Mother helping me and playing alongside me.  I had a Children’s Song Book that we used to play together, and I can remember Mum helping me with my piano practise, and also getting stuck on ‘The Bullfrog’ for many months before finally abandoning it.

Who or what inspired you to start teaching? 

To be honest, teaching was something that I fell into.  After finishing University, I was asked by a friend of a friend to teach her teenage daughter. Luckily for me, she led me to the realisation that teaching was something I absolutely loved to do.  I made a lot of mistakes with those first few students – I moved them on too fast, I entered them for exams too quickly- but I learnt from them and I hope that they weren’t too scarred by the experience.  Today’s music students who are taught teaching skills modules, and who have access to other lessons to observe and learn from, are incredibly lucky. I doubt if I’m the only teacher of my age who had to learn our skills with little or no help, and had to do it fast.

Who were your most memorable/significant teachers? 

My A-level music teacher at Lady Verney High School, Miss Hughes, was the first teacher who opened my eyes to counterpoint, fugues, and the structure of music.  At the time, I was struggling wildly with a Bach Fugue, and it was only when I began additional lessons with Miss Hughes, that I discovered why I was coping so badly; I had no concept of a fugue, I didn’t understand the ideas of counterpoint and voicing, I was trying to play the fugue as a harmonic piece, reading it and realising it vertically as if the notes were chords.  The idea that this music was essentially conceived around a single melody was like a revelation to me.  When I moved to Cardiff to study music at University, I became a student of Richard McMahon (now Head of Keyboard Department at RWCMD).  If my eyes were opened by Miss Hughes, then my vision was completely transformed by McMahon.  He taught me to think of the music I was playing as not only of vocal origin, but also taught me to listen to and identify the underlying harmonies, he taught me the concept of direction, shape and colour in music, and the importance of thinking not just pianistically and vocally, but also orchestrally and percussively.

Who or what are the most important influences on your teaching? 

Certainly Richard McMahon has been an enormous influence on my teaching.  Through all my years studying with him, I don’t believe I heard even once the phrase “Play it like this…” or “It should sound like this…”.  He taught me that the key to being able to play a piece was in its understanding, and that once I understood the music, I would be able to work out how to perform it.  Of course, he helped with technical issues, but most of my lessons revolved around my comprehension of what I was playing.  His teaching has influenced me enormously – I rarely talk to my students about the literal markings on the page, rather helping them to understand the ‘why’ of the markings; for instance, “Why does the music get louder here? Where is it driving towards?” rather than “The music gets louder because it is marked ‘crescendo”.  He also taught me that there are very many valid interpretations to any one piece, and this is something that I teach my students.  During one memorable lesson, he explained that he disagreed wildly with how I was articulating a specific section, so asked me play it so convincingly that it would persuade him of its validity.  This experience, and many more like it, has left me with a love of my students disagreeing with my ideas on interpretation, and I frequently find myself asking them to “convince me and anybody else listening” of their ideas.

I have also been heavily influenced by Daniel Barenboim – I have read “Everything is Connected” many times over, and can often be found quoting him during lessons.  His description of the true meaning of the term ‘rubato’ is nothing short of genius, and something that I discuss frequently with my own students.

Most memorable/significant teaching experiences?  

I have so many! Most of my memorable teaching experiences are to do with a student ‘getting’ something after a period of struggling – whether it is an understanding of a musical concept, a sound, a technique, a performance, or an exam result. I had a recent lesson where a student developed a whole new level of touch and tone control after working all lesson not just on listening to speech patterns but also on playing on a closed piano lid (a favourite teaching trick of mine that instantly allows a student to hear how much or how little attack there is behind the notes).  That Eureka! moment is something I cherish every time it happens.

Because I teach a wide range of students and I have an open-door policy for anyone wishing to learn, this does mean that I get just as much of a buzz out of a gifted musician being able to play a technically demanding piece with insight, depth and skill, as I do out of a student who finds learning the piano so much more challenging, finally achieving a full piece with musicality and confidence.

What are the most exciting/challenging aspects of teaching adults? 

Adult learners come with their own challenges and difficulties, but also a unique set of skills.  Adults are much more able to think logically and work out things by themselves over the week, but they tend to have far more problems with finger agility than children, and I often find that adults struggle to find the time to practise regularly. Most of my adult learners are extraordinarily busy, often juggling work and children before they even begin to think about practise, and this often leads to frustration from themselves with regards to their progress.

