I once had a guitar student who was so young, and so little, that she really couldn’t physically play her instrument. (Even though it was tiny.)
So we worked on ear training.
I’d play major chords and minor chords on a piano and ask her what they sounded like to her. She said the major chords sounded like angels, and the minor chords sounded like haunted houses.
13- On Shibuya Hi-Fi: that is so cool! Saving this for the v v unlikely trip to Seattle one day, but who knows?
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15- My New Year ritual is listening to Beethoven’s Ninth. Happy to find another person who does something similar! Might give Mahler a try next year :)
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16- “ People talk a lot about how they wish they read more books, but I don’t hear them talk about wanting to listen to more music.”
Yes, yes, yes! I love carving out a time to just sit down, do nothing, and enjoy music. I wish that is more common! It seems like nowadays music has been reduced to something that is constantly played in the background without being fully appreciated and that makes me a little sad sometimes.
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17- “Learning to play a piece on the piano changes my relationship with it, but that relationship isn’t really a listening relationship.”
Yes to this too! I found out about this with Bach’s keyboard partitas. Listening to them was a delight, but not transformative. Playing them, and the process of learning how to play them, touches a part of my soul that listening would never do.
I’ve already made peace with the disheartening gulf between myself and professionals, and in the case of Bach, I’m really thankful that I’m able to play at all, because I could take one of the movements to half the tempo, which changes the character entirely, and the pros would never play it in that way so I’m happy that I could play it for myself the way I like it.
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18- Wow, Chopin Scherzo 2! 👏🏼 I have only very recently been able to play Ballade 1 from beginning to the end after putting it on bedrest for two years, and less badly too ☺️
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Always excited to talk to another music lover and a fellow pianist! Thanks for writing this and making me feel seen <3
This is a great post that makes me a little sad, per point 16, that I don't listen to music (full albums in sequence, I mean) in the way I used to a decade ago, when I would burn music onto my MP3 player and just... listen to it. All the time! On the bus, while out walking, even in bed. Of course I can pull up every one of those records on YouTube immediately, but there just isn't the same sense of love there.
Extremely funny coincidence -- I very nearly saw the Adams Anthony and Cleopatra at the Met last month!! Just had a similar whim of "hey, why not see an opera? It's only, like, thirty bucks..." Ultimately I did not go, but I hope you enjoyed it in my stead. Although secretly, I REALLY hope you hated it so I don't feel bad about missing it. ;')
Well I didn't hate it! My verdict was "better than I expected" given the tepid reviews. Some really beautiful and exciting moments. But wow, the source text was not doing him any favors. Shakespeare doesn't sing especially well imo and the cuts made the character motivations a bit confusing. My bf and I joked afterwards that this is John Adams in his "boomer dad" phase — wanting to set things in Ancient Rome.
When I was nine, Rock n Roll appeared, unbidden. I've never been the same since.
It was common, later, to do just what that store in Seattle does. We'd put on an album, sit down and listen to it, end to end. Now, it's "music as a service". Background noise. Something not deserving of full attention.
Thank you for a beautiful post, the ending is especially uplifting!
Perhaps our tendency to gravitate towards music from our formative years is a nostalgia and memory trigger like certain scents or taste – it’s not really about the music but travelling back in time through it.
I can really relate to romantic involvements opening up whole musical universes. Sometimes I think that perhaps my generation – those born in the 1980s – generally dove fiercer into genres and immersed themselves entirely in them. Concerts, bands, being on the road for music, in the very thick of it were a huge thing.
As someone musically illiterate and unable to reliable reproduce a tune in any drunken karaoke, I have found opera to be an almost religious experience that touches the very core of me. Like you wrote, “none of those nights would I rather have been somewhere else.”
The best nights at the opera make all the mediocrity worth it. As another person born in the 80's, I remember the deep involvement in subcultures and passionate attachment to music. I don't really know what kids are like these days — I hope they have something like that.
100% this, I remember my entire teens as a whirlwind of subcultures and identifying very strongly with them.
