Monthly Archives: March 2017

When reading isn’t enough – developing inner hearing

Posted on March 20, 2017 by | Leave a comment

You would imagine that having a piano pupil who can sight-read well makes teaching them a real joy. Well, yes it does in some ways, but in others it can be quite challenging. Here is Plato on the subject:

If men learn to write, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.

As our pupils progress, it’s a fact that some of the learning methods which they have used very successfully in the past can cease to be as effective as they once were. However good their reading is, there comes a point when it’s not enough, and we need to bring other things into play as well.

I posted an article recently on teaching a Bach Two-part Invention. Despite my pupil being quick to see how the music is put together, the reality is that playing a piece like this hands together presents some very real problems. Looking at the music vertically, there is a lot of information to take in, and I mean a lot. Too much even. The solution? Don’t read.

fmriSince the advent of FMRI scanning scientists have been able to observe brain activity in considerable detail. Interestingly, if you monitor the areas of the brain which are in use when a musician plays his instrument, the scans look almost identical to those done when the same musician imagines playing their instrument. Wow! I believe that this little bit of information adds weight to how I would approach putting the A minor Invention hands together.

In short, play the right hand and sing the left hand! Singing badly is fine – just the rhythm and the general melodic shape. It’s an engaging task for the pupil, and although it is easier than diving in hands together, it is by no means straightforward. But once they can perform a few bars or so in this way [and the other way up too] the benefits are clear: the left hand part is being run from a different system – not just reading, but something internal (or to go back to Plato, something “from within themselves.” And now, when we play the left hand, it is not just reading which is going on – it’s running directly from something internal as well, reducing the cognitive strain which would be present from reading two lines simultaneously.

The ideal is that eventually everything is internalised, and that reference to the dots on the page becomes less and less necessary. So why is that so many of our pupils still have the notes on the stand weeks or even months into learning a piece of music? Teaching in this way develops so many aspects of musicianship – co-ordination, aural skills, memory, inner hearing, the lot – and it’s so important that we are doing all that we can to empower our pupils to think for themselves. And, ironically, it also improves their sight-reading!

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Invention

Posted on March 20, 2017 by | 1 comment

Earlier this term I began teaching Bach’s Invention in a minor, BWV 784 to one of my piano pupils. This is the beginning of her second term of lessons with me, and although she is a bright and diligent pupil, her tendency when learning a new piece is still simply to begin at the beginning and do her best to play the notes. The analogy which I often use is that of an intrepid explorer hacking her way through the dense jungle armed only with a machete – she’ll get there in the end – wherever there is – but it’s not going to be pretty! And when she does arrive at her destination, she’ll probably have little or no recollection of any detail of the journey along the way.

We can do better than that. Bach wrote these pieces to teach his pupils not only how to play, but also how music is put together. Why should we not do the same?

First of all, what key is it in? Pupil, being on the ball, answers A minor.
How does she know? There is no key signature, and there are G#s – which are the raised 7th. Good knowledge. [And how do I know it’s in A minor? From the title at the top of the page – “Invention in A minor”!]
And what is the other chord which Bach is most likely going to use? The dominant.
Excellent answer, and what is the dominant in this key? E. Finish your sentence….  E major. Good, the dominant in a minor key is major, because of the raised 7th.

Now, can you play me an arpeggio of A minor, just an octave up and down? Here’s the pulse. Of course she can. And now four whole beats worth, in quavers, but now you can change direction whenever you like. [Quick demonstration, with the pulse still going]. Again, it’s a straightforward task for her. And now the same, but this time let’s include some passing notes so that we have a mix of steps and thirds. No problem.

We quickly do the same in the dominant, and before long we are changing fluently between tonic and dominant every four beats, complete with a single bass note per bar in the left hand.

784

Now, and only now, do we look at the music in detail for the first time. Machete-style, she would have hacked away, one unrelated note at a time – such an unrewarding and largely meaningless task. But now she can see the arpeggio shapes instantly, and realises that the notes which aren’t in the arpeggio must be passing notes. So they make sense too. We notice that the E major arpeggios are actually dominant sevenths.

Going onto the second line (still playing RH only) she is quick to notice that everything is made of arpeggio shapes. How often does the chord change? Twice every bar. And then she notices that there is a sequence; her ears are also helping to guide her along what is looking more and more like a clear path, even though she has never been down it before. Observe, the circle of fifths in action rather than just presented as cold, dry theory – at last, we have found a use for it!

Now she plays through the left hand, and quickly notices that it is copying the right hand – imitation. And half way through bar 6, having noticed the same melodic shape but now starting on a different note, she observes that we have modulated – to C major. How’s that related? It’s the relative major.

This has probably taken about 10 to 15 minutes, but she now has a really good idea of the lie of the land of the whole piece. Initially it looked like a jungle, with huge areas of impenetrable semiquavers, but now that she can see the harmonic outline (and knows what to listen for) the way forward is just so much clearer. It is so much easier to learn when we understand how the music is put together.

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