What do you expect from your students? 

I have different expectations from different students, depending on their commitment level, their goals, and obviously their age, but I do expect from all of them a high level of honesty, a certain level of hard work, and as much respect towards me and my instrument that I give them.

What are your views on exams, festivals and competitions? 

I have very mixed feelings about all of these.  Although they all have their uses, I’m becoming more and more convinced that there is a culture of overuse and misuse that has been on the rise for many years and is now reaching a peak.  There are many students and parents who don’t see progress unless they have a certificate or medal to prove it, and who have been taught that the only way to learn is to ‘progress through the grades’, sitting every one along the way, and often sacrificing time spent learning new repertoire and skills in the process. I don’t know what the answer is to this, but I think if music education continues along this route, we will end up with a generation of musicians who have a grade 8 certificate but who are unable to think of music as anything other than its individual examination sections – scales, aural tests, pieces, and sight reading.  A parent of one of my students once said to me “Isn’t it sad that when my son says he plays the piano, the immediate question is “What grade are you?”.  Why does nobody ask, “What interesting pieces are you playing at the minute?””, and I think this sums up the present exam culture perfectly.  I spend a lot of time attempting to convince parents and students that exams, festivals and competitions are all very useful sidesteps in their musical education, but that to use them as the sole goal is not only detrimental, but not what the systems were set out to do in the first place.

What do you consider to be the most important concepts to impart to beginning students, and to advanced students? 

To beginners – that you should never play a single note without listening to yourself, that odd mistakes don’t matter, that you should question yourselves and your teachers, and that it is ok, great fun and incredibly useful, to improvise.

To advanced students – that you should never play a single note without listening to yourself, that odd mistakes don’t matter, that you should question yourselves and your teachers, and that it is ok, great fun, and incredibly useful, to improvise.

What are you thoughts on the link between performance and teaching? 

I think the only teachers who can effectively teach performance technique are ones who have a history of performance behind them.  Not all of my students enjoy performing (in fact, many of them actively shy away from it), but I believe even those students need to be aware of the elements of performance practise, even if the only people they will ever perform to are themselves.

Who are your favourite pianists/pianist-teachers and why? 

Too many to mention! But I grew up with a love of older pianists such as Ashkenazy and Barenboim, and this love for these great musicians has stuck by me over the years.

Lynne studied piano in Cardiff at Cardiff University and RWCMD where she had regular tuition from renowned concert pianist and teacher Richard McMahon.   

She has been teaching piano to children and adults through private lessons and at RWCMD for 15 years.  She is a specialist in early years teaching, in working with children with visual impairments, autism, dyslexia & dyspraxia, and she recently spent two years working with a student who only had the use of her right hand.   

Lynne does not use a specific teaching method, but she firmly believes that young musicians should be taught to think independently, to question themselves and their teachers, and should not become reliant on graded examinations in order to achieve a sense of progress.   

Lynne is currently researching and writing a book about piano teaching.  Visit Lynne’s blog and website properpianofingers.com

By |

My students don’t believe me when I tell them there is a book called The Perfect Wrong Note. Nor do they believe me when I tell them that mistakes are good, that mistakes make us better musicians.

The desire for perfectionism is all around us in our modern society, from the need to produce a perfectly cut and edited film or CD, to the pressure to achieve the “perfect body” (whatever that is!). Very young children are immune to this pressure: they learn from mistakes, often made during play, and by doing so gain a huge amount of knowledge about the world around them before they have stepped foot inside a school environment. But from the moment they are in school, they are encouraged not to make mistakes, and through the demands placed upon them by teachers, peers and parents, they develop a certain moral judgement and become self-critical. They learn that not making mistakes wins praise, while making mistakes results in disapproval.

Being a musician, particularly a professional musician, is highly demanding, and the training required is extremely rigorous. Music students strive for mastery and perfection in their playing, because they know that being well-qualified in this respect will earn them merit and recognition, from teachers, peers, audiences and critics. As musicians, and teachers of musicians, it is important that we set ourselves high standards, but constantly striving for perfection can promote false or impossible standards.

As pianist and teacher Charlotte Tomlinson says in her excellent book Music from the Inside Out, people frequently – and wrongly – equate perfection with excellence. While perfectionism is negative and damaging, excellence is achievable and positive.