I don’t know if it’s purely my own personal experience with the one kid I have, but observing him and his peers here in the environs of NYC, it seems to me that they are incomparably more coddled and isolated today. Their attentions and devotions are dispersed across everything, without that sense of awe, discovery or laser focus. Perhaps it’s the difference in how music comes to us – I remember listening to a lot of radio, going out on hunts for hard-to-get pirate CDs (this was outside the Western world), sneaking into clubs and concerts as young as 12-13, finding a lot of friends and groups purely through music that defined my teens.
Extended "taste" posts like this are always interesting. They highlight the fact that everyone's artistic journey is different, even if they differ in subtle ways.
Point 3: I don't think R. Strauss is considered sentimental or embarrassing. He's a firmly canonical composer, and even his most over-the-top pieces (Ein Heldenleben, Eine Alpensinfonie) get plenty of respect.
Point 16: I think the difference is that, in the age of recordings, listening to music has become a more passive activity. You push a button and it plays. Reading is something that requires an effort and concentration from you, the reader. As with an athletic program, people want advice and/or rules for success.
It was a (classical music) friend who told me R Strauss was embarrassing, but I refuse to back down there. I do think his operas are better than the orchestral works.
It's true that reading tends to be more active than listening. I've always been curious about the Score Desk seats at the Met — a totally different experience to follow along with a score.
Great list! Given that you're an opera lover and an accomplished enough pianist to play that Chopin scherzo, I'm curious if you've spent any time playing through opera vocal scores? It's a lot of fun, I bet you'd enjoy it!
I used to get them out from the university music library when I had access to it! And I've accompanied myself singing. Sometimes they're a bit tricky since the music wasn't written with pianists in mind, but it's great for finding out small details I hadn't noticed in recordings.
I once had a guitar student who was so young, and so little, that she really couldn’t physically play her instrument. (Even though it was tiny.)
So we worked on ear training.
I’d play major chords and minor chords on a piano and ask her what they sounded like to her. She said the major chords sounded like angels, and the minor chords sounded like haunted houses.
I’ve used that in my teaching ever since.
I like this! More vivid than "happy" and "sad."
Love this! Here’s some replies to the notes :D
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13- On Shibuya Hi-Fi: that is so cool! Saving this for the v v unlikely trip to Seattle one day, but who knows?
*
15- My New Year ritual is listening to Beethoven’s Ninth. Happy to find another person who does something similar! Might give Mahler a try next year :)
*
16- “ People talk a lot about how they wish they read more books, but I don’t hear them talk about wanting to listen to more music.”
Yes, yes, yes! I love carving out a time to just sit down, do nothing, and enjoy music. I wish that is more common! It seems like nowadays music has been reduced to something that is constantly played in the background without being fully appreciated and that makes me a little sad sometimes.
*
17- “Learning to play a piece on the piano changes my relationship with it, but that relationship isn’t really a listening relationship.”
Yes to this too! I found out about this with Bach’s keyboard partitas. Listening to them was a delight, but not transformative. Playing them, and the process of learning how to play them, touches a part of my soul that listening would never do.
I’ve already made peace with the disheartening gulf between myself and professionals, and in the case of Bach, I’m really thankful that I’m able to play at all, because I could take one of the movements to half the tempo, which changes the character entirely, and the pros would never play it in that way so I’m happy that I could play it for myself the way I like it.
*
18- Wow, Chopin Scherzo 2! 👏🏼 I have only very recently been able to play Ballade 1 from beginning to the end after putting it on bedrest for two years, and less badly too ☺️
*
Always excited to talk to another music lover and a fellow pianist! Thanks for writing this and making me feel seen <3
Glenn Gould was famous for unconventional tempo, so perhaps you are in the clear there?
Thank you so much for the kind words! I do recommend Shibuya Hifi if they happen to be playing something you like.
When the beloved made a re-appearance in the last note, I wasn't surprised but I was delighted.
This is a great post that makes me a little sad, per point 16, that I don't listen to music (full albums in sequence, I mean) in the way I used to a decade ago, when I would burn music onto my MP3 player and just... listen to it. All the time! On the bus, while out walking, even in bed. Of course I can pull up every one of those records on YouTube immediately, but there just isn't the same sense of love there.
