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I am free - you are not ! You are brainwashed – I am not ! You are still under musical ‘Soviet’ occupation !

I want to discuss the problem that undermines and ruins our business like nothing else does on Earth. At the same time, this problem is still “invisible” for many pianists.

Question : Can a pianist be scared of his/her own ability to play beautifully and suffer because of it ? To help you answer, I would like to remind you that beautiful music is extremely powerful. It can change the minds and hearts of any human being and even of entire nations. A lot of people were executed in my country Russia and elsewhere for performing the “wrong music” or for performing the right music in the wrong way.

(In spite of deadly jeopardy many Russians enjoyed taking this risk. When serving my term in the Soviet Army, I met a private who amazed his comrades with performances of the first bars of “The International” (Communist sacred anthem). He was extremely lucky that nobody reported his vocal exercises to the Secret Police, because he “sang” them from “a very wrong” part of his body.

Renowned composer Rodion Schedrin wrote the Symphonic Poem “Naughty Tunes”. It was based entirely on the tunes of songs for which the singer was always “awarded” the standard penalty of “10 years in jail”. Schedrin was quite likely to have received those “10 years” if the political climate in USSR had worsened.)

Under the influence of beautiful music, people become better : they do not want to be mean, to participate in injustices, to rob, to kill, to lie, etc. Consider this: what person in power would want this to happen to people under his authority? Who would carry out his plans and orders ? This is the root of the problem. This is why the best performers and composers are kept or driven away from conservatories and universities, why all the favourites of audiences are always “eliminated” in the very first round of any competition, why they are banned directly or indirectly from the opportunity to transmit their thoughts and feelings to others through their beautiful music. I am not talking about myself. I am not the best and my situation is not the worst, but I know plenty of others who are much better musicians than I and who have not had even my opportunities.

Story No 1. After my performance at the All-Russia Competition, an old gentleman (composer Foret) whom I had never met, embraced me, saying “I voted for you because you played like our pianists did in the days of my youth, before communists seized power in 1917. Be careful : they always destroy people like you !”
His words frightened me : : SOME members of my family who had committed no crimes were executed simply in accordance with the Communist Party drive to wipe out the “old intelligentsia”. The word “intelligentsia” comes from the original Russian word borrowed by many languages with unfortunately the modified definition : “smart, well-educated, etc.”. Originally, it meant only “ the part of the population that thinks independently”. It signifies that any independently thinking street cleaner or taxi driver is “intelligent” but not necessarily every scientist or professor. No totalitarian regime tolerates this “part of the population”; they always root out any “intelligentsia”. Indeed, hardly any type of political regime in the world likes them.

My head was full of alarming thoughts : Did this fellow say the same things about me during the Board of Adjudicators’ discussion ? Probably yes, because another member of the Board Prof. K.Adjemov formerly friendly towards me, refused to speak to me afterwards and was furiously against me during the discussion, I was told. I remembered that a very old relation of a friend told me that my piano playing reminded him of young Rachmaninov (a personal friend of his) although “Rachmaninov did not play like this in the latter period of his life on his recordings”.

I knew well that Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Horowitz, Hoffman, Metner, Stravinsky and plenty of other pianists escaped from Russia after 1917 : “these dregs had sold their motherland for a dirty sheaf of dollars”. But how could my playing resemble that of those traitors ? I had received excellent marks for my solid knowledge of textbooks like Yury Kremlev’s “Piano Technique”. I always remembered that “piano playing is a clear political issue”, that “piano technique is a powerful weapon of Soviet propaganda and we must use it in full strength against our ideological enemies”. I felt no joy from that victory ( I won a “pass” to represent Russia in the All-USSR competition) . I realized instead that something was very wrong within me and that I had to do something about it urgently.

Story No 2. Many years later, when I arrived at a very luxurious sanatorium ahead of a concert I was to give with two singers, a very strange looking man was on the stage where we were supposed be preparing. Obviously unauthorized to be there, he was playing on a huge concert Steinway in just a hospital gown with no trousers. I had to ask him to leave the stage and hall and be outside until we will start our concert. So, I headed towards him.

