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STNS300172_FrontcoverPersonal Demons – Lowell Liebermann, piano (Steinway & Sons label)

Released to coincide with his 60th birthday, American pianist and composer Lowell Liebermann’s new double album Personal Demons features three of his own compositions which have special significance for him alongside music by other composers which has haunted, inspired and shaped his musical career and compositional output. It’s an interesting mix of moods, from the demonic Presto opening movement of Liebermann’s suite Gargoyles (his most performed work) to the fragile lyricism of Kabeláč’s Preludes (a composer whose music I had not encountered before), the dark majesty of Liszt’s Totentanz and Busoni’s herculean Fantasia Contrappuntistica, Liebermann’s unsettled and haunting Apparitions complemented by the expressive peculiarities and unexpected harmonies of Schubert’s Hüttenbrenner, and finally Liebermann’s Nocturne No. 10, Op. 99, written in memory of the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, which provides a moving and intimate, if not entirely settled, close to the album.

Liebermann’s playing is vivid, expressive and, when required, fleet and ferocious. This is exactly the kind of selection I’d happily hear in concert, and the opportunity to experience not only a composer playing his own music, but also the music which is particularly special to him offers some fascinating insights into Liebermann’s musical influences. This is also music which demands concentrated listening, but it’s well worth the effort.

simon-callaghan-hiroaki-takenouchi-saint-sac3abns-chopin-liszt-sonatas-arrangements-for-2-pianos-2020Saint-Saens: Chopin and Liszt Sonatas arranged for two pianos – Simon Callaghan & Hiroaki Takenouchi (Nimbus)

This new release from Nimbus explores Saint-Saens as arranger in his own versions of piano sonatas by Chopin and Liszt.

I was expecting thicker, fuller textures, given that two pianos instead of one are employed here, but there is surprising lightness and delicacy in the passages where both pianos are playing, and wherever either piano is playing alone, it is playing the original text. Saint-Saens exercises surprising restraint in not adding too much of his own musical personality to these sonatas; instead, in Chopin’s “Marche Funebre” sonata, we are invited to fully appreciate the exquisite clarity and variety of Chopin’s writing. In the middle, lyrical section of the second movement, we have the sense of a proper duet between two separate instruments as Saint-Saens’ arrangement highlights Chopin’s elegant organisation of voices. In the funeral march, the bass line is a dark, dead bell, tolling solemnly beneath the famous melody before the second subject opens out into more majestic territory. The contrasting middle section is tender and lyrical, sensitively phrased with sinuous rubato.

Liszt considered making a two-piano transcription of his B-minor sonata and he would have doubtless approved of Saint-Saens’ arrangement which remains so faithful to the original but with the opportunity for expressive emphasis in the passages where both instruments are playing. As in the Chopin sonata, Saint-Saens’ deftly highlights duetting passages, allowing the listener to appreciate inner lines and details which may not always be obvious in the original version.

I have to confess that I never really taken to Liszt’s B-minor sonata, but Callaghan and Takenouchi make a persuasive case for this music in their performance and there are moments of high drama contrasting with great beauty and lyricism. The Andante Sostenuto middle movement is particularly arresting.

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The internet is full of articles promising to help you learn to play the piano

  • Learn to play in just 4 weeks!
  • Play piano in 10 easy steps
  • 5 ways to become a great pianist

And so on….

The British pianist James Rhodes entered this busy, lucrative market a few years ago with his book ‘How to Play The Piano’, in which he promises to get the complete novice playing a Bach Prelude in just six weeks. It’s an admirable attempt which may provide inspiration and support to some aspiring pianists, but I am sure Mr Rhodes would agree that to master the piano, whether a professional or amateur player, takes many hours of commitment and graft. As one of my teachers, the wonderful Graham Fitch, observed, “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it!”.

Those of us who choose to embark seriously on this crazy, fulfilling, life-enhancing, frustrating and fascinating path do so with the understanding that the acquisition of skill, improvement and development are hard won (and for the professional, there is the added burden of the cut-throat competitiveness of the profession).

It doesn’t matter at what level you play – you can be a serious beginner or an advanced player; what matters is the commitment, made in the knowledge that this is ongoing process. For many of us (and I find this attitude is common amongst amateur pianists), it is the journey not the destination that makes learning and playing the piano so satisfying and absorbing.