When I’m teaching students, and when I’m practising myself, I never see a wrong note as a mistake. Wrong notes and mistakes are instructive – and we can always learn from them. When an error occurs, we need to ask ourselves some key questions:

  • Do I know where the mistake happened?
  • Do I know why the mistake happened?
  • Do I know how to put the mistake right so it doesn’t happen again?

All mistakes happen for a reason and it’s important that we understand why a mistake happened and what we can do to prevent it re-occurring. Sometimes it may be something quite simple like a poor or awkward fingering scheme; but sometimes mistakes, particularly those that recur in the same places, may be the sign of a more deep-seated issue, technical, physical or psychological.

When students come to lessons with me, many of them play their pieces with slips and errors – and many of them stop to correct these errors, despite my saying “keep going!”. I try to encourage students to “play through”, to keep the flow of the piece going by not stopping to correct each and every mistake. Look at any exam report, for whatever grade, and you will see that “flow”, or rather lack of flow, is a constant gripe of music examiners. Constantly stopping to correct mistakes becomes ingrained in the muscle memory to the point where one will always stop at the same point, even if the mistake is no longer there.  I worry when students play blindly, not taking notice of what they are doing, not listening, because this is when mistakes get overlooked, and keep cropping up, week after week. Mistakes such as these are hard to correct and need careful, detailed practising to put right. Mistakes made from poor conception and understanding, lack of preparation or careless practising need consistent work to put them right. But mistakes made from off the cuff inspiration and insight can be wonderful and exciting.

Mistakes show we are human, and fallible, that it’s ok to have an off day when your playing and practising may not go as well as usual. Giving ourselves permission to make mistakes allows us to be fulfilled by our music and to feel positive about our practising. A willingness to make mistakes teaches us to be self-critical, but in a positive, productive way.

An excellent performance may not be a perfect performance – but the excellent performance will almost certainly be the one which conveys the meaning and emotion of the music, which tells the story, communicates with the audience and allows the listener to be carried away by the music, to the point that the performer almost becomes invisible. Some of the greatest pianists of all time made visible mistakes in their performances – Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Paderewski, Cortot, Hofman, Moiseiwitsch, Horowitz, Richter, Gilels – but these people remain piano legends because of the beauty of their playing, their insight and communication, and interpretative skills. I have been to concerts by some of the top professional pianists in the world and have heard mistakes – split notes, a smeared run, a missed chord. I’ve even been party to a few memory lapses on occasion. Did these spoil the concert experience as a whole? Of course not, because the performer played with conviction, emotion, musical understanding, passion.

We need to learn how to free ourselves from the tyranny of perfectionism to become more fluent, confident, convincing and expressive musicians. We should strive for the “ideal” not the “perfect” version in our music. And as Charlotte Tomlinson says in Chapter 3 of her book, sometimes we just need a “f**k it switch”, to free us from stress and allow us to stand back and see the bigger picture.

Further reading:

Music from the Inside Out – Charlotte Tomlinson

The Perfect Wrong Note – William Westney

The Inner Game of Music – Barry Green

The Musician’s Way – Gerald Kilckstein

This article originally appeared on my sister blog Frances Wilson’s Piano Studio.

By |

Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and make it your career? 

My grandfather was a composer, so he definitely inspired me. My mum did a music degree when I was about 9 years old so we had a small music studio at home where I learnt to use Cubase. It was around then that I remember writing my first composition, a Morris dance that was used in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (my mum wrote the rest of the music for the production).

As for making it my career, I actually came to it fairly late – 8 years after completing my degree. At the time, I didn’t think it was possible to make a living from composing and I didn’t want to teach, so I took an office job to bring the pennies in. It’s only since getting married and having a baby that I’ve been able to stay at home and write music, but it’s been the best decision I ever made!

Who or what were the most important influences on your composing? 

I consider myself to be a self-taught composer, as I don’t recall ever receiving much direct feedback on my work. Even at university, our composing sessions consisted of listening to new music rather than learning compositional techniques and tips. This is my memory of it anyway! So my composing hasn’t been directly influenced by any teachers.

Instead, I would say that my main influence initially was music I had played in orchestras. I used to say that I wanted my music to have the harmonies of Debussy, the rhythms of Stravinsky, the Englishness of Vaughan-Williams, and the passion of Rachmaninov. However, since returning to composition in 2011, I’ve opened my ears to the wealth of new music that has been written since the time of those composers, right up to music being created in the present. As a result, my style has changed a little, I have learned a lot, and my ideas are more creative. I’ve started to look outside of music to find influences, for example ancient history and nature.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? 