However, after two steps in his direction, I stopped and was absolutely transfixed to hear his rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Meditation, a piece that I had never much appreciated previously. The two singers had the same reaction. Instead of preparing our own concert, we listened for over an hour to stunning music from this trouser-less pianist. It was very difficult for us to perform on the same stage immediately after this improvised recital of one the of the greatest contemporary pianists : Oleg Boshnyakovich.

Later Boshnyakovich invited us to his own concert which we heard on the same stage and piano… it was a very banal and even a bit boring concert with the same program. “Why did you not play the same way for them that you did for us ?” I asked Boshnyakovich. “Who would ever allow me to play in this fashion ?” was his reply. I knew the bitter reason of these words. For almost half his life, this great pianist was forbidden to play the piano by other “pianists in power” because of his “complete incompatibility with the Soviet style of piano playing.” Instead he performed whistling on stage for many years to make a living.

Story No 3. In St. Petersburg I heard Svyatosolav Richter ask my teacher Vladimir Nielsen about the fingering for Chopin’ study No6 Op25. Later they argued about “Bydlo” from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky and discussed Richter’s last recorded version of Rachmininov’s 2nd Concerto. Nielsen told him “Many years ago you played this concerto one hundred times better than Rachmaninov himself, because you were inspired by this music which Rachmaninov was not at the time of his recording. Rachmaninov was obviously rather tired of playing this great work over and over”. Nielsen however did not like Richter’s last recorded version.

I felt myself confident enough to visit Richter at his home where I asked him : why is my teacher still banned from concerts in Moscow despite the end of political repressions ? Nielsen was always on the black list of Soviet censors; even his most famous students were not allowed to mention his name in their professional résumés. Because of someone’s report to the secret police, he was forbidden to play at the Chopin Competition in spite of his “pass No 1” at the All-Union selection, and so on.

Richter told me that he was unaware of this situation. He thought that Nielsen simply did not want to play in Moscow. “I will say something to the right people” he promised.

A few weeks later, Nielsen received an “unexpected” invitation and was able to play a concert at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow which was previously a drama theatre with poor acoustics for the piano. The best pianists in Moscow never play there. When I read the article about his concert in “Sovetskaya Musyka” (Soviet Music) written by the Docent of Moscow conservatory Leonid Zhivov, I learned the answer to my question “Why ?”. Zhivov wrote in this article “All pianists in Moscow should learn from Nielsen because his music is “alive”, not “dead”…

However, when I pointed to Nielsen that many of his phrases had “non-standard”, reversed accentuation and asked: “Don’t they make your music alive?”, he only ordered: “Shut up and never said this again anywhere!”
I can tell plenty of stories on this topic, but is it not strange that this very specific aspect of piano technique can cause so much passion and emotion ?

The reply depends on the answer to another question : what is the goal of Art in general ? If we say “Our goal is to reflect the whole world with all its beauty, love, passion, drama, and hope, etc. in our music”, then all possible ways are good except the boring ones.

However, of all the means at our disposal, only one is acceptable : the one which is “approved by the authorities” whose only goal is to make perfect idiots out of normal people. The authorities want obedient robots “ready to carry out any order of ANY government”, who are preoccupied solely with their jobs, watching TV and drinking alcohol and who will die or kill “no questions asked”. From the authorities’ point of view, music is used as a form of brainwashing. To convert people into robots they must be saturated with special “robotic music”. The essential ingredient of robotic art is that “there is no choice”, “there is no another way” (to quote from a real song that Soviet people had to repeat and listen to over and over again) other than the right one provided by the authorities. The pattern “LOUD soft LOUD soft LOUD soft” is absolutely indispensable for this task. This pattern works like a narcotic : look at people sitting in their cars and shaking their heads in time to the beat from their stereo speakers, at mass shows, military parades, etc.

Is the pattern “soft LOUD soft LOUD soft LOUD” any better ? It is not better at all. Everything on Earth is bipolar. There is North and South, left and right, heaven and hell, good and evil, etc. We have two eyes, two ears and nostrils, arms and so on. Imagine that artists were forbidden to draw “anything left” on their pictures: no left legs, no left ears, hands and no clothes with the buttons on the left side; no left-hand traffic portrayed in pictures of countries with motorcars, only right, right and right again.

