Matthay was indeed, the most important figure of the chapter, with overabundance of charts and writings, I was definitely impressed, and completely altogether terrified by the sheer volume of the sort. A fact I find most promising is that Matthay began his intensive study of the piano technique by listening a great pianist's playing (Rubinstein) (p. 370). The best way for us to advance our technique is to listen, to ourselves and to the great masters, a fact Matthay himself encouraged.
Matthay was a proponent of a great many things, including, most interestingly in my opinion, the speed of attack. It's possible that the idea has been toyed with before, but no one before Matthay has made such an impact on the connection of attack and tone production. Many of his ideas are useful, and the knowledge and constant evolution of attack types can shape great musicians. I would argue that Matthay's principles could be more helpful for slower tempos, when one is trying to create a sweet, or "sympathetic" tone color, which is what he seems to talk about, for the majority.
The main problem that I have with this school of thought is that it is just that. Thinking. Yes, thoughts are definitely a part of piano playing. But categorizing 42 specific varieties of touch? In my opinion, no one will particularly benefit from that. Matthay himself claims that all of the techniques form into one once we are in tempo and in front of an audience. So why not spend more time listening and less time writing? Matthay of course, advocated much listening, and I'm sure, has a counter argument for my argument, but while I find many of his writings fascinating, I think that about 90% of what I read was pretty much useless (but perhaps this is because I also don't completely understand it).
The emotional side; which I would argue is very closely related to the intuition of pianism; is in a separate, very small area on the left side of his chart on page 374. It is labeled under conception, separated from the other half, execution. Is the purpose of creating a "sympathetic" tone not because of the emotion that inspired it? Isn't emotion one of the MAIN factors, contributors, and dare I say, the main point of most pieces of music? How can it then, be separate from execution? Of course we wouldn't be able to play if we were completely overcome by emotion at all times, but isn't the main point of music to relay our heart, and perhaps an infinite amount of mechanical actions all rolled into one?
For me, the most powerful musical statement is that of emotion, rather than a perfect technique. But that is just my opinion. I don't believe that Matthay was creating an unmusical method, but I believe that some ideas were too convoluted. As Ching says later, Matthay couldn't help him, he had to figure out the problems himself. This doesn't mean that there was anything wrong with Matthay's system, but it just illustrates how everyone's experience is different. Matthay was so specific, and yet, it still cannot work for everyone. In my opinion, there is no point trying that hard to explain incredibly subtle aspects that anyone who will ever understand them will have to figure out, for the most part, on their own. I believe that teachers can guide, inspire, and challenge, but when it comes down to it, if you're going to master something, you are going to have to do most of the teaching yourself.
I also was not sure what I could take from his writings, almost feeling it was useless to me. I think that for us to really understand what he wanted, we would probably have needed actual instruction from Matthay. Written words can only go so far when teaching piano, and I think in-person instruction would greatly clarify his ideas.
ReplyDeleteI like your point regarding mastery of something and how we have to do most of the teaching ourselves. I have found that some of my most successful moments have been those in which I experimented with technique and found what worked best for me.