As I left it so long after university, I didn’t have any tutors to promote me, enter me for competitions, or show me how to turn this from a passion into a career. I have had to do a lot of research into how composers get paid, how to be noticed, how to get my music performed, etc. I have also had to find the performers for myself, something which would have been a lot easier had I still been at university and surrounded by musicians. This has actually been a good thing though, as I have made connections with a lot of fantastic performers.

Which performances/compositions/recordings are you most proud of?  

I’m extremely proud of winning the Yorkshire Late Starters Strings composing competition 2011/12 with my 15 minute piece “Battle of the Winwaed”. The piece was written for the YLSS, who comprise adult string players of grades 2-8. To get round the challenge of writing for mixed abilities, I split the cellos into parts 1 and 2, along with the usual 1st and 2nd violins, violas and basses. I also wrote parts for a solo violin and solo cello, to add more complexity for those players of the highest standard. The orchestra performed the piece twice in 2012.

I’m also very proud of my third string quartet, “Cross Quarter Days”, which was recorded in 2012 and has been released on iTunes, Amazon, and on my website. The piece is in 4 movements, each representing one of the four key dates in the Pagan calendar that divide the year into quarters. It represents a big leap in terms of my development since the second quartet, written just a year earlier, and I feel it’s the work that best represents me as a composer.

Favourite pieces to listen to? 

One of my favourite pieces to listen to is Michael Torke’s July for saxophone quartet. It’s so funky, I don’t think I could ever get tired of it! Other favourites include the Rite of Spring, Turangalîla, the Planets, Ravel and Debussy’s string quartets, White Man Sleeps by Kevin Volans, Gabriel Prokofiev’s Jerk Driver… I also listen to a lot of 80s pop music and Steely Dan!

What is your most memorable concert experience? 

Performing Turangalîla with the County Youth Orchestra at Snape Maltings, I think it was in 2003. Such an overwhelming piece to perform, and in such a fantastic venue. I feel very privileged to have had that experience. I remember walking off stage with my cello at the end and saying to the conductor, “wow, that was amazing!”.

Regarding performances of my own work, the most memorable is probably when I performed my own concerto for cello and string orchestra at university in 2002. Having my Christmas carol “On A Gentle Winter’s Night” performed in Guildford cathedral in front of 1000 people in 2001, and then its second performance in New Zealand last year, are also very memorable occasions!

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians? 

Be true to yourself. Don’t give up. Have an open mind. Listen. Network. Take criticism constructively. Make things happen, don’t sit around waiting to be noticed.

What are you working on at the moment? 

I’m currently about halfway through my largest commission so far – a 25 minute suite for full symphony orchestra entitled “Legends of the Tor”. The work will be in 5 movements, each referencing a different legend relating to Glastonbury Tor in Somerset. The piece has been commissioned by my local symphony orchestra, after they successfully applied for a highly competitive “Community Music” grant from the BBC Performing Arts Fund. The community element will be the involvement of 5 local schools, who will each have a group of children composing their own music on the theme of “Myth and Legends”, with the help of workshops led by myself and members of the orchestra. The children will perform their pieces at the concert in June when the orchestra will premiere my piece.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time? 

My goal is a commission for the BBC Proms! I’ve set myself a 10 year target, so we’ll see what happens! Failing that, I’d be happy to have my music performed regularly and to continue receiving commissions so that I can carry on writing.

Alison Wrenn’s new work for piano trio Between the Mountains and the Sea receives its premiere at the Halstatt Classics Music and Literature Festival on 17th August. Further details here

 

Alison Wrenn (b.1981) is a British composer, whose style brings together influences from the English Pastoral Tradition, elements of popular music and media music as well as strains of Celtic and some aspects of American minimalist music.

Full biography

By |

“One should only write piano music for the Bechstein”

Claude Debussy

This week I finally took delivery of my Bechstein grand piano, a 1913 Model A. I had to wait four months before she could move in (and she is most definitely a “she”, because she is so pretty! And a friend named her “Bechy” in advance of her arrival), because of building work in my home. As the “due date” drew nearer, I put a large Indian rug down in the space where Bechy would be going and began to visualise my remodelled and redecorated living room with a 6′ grand piano in it.

