Mais oui, the French, with their precise language, heavenly baked goods, divine painters, three musketeers, Cyrano de Bergerac, sun kings, silly queens, and those little round, floppy hats. The French have a rich culture encompassing many art forms, among them music. While there are many French composers whose music I admire greatly I had not, until I read this chapter, given as much consideration to French musicians and performance practices as I had to those of other countries. The French are dancers and painters and bakers (and poets and lovers and fighters), thought I, others do music. The French school has, however, included many fine musicians, and there are in fact a few things we can learn from them.
First, Cortot, whose Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique seemed that it may be a little like Hanon, except encased in an entire method, complete with graded repertoire. If this is the case, it may not be a bad, all encompassing method particularly for high school students. What I think we can learn most from Cortot, however, is in his quote on page 318 of Gerig's text ". . . the mechanical and long-repeated practice of a difficult passage has been replaced by the reasoned study of the difficulty contained therein, reduced to its elementary principle." If we, in searching for a solution to a problem passage in a piece of music, can pinpoint the exact issue (tension, fingering, the left or right hand) that is causing the problem, and directly address that, we will waste a lot less time in practice.
From Marguerite Long we are again reminded of the importance of slow practice, and also of practice without the pedal. Practicing without the pedal is, I think, often overlooked as a valuable tool for working on articulation. It stands to reason that if the blurring effects of the pedal are eliminated, we will be able to hear, and so improve, our articulation with more ease.
In Debussy, we have almost a school of piano technique all to itself. His gorgeous impressionist style for the piano is unique in the repertoire, and therefore must be given special attention when played. The overriding principle I shall take from the the section on Debussy, however, is the account of his overwhelming fastidiousness. His neat, precise, and perfectionist's personalty undoubtedly carried through to his music, and in light of this, perhaps I should attempt to take on that personality more in my playing of his music; his tempi, articulation markings, and many dynamic shadings.
Does anyone have a croissant?
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*Hands Anne a croissant*
ReplyDeleteI was also really struck by the idea of practicing without pedal. It's one of those things that I knew was an option but rarely employed. It makes a lot of sense.
I think Cortot's method sounds very interesting with it's precise schedule for exercise and practice. I think everyone could probably find something to benefit from his method. I like the section about Long, and think that we would do ourselves justice if practicing slow and without pedal, this will allow us to really find problems and fix them, thereby, wasting less time.
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