Extremely funny coincidence -- I very nearly saw the Adams Anthony and Cleopatra at the Met last month!! Just had a similar whim of "hey, why not see an opera? It's only, like, thirty bucks..." Ultimately I did not go, but I hope you enjoyed it in my stead. Although secretly, I REALLY hope you hated it so I don't feel bad about missing it. ;')
Well I didn't hate it! My verdict was "better than I expected" given the tepid reviews. Some really beautiful and exciting moments. But wow, the source text was not doing him any favors. Shakespeare doesn't sing especially well imo and the cuts made the character motivations a bit confusing. My bf and I joked afterwards that this is John Adams in his "boomer dad" phase — wanting to set things in Ancient Rome.
When I was nine, Rock n Roll appeared, unbidden. I've never been the same since.
It was common, later, to do just what that store in Seattle does. We'd put on an album, sit down and listen to it, end to end. Now, it's "music as a service". Background noise. Something not deserving of full attention.
How effing sad, both for listeners and for music.
It's a tough thing to fight against, especially with AI music popping up on Spotify. Taking time to listen is worth it.
Thank you for a beautiful post, the ending is especially uplifting!
Perhaps our tendency to gravitate towards music from our formative years is a nostalgia and memory trigger like certain scents or taste – it’s not really about the music but travelling back in time through it.
I can really relate to romantic involvements opening up whole musical universes. Sometimes I think that perhaps my generation – those born in the 1980s – generally dove fiercer into genres and immersed themselves entirely in them. Concerts, bands, being on the road for music, in the very thick of it were a huge thing.
As someone musically illiterate and unable to reliable reproduce a tune in any drunken karaoke, I have found opera to be an almost religious experience that touches the very core of me. Like you wrote, “none of those nights would I rather have been somewhere else.”
The best nights at the opera make all the mediocrity worth it. As another person born in the 80's, I remember the deep involvement in subcultures and passionate attachment to music. I don't really know what kids are like these days — I hope they have something like that.
100% this, I remember my entire teens as a whirlwind of subcultures and identifying very strongly with them.
I don’t know if it’s purely my own personal experience with the one kid I have, but observing him and his peers here in the environs of NYC, it seems to me that they are incomparably more coddled and isolated today. Their attentions and devotions are dispersed across everything, without that sense of awe, discovery or laser focus. Perhaps it’s the difference in how music comes to us – I remember listening to a lot of radio, going out on hunts for hard-to-get pirate CDs (this was outside the Western world), sneaking into clubs and concerts as young as 12-13, finding a lot of friends and groups purely through music that defined my teens.
Pretty much everything is immediately available now, perhaps less of it seems special.
Extended "taste" posts like this are always interesting. They highlight the fact that everyone's artistic journey is different, even if they differ in subtle ways.
Point 3: I don't think R. Strauss is considered sentimental or embarrassing. He's a firmly canonical composer, and even his most over-the-top pieces (Ein Heldenleben, Eine Alpensinfonie) get plenty of respect.
Point 16: I think the difference is that, in the age of recordings, listening to music has become a more passive activity. You push a button and it plays. Reading is something that requires an effort and concentration from you, the reader. As with an athletic program, people want advice and/or rules for success.
It was a (classical music) friend who told me R Strauss was embarrassing, but I refuse to back down there. I do think his operas are better than the orchestral works.
It's true that reading tends to be more active than listening. I've always been curious about the Score Desk seats at the Met — a totally different experience to follow along with a score.
A lot of pop music is like bubble wrap: The 'pop' is always the same, satisfying for a nanosecond, but not worth repeating.
I dunno, some of it is pretty great
I dunno, I Don't Mind by Buzzcocks still thrills me as much as it did when I first heard it 45 years ago.
Great list! Given that you're an opera lover and an accomplished enough pianist to play that Chopin scherzo, I'm curious if you've spent any time playing through opera vocal scores? It's a lot of fun, I bet you'd enjoy it!
I used to get them out from the university music library when I had access to it! And I've accompanied myself singing. Sometimes they're a bit tricky since the music wasn't written with pianists in mind, but it's great for finding out small details I hadn't noticed in recordings.