This is exactly the situation in music. Nowadays, there are more than two generations of pianists who do not suspect nor even imagine that the music Left (one TWO three FOUR) and Right (ONE two THREE four) are equally legal and both absolutely necessary for any normal performance despite official theory in the matter. Listen carefully to any great pianist : no one plays only that “march-like” style; both patterns always support each other. This is what makes their music come alive. But WHAT do we have to teach our students instead ? Only what is written in our textbooks and dictionaries full of false rules and statements. We are only making idiots of our audiences, our students and ourselves when we blindly follow them !

Amazingly enough, some Western musical educators are much more “Soviet” than in Russia. The Russian word “soviet” for many centuries meant “advice” or “council” but since 1917 ”Soviet” has come to be understood as “Totalitarian.” However, no single “Soviet hard liner” hit upon the idea of forcing all musicians in the country to play wrong notes in Mozart or Handel just because some his illiterate editor was unable to print music properly; or of preventing pianists from using pedal; or of appointing one single institution in USSR to take exams from all the students in the country; or of making a list of which Beethoven Sonatas and Bach Fugues are “allowed” and which are “not” at exam performances. In this respect, Western educators have undoubtedly eclipsed the most totalitarian dreams of all Soviet musical evil - doers. They seem to sincerely believe all the written dogma of the so-called “Soviet piano school”, whereas the best Russian performers and teachers always laughed at it (when not in the exam rooms of course) and were great and brilliant not because but in spite of this dictatorship. To paraphrase a Russian saying : “He who knows and can – plays, He who knows but cannot –teaches, He who does not know and cannot – writes instructions for those who teach and play”.

The billions that Communists invested in musical education were not just charity from a bloody dictatorship. It was a battle for minds. If THEY won, we lost. Musical education in the West could not compete with the excellence of Soviet pianists and instead of selectively borrowing the best parts of the Soviet system; it has simply surrendered with discretion and copied only the worst part of this system: stupid dictatorship ( but without Russian inherited resistance to any dictates). Look around and you will realize that you are still living under musical “Soviet” occupation; many Western pianists are still “musical slaves” of a system that died many years ago whether or not they understand the meaning of the word “Soviet”.

In music, many of us are not as free as we would like to believe because we lack courage. We seem to adulate pianists who play faster because fast tempo appears to be the most important thing in music (confer e.g. “examination requirements”). This is nonsensical. In any language (music is only one of them) fast tempo is the LEAST important thing. Are the words “I love you”, “I hate you”, “I am your friend”, “I want to console you” or other words more effective because they are spoken “Presto” rather than “Allegro” or “Andante” ? Do you know any actor on the planet who is admired just because he/she speaks fast ? I doubt it. Fast speech is more of a handicap than an advantage for any actor, politician, priest, etc.

There is no reason to be scared of “robots” – they get high marks only from other “robots”, from their “maintenance people”. Audiences do not like them or their recordings. Robots are rather ridiculous because they can not play even two notes on their own without someone else’s CD downloaded in their head, and they are absolutely unable to play any piece slowly (because CD can not play slowly, of course). Ask any “robot” to play their piece in only ¼ of normal tempo, and robot immediately will “declare bankruptcy”: slow tempo is incompatible with an empty head. As soon as fair and honest competitions are opened to pianists of all styles, all robots will die off quickly.

Would you be unhappy if you were selling normal good pictures while someone else sold “one-eyed”, “one-handed”, “one-eared” pictures ? Of course not. This type of competition would be very useful for your business: people would compare and appreciate your art even more.

However, suppose you were the salesman of this “one-sided” art ? What would you feel about your competitor selling normal art ? What would you want to do to him and his wares ? This is the reason why so many pianists enjoy being sheep-dogs of our worldwide, global “musical concentration camp” packed with “one-sided prisoners”. They are always ready to attack anyone who dares to step off the path determined by our warders. (The standard phrase of escort to prisoners in Soviet Russia was “Should you make a single step to the right or to the left, it will be considered attempted escape and you will be fired upon immediately without warning.” One of our artists was shot in the arm because he raised his hand to touch a blossom on a tree above his head while he was being led in a line of prisoners.) Read a few posts at random in any forum and you will spot these pianists easily.