I suppose every pianist dreams of owning a grand piano. It has certainly been a long-held wish of mine (along with being able to play Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op 110 – not such a pipe dream any more now that I have started a serious study of this work). I used to gaze longingly into the window of the Steinway showroom on Marylebone Lane on my way to the Wigmore Hall, but for a long time I never imagined I would ever be able to afford a grand, nor fit one into my home. But when I passed my ATCL with Distinction I began to think about the possibility of owning a grand piano as I felt my upright was limiting. I started looking at modern grands: at the more affordable end of the market, nearly all of these are now made in the Far East, with varying degrees of quality. A friend recommended sticking with what I knew and purchasing a Yamaha, but I began to crave a warmer, more “European” sound. My tuner knew I was on the hunt for a grand and began to make excited plans for us to attend the London Piano Auctions at Conway Hall but I was wary about purchasing a piano at auction, even with my knowledgeable and experienced tuner to help and advise me. And then my tuner mentioned an old Bechstein which had come into his workshop for restoration. He urged me to come and try it, praising its range of sound – “like a string quartet, or a choir!” – and its superior condition, despite its age. In the end, I weakened, and on a cold afternoon in late March, after a sushi lunch on Clerkenwell Road with my husband, I played the piano in Rolf’s workshop. And I knew it was the piano I had to buy. We retired to a small cafe over the road with Rolf’s business partner Klaus, and there, over mugs of tea and Portuguese custard tarts, the deal was sealed. On the bus back to Waterloo, I texted my husband “I’ve bought a grand piano!”. He replied “have you got it with you, on the bus?!”.

There followed several months of getting the money together to pay the for piano. My husband generously (foolishly?!) agreed to give me the equivalent of what he would have spent on a mountain bike (a not inconsiderable sum, as it turned out!), and the person for whom I work on Mondays as a secretary and companion, very kindly made a contribution to the “grand piano fund”. On 1st August 2013, the piano was mine. She arrived at my house on 6th August.

The C Bechstein Pianofortefabrik AG was established in 1853 in Berlin. Prior to setting up the factory, Carl Bechstein studied and work in France and England as a piano craftsman, making pianos for other people. When he established his own factory, he was determined to manufacture pianos which could withstand the greater demands imposed on the instrument by the virtuosi of the day, such as Franz Liszt and Hans von Bulow (who gave the first public performance on a Bechstein, performing Liszt’s Sonata in B minor). The pianos were endorsed by both Liszt and von Bulow, and by the 1870s were staples in many concert halls and private houses. Together with Bluthner and Steinway, Bechstein was, and remains today, a pre-eminent manufacturer of superior-quality pianos.

Bechstein piano showroom on London’s Wigmore Street.

In 1885, Bechstein opened a branch in London, which grew to be the largest branch and dealership in western Europe, and on 31st May 1901, Bechstein Hall, built at a cost of £100,000, opened next to the company’s showroom on London’s Wigmore Street. Bechstein Hall was built to provide London with a venue that was impressive yet intimate for recitals of chamber music. With near-perfect acoustics, the hall quickly became celebrated across Europe and featured many of the great artists of the 20th century. The pianos for the hall were supplied from the adjacent Bechstein showroom.

The company suffered huge property losses in London, Paris and St Petersburg during the First World War; this and rampant anti-German sentiment forced the closure of the London showroom. Following the passing of the Trading with the Enemy Amendment Act in 1916, the British arm of the company was wound-up,and all Bechstein property, including the concert hall and showrooms full of pianos, were seized as “enemy property”. In 1917, the concert hall reopened, renamed Wigmore Hall, and the pianos from the next door showroom were confiscated and became the property of the new owners of the concert hall. Wigmore Hall remains London’s top venue for chamber music and solo recitals, but today its pianos are supplied and maintained by Steinway.

Bechstein pianos are still manufactured in Germany, under the ownership of Karl Schulze, a German entrepreneur and master piano maker. Bechstein pianos have been favoured by some of the greatest concert pianists and recording artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Wilhelm Kempff, Dinu Lipatti, Shura Cherkassy, Sviatoslav Richter, Oscar Peterson and Tatiana Nikolayeva.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I feel privileged to own such a beautiful instrument, and one which has such a fine pedigree. From the opening measures of Debussy’s Prelude Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir, it was obvious that the piano has a far greater range of tonal possibilities and colours than my modern Yamaha upright. And when a friend came to play the piano in the afternoon, and I was able to appreciate its voice from the sofa, even more was revealed about it. I am very much looking forward to getting to know the piano.

London Pianos – restoration, tuning, repairs, concert hire and removals