If you don’t enjoy practicing – the process – forget it. You’ll never achieve mastery of your Grade 2 pieces or Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Practicing is the bedrock of the musician’s “work”. For the professional, this usually has an end point – or rather a string of end points – concerts; but alongside that, there is the need to learn new repertoire, keep existing repertoire alive and fresh, to revive previously-learnt pieces, and to continually reflect on and review one’s skills, technical, musical and artistic.

But there’s more. Because practicing isn’t just about sitting at the piano, turning the dots and squiggles on the score into sounds. Practicing – productive, thoughtful, deep practicing – involves the head and the heart as well as the body. Each phrase, each chord, each scalic run or passage of arpeggios must be considered and reviewed. Listen as you play (and you’d be amazed how many musicians don’t actually listen to themselves!). Reflect, review, play again. And again, and again….and make each of those repetitions meaningful.

Come to each practice session with an open mind and a willingness to fully engage with the music all the time. I’ve read accounts of great pianists practicing technique while reading a book propped on the music desk. This kind of mechanical practice is not helpful – and can even be harmful. Even when practicing the dullest exercises, or scales and arpeggios, find the music within, and bring expression and artistry to every note you play.

Approach your music with a clear internal vision of how you want it to sound. For less experienced players, this can be confusing, the fear of entering unknown territory. How do I know how it should sound? you might ask. But this marks your first forays into interpretation, into taking ownership of the music and making it yours. Our interpretative decisions about our music are shaped by our own experience – playing or listening to repertoire by the same composer, or from the same period, reading around the music, going to concerts, conversations with teachers and other musicians, and harnessing the power of our imagination to bring the music to life.

Don’t feel constrained by the notion that there is a “right way”, but rather forge you own way, and be committed to it. We take ownership of the music by recognising and committing to the value of what we have to say.

Mastery comes not from 10,000 hours of piano practice, but from 10,000 hours of deliberate, intelligent, thoughtful, self-questioning practice. During this process, basic skills are acquired, which allow us to take on new challenges and make connections which were previously elusive. Gradually, we gain confidence in our ability to problem-solve or overcome weaknesses, make more profound interpretative or artistic decisions about our music making, and at a certain point we move from student/apprentice to practitioner.

Now we have the confidence to try out our own ideas while gaining valuable feedback in the process, and our growing knowledge and skill allows us to become increasingly creative, and bring our own individuality and personal style or flair to the task.

When we practice we should do so actively and creatively with joy, playfulness and spontaneity, appreciating every note, every sound, the feel of the keys beneath the fingers, the way the body responds to the music, the nuances of dynamics (both indicated and psychological, as the music demands), articulation, expression, and so forth.

In short, our music making should be an ongoing, responsive process of discovery and refinement, rather than one of predictability, averageness or “good enough”.Such dedicated craft takes inordinate amounts of work – concentrating on very short sections of the score, seeking feedback from intense self-monitoring, at all times remaining curious and open-minded – but this approach provides us with accountable pianistic tools (interpretative, technical, artistic, and psychological) and validation methods that put us on the path to mastery. From a practical perspective, such pianistic tools are a virtuous circle of intense self-evaluation, analysis, reflection and adjustment, and the ability to always see errors as pointers to improvement. It’s a kind of “apprenticeship of incremental gains” informed by continual reflection, adjustment and refinement.

Learn the piano in 6 weeks? Bah! It’s a lifetime’s work.

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My husband laughs at my love of The Joy of Painting with American painter Bob Ross, which is broadcast on BBC Four in the early evenings. The programmes were originally created and aired in the 1980s and early 90s, and they do look a little dated now (along with Bob’s permed hair!). Additionally, Bob’s paintings – rather cheesy landscapes and snowy scenes – are not the sort of art I’d hang on my walls, but that hardly matters in the context of this article.

PBS Remix-Happy Painter

Bob is clearly a highly skilled artist. He exudes a quiet self-assurance which comes from confidence in his own techniques, and he uses his materials with a remarkable yet modest dexterity. He knows exactly which brush or palette knife to use to create a specific effect – the silvery bark of a birch tree or reflections on water. Watching a painting emerge from Bob’s palette before your eyes is mesmerising and strangely calming, but that is not the primary reason why I am hooked on these programmes: I am fascinated by Bob’s technique.