This situation explains why the “most overrated pianist ever” is detested so much by all “one-sided musicians” which is why he is the best loved pianist in Russia. All Russians have had more than enough of slavery and they appreciate freedom. Van Clyburn, a student of Russian refugees and who obviously played in a pre-1917 fashion, was and still is a symbol of Freedom in music for my country despite anything he lacked in technique.

Listen to any musical phrase of his and you can always hear the living variety of accentuations, just as in normal human speech of any language. No one “uniform accentuation” can compete with this way of “speaking and singing on the piano”. Bankruptcy is guaranteed. Many “kings of all the pianists of the universe” played in Russia after Clyburn and had empty seats in the hall at the end of their concerts, because they were only slightly different models of “robots” in a country “overstocked” with them.

Is there any way to end this “one-sided slavery” and become a normal “two-sided” pianist ? Yes, of course. Anyone can in just a few days. All you need to do is to play for a short period of time each piece of your repertoire in “reversed”, “left” instead of “right” accentuation. It is terribly difficult the first day and especially the first hour, but you will quickly come to appreciate the change. The next step is to play once with “left” then with “right” accentuation, then continue alternating. In this way, you will get a chance to choose the best accentuation for each phrase and store it in your memory. If you manage to play any piece “both ways” easily, then you are FREE for ever. In any of your phrases you will always play the accentuation that you prefer rather than because it is the only one you know
.
A big advantage of this approach is that your performances will always be fresh. You will be amazed to hear that you play differently each time. Your combinations of Right and Left accentuations never will be repeated because they depend on the state of your mind and soul at the time of performance. Each time it will be a kind of improvisation, and you never will be bored with any of your music.

Don’t be scared with this fact; remember words of the greatest pianists: “You have no right to play any piece on a rainy day the same way as you played it on a sunny day”. This approach will boost your creativity and you will be interested and inspired even when playing your old repertoire. Any audience will immediately feel and appreciate your style: everyone likes freshly cooked meals; no one likes “canned” or stale ones, especially in music.

To support this post, I have recorded a few randomly chosen pairs of absolutely different pieces with “Right” and “Left” accentuations. If somebody would be interested – I will send them for listening. To avoid being influenced by any previous experience, I have chosen the music to record from my students’ repertoire which I rather sight-read. I have never worked on any of it before as seriously as I would normally for myself. Some of my students play better than I because no one is a slave in my class. They are always FREE to choose ANY accentuation they prefer. As for me, I am not completely free yet, because my “slavery” lasted too long. However, I remember the words of Chekhov that the most important thing for any human being is : “to squeeze out the slave from ourselves drop by drop each day”.

Can ANYONE ELSE do the same and post recordings of the same pieces or others with BOTH types of accentuation: Left and Right? Who will take up my gauntlet? Prove for yourself now, that the title of this post is NOT about you!

I hope you succeed better than I. I wish this sincerely because I do NOT want to feel alone amongst “one-sided” robots. I am sure a lot of “musical humans” are alive out there somewhere. Make yourselves known, please !

In anticipation,

Vladimir Dounin

PS Try to do the same with any of your songs that I did on my "one - sided recordings": simply replace ALL your accents with their "mirrored reflections". (Do you know how great is look of the house with mirrors and how poor it is without any of them on the wall). Not for ever, just for a few times, for a change. It will give you the greatest opportunity of choice. Instead of unreasonable, suggested by our evil-wishers denial you will be always able to take fully INFORMED DECISIONS about the appropriate Left or Right accentuations in each of your phrases in the future.

Play in any group of notes (four eights or sixteenth, bar, phrase etc) the very first SLIGHTLY (read my FUR ELISE) softened and the last one SLIGHTLY stressed. That's all. It is so simple! And you will be amazed: how fresh and new for you will be any of your old pieces.

To encourage you and all the others to try this way, I pasted here below a real quote from the recent letter of my "distant student" from Australia (I never met her in real yet).