Musicians, like artists, need well-developed, secure technique in order to navigate the score and create music. Technique should always serve the art, whether it is painting or performing music; one demonstrates how finely-honed one’s technique is when it is no longer visible – when one plays, or paints, in such a way that it appears fluent and effortless. Bob Ross has mastered his technique to such an extent that we almost forget there is any technique involved at all.

Technical skills like this require consistent nurturing, which is why regular practicing is so important. Mindless note-bashing achieves little; focused, deliberate, deep practice, on the other hand, fosters technical assuredness and artistic mastery.

Through a process of constant reflection and refining during practice, physical and creative obstacles are overcome and one has in place the firm foundations and confidence from which to develop greater artistry. Assured technique also gives us the tools to explore more complex repertoire, a greater sense of intuition when we practice and perform, and the ability to play with greater spontaneity and nuance. The control of nuance will determine the version the performer performs. Much of this nuance will be pre-planned, practiced, memorised and finessed to such a degree that it sounds totally spontaneous in performance, but the rest comes ‘in the moment’ of performance – a genuinely spontaneous, quasi-improvisatory response to interaction between performer and music, performer and audience, the responsiveness of the audience, the performer’s mood and sensibilities, the ambiance of the concert hall, the time of day….It is this kind of musical “sprezzatura” that creates those magical, “you had to be there” moments in live concerts. It cannot be planned in advance – and yet it comes from the performer’s meticulous preparation, their deep knowledge of the music, their technical facility and mastery of their art, and their experience.

No one wants to watch an artist labouring with their work – this is one of the reasons why The Joy of Painting is such a pleasure to watch because Bob makes it look so easy (and he never lets his ego get in the way of the creation of art). Watch a performer like Martha Argerich in performance (a pianist I’ve been lucky enough to hear live in concert on several occasions) and you will see this same effortlessness.

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Guest post by Dr. Elizabeth Brooker

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is a widespread problem. It affects musicians of any age, instrument, level of expertise, professional and amateur musicians alike. It can be a crippling experience for anyone who suffers, turning a performance into a nightmare. Promising and talented musicians have given up the idea of professional careers because of MPA. In fact research has shown that over 60% of performing musicians are afflicted with this.

This phenomenon not only affects musicians but also individuals in other fields of performance. It’s a feeling of being ‘in the spotlight’ or ‘on show’ in what is deemed to be a threatening situation. Of course up to a point anxiety can be a good thing, it can focus the mind and enhance the performance; however when cognitive anxiety becomes uncontrollable (catastrophising, imagining the worst possible scenario) it can have devastating effects.

It is said that a small amount of anxiety focuses the mind, but a large amount paralyses it. The mind affects the body, and a whole raft of unwanted physiological and somatic symptoms can occur when performance anxiety sets in, such as palpitations, heart racing, sweating, shaking/trembling, loss of focus and a feeling of being out of control. I know from first-hand experience what performance anxiety is like as in the past I could feel physically sick before a piano performance; and over the years of teaching both piano and singing have noticed how some of my students have also suffered from anxiety in performance.

A large amount of research over the last 40 years has focused on MPA, yet the problem still exists. Therefore you may wonder why MPA is still so prevalent! I believe that the reason for this is that the majority of investigative research has looked at the effectiveness of interventions that focus on the conscious mind. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the main therapy in vogue at the present time. I would argue that the nature of this therapy, which focuses only on the conscious mind, does not get to the root cause of the problem only dealing with the presenting or surface issues.

I qualified as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist (CH) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) practitioner several years before my PhD research and adopted these therapies in my private practice. I noticed how beneficial these were for the rapid and long-lasting treatment of anxiety. Both therapies have the potential to reduce anxiety quickly and effectively and this is sustainable over time. The protocols and procedures are designed to desensitise and reprocess dysfunctional cognitions, emotions, and memories linked to past and present negative experiences: the underlying unconscious processes that an individual may not actually be aware of that can be maintaining the problem.

CH changes the memory and meaning of distressing events by reducing the perception of threat, and also the somatic symptoms of anxiety associated with the event (threat). Hypnosis dates back over 200 years as an area of scientific research and clinical practice and is used to bring about positive change in a wide variety of psychological conditions. EMDR used initially in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has expanded widely over the last ten years now treating a wide range of pathological conditions, including anxiety disorders and associative problems. It has also been used for enhancement of performance in the arts.

Having noted these positive effects in private practice I wanted to test the therapies from a scientific standpoint. My thesis therefore focused on cognitive anxiety (specifically relating to pianists) and the role of the unconscious mind in maintaining and exacerbating the problem of MPA. It is the first clinical outcome study to compare two psychotherapies, CH and EMDR, for the reduction of MPA. Investigating the efficacy of these therapies therefore became the primary focus of my research.

The procedure and method of my research into MPA is given in brief below.

Pilot Study

The therapies were tested initially in a pilot study of six Grade 8 pianists from the University of Leeds and Leeds College of Music. All were suffering from MPA to a lesser or greater extent. Baseline measures of state and trait anxiety were first taken. State anxiety is the anxiety that someone can experience when performing (it has been described by one of my students as ‘feeling like a rabbit when caught in headlights’) and trait anxiety is an individual’s generic level of anxiety. The cognitive, physiological and behavioural aspects of anxiety were also tested before and after application of the therapies. Students played the same Bach Prelude and Fugue in two small concert performances. After the first performance participants were randomly assigned to either a therapy or control group. In the period between the concerts the therapy groups received 2 one-hour sessions of either CH or EMDR.

The results of the pilot study showed a significant decrease in state anxiety at the second performance post-therapy in both the CH and EMDR groups but not in the control group.

Main Study

Having tested the effects of the therapies in a pilot study I then continued the research with a much larger sample of 46 advanced pianists. (Students were from the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield and Leeds College of Music). The main study basically followed the same procedures as the pilot study but with participants choosing their own repertoire. In this study self-report questionnaires were also completed by the students prior to each performance. These gave personal insights into thoughts and feelings experienced in both performances and showed that cognitive perception of performance relates directly to the physiological symptoms experienced, and to the performance outcome.

The results of the main study demonstrated that after only two therapy sessions there was a substantial decrease in state anxiety in both therapy groups, but not in the control group. This resulted in fewer physiological symptoms and greater enhancement of performance in the therapy groups. Also the general level of anxiety (the trait level) decreased substantially below baseline levels in the EMDR group.

This research highlighted a number of important issues. The findings suggest that CH and EMDR have an important contribution to make to our understanding and treatment of MPA and the role of the unconscious mind. It demonstrated the effectiveness of the therapies in both significantly reducing MPA and enhancing performance outcome after only two therapy sessions. There is also evidence that EMDR decreases an individual’s trait level of anxiety, which can be interpreted as a change in personality. Given the importance of these results it is suggested that clinical studies now be conducted comparing cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with CH and EMDR. The effectiveness of each therapy can be assessed as well as the number of sessions required to bring about a beneficial result. Research has shown that CBT often requires 10 or more sessions, with sometimes little positive change as the outcome. Furthermore a comparison of the cost-effectiveness of CH and EMDR with CBT should be undertaken given the beneficial effects of CH and EMDR after only two sessions.

For those interested in looking at my research in greater depth I give a list of my publications below:

Brooker, E. (2015). Music performance anxiety: An investigation into the efficacy of cognitive hypnotherapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing when applied to Grade 8 pianists. Doctoral dissertation eThesis, University of Leeds. Retrieved from http://ethesis,whiterose.ac.uk/12130.

Brooker, E. (2018). Music performance anxiety: A clinical outcome study into the effects of cognitive hypnotherapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing in advanced pianists. Psychology of Music, 46(1, 107-124).

Brooker, E. (2019). Transforming Performance Anxiety Treatment Using Cognitive Hypnotherapy and EMDR. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-61493-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-60676-3 (pbk, 2020).

Brooker, E. (2019). Cognitive hypnotherapy and EMDR. The longitudinal effects on trait anxiety and music performance in advanced pianists. Advances in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2019; 5(4); acam.000616.

Brooker, E. (2020). Cognitive Hypnotherapy. In C. Mordeniz (Ed.), Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis (pp.103-117). IntechOpen: London, UK. http://.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83045.