Standard HeaderHide Pane
Eleanor Sheldxxx <xxxxbird_22@hotmail.com>
View Saturday, September 16, 2006 8:24:45 PM

Thank you so much for sending me those. I've just been playing with these numbers - and it has an effect like magic on the overall sound when that stressing is applied. It's beautiful.
Eleanor

Be positive and logical: why not to look at the reflection? Why your reflection must look necessary worse than yourself? Even more, many of expensive, specially mastered mirrors make your look better than "original you".
(These mirrors make you more high and slim; enhance the colour of your skin etc. It gives you (that is especially important for each lady) confidence that eventually is stronger and works well, better than any beauty.

Good Luck!

Your comments are interesting, but I'm not particularly convinced by the effect of a Soviet Regime. It's universal in college systems of teaching, not specific to Russia. Teachers cannot teach individual ideas or much that is not explicitly stated in the score, without fear of looking bad in the education system. I believe many fine musicians are scared to teach what they are capable of and just say what is standard. They fear to experiment and fail. As time goes on, the next generation of teachers will not even be aware of such things because will never have known them to start. They will not even have the capability of teaching true musical ideas.

Personally when I teach I'm not afraid to experiment. I often suggest things that I haven't entirely thought through, in an attempt to see what comes out. It doesn't always work, but it's led to some marvellous discoveries at times. I don't have the pressure of a big music college job, sure, but I think that teaching must involve risks if it is to have a chance of really showing the things that go into making a sound.

'Is there any way to end this “one-sided slavery” and become a normal “two-sided” pianist ? Yes, of course. Anyone can in just a few days. All you need to do is to play for a short period of time each piece of your repertoire in “reversed”, “left” instead of “right” accentuation. It is terribly difficult the first day and especially the first hour, but you will quickly come to appreciate the change. The next step is to play once with “left” then with “right” accentuation, then continue alternating. In this way, you will get a chance to choose the best accentuation for each phrase and store it in your memory. If you manage to play any piece “both ways” easily, then you are FREE for ever. In any of your phrases you will always play the accentuation that you prefer rather than because it is the only one you know'

I cannot agree with this in the slightest, sorry. Musical accentuation must come from a 'feel' for a phrase, not from 'forcing' accents, whether on the beat or the off-beat. Most minds are too absorbed in regular strong beats, indeed, but this is no better. Maybe it could help somebody deeply stuck, but it wouldn't reveal a thing about how to actually think through the musical execution of a long phrase. There is no pattern in a phrase except what they phrase itself suggests.

The problem is that people have no idea about WHY a note should be emphasised or why a note should be deliberately UNaccented. Increasingly little teaching deals with the smallest units of sound and how they build together to form a whole. The masterclasses of John Bell Young on youtube provide a very interesting look into the concept of 'Intonatsia'. I highly recomment viewing these.

Intonatsia is in many ways rather formulaic, but not in terms of standard strong beats at all. It relates to units within a phrase, to highest notes within a long-line and also within these smaller units etc. It relates to the significance of each individual interval. These may initially be seen without regard for rhythmic accentuation, at all, only to what is implied within this unit by it's own shape and contours. I believe this approach is what is needed to turn things around again. Combined with listening to the great players it shows that the expression of Horowitz or of Cortot is note mere 'whim'. It relates heavily to musical construction and can be analysed as such. I learned much from such players subconciously, but in recent times I'm beginning to understand them far better and spot concrete reasons for much of how they played and driving principles behind them. They may be 'free' but how are they so easily identifiable unless there is some system behind it? The answer must clearly be that there is indeed some kind of organisation involved in what is heard as 'freedom'.

I really fail to see how experimenting with different regularity of accent is musically beneficial in the long run. I find displacing accents useful for technical practise at times, but the only way to take people out of the regularity of the strong first beat is by analysing the make-up of a phrase- thinking about the main peak, thinking about subdivisions within that phrase in which every smaller unit completes and doesn't break off in the middle of nowhere (with the intention of making sure the smaller units must NOT be broken before putting them together to form an even stronger whole), lines which are hidden away among more notes but which can be demonstrated- to unify the apparent complexity of a phrase that may well be a simple idea decorated with extra notes and show the main idea to listener rather than hit them with every single detail.

To go through pieces playing the 2nd and 4th strong is another restriction, in the long run. It's every bit as systematic and irrelevant to the way the construction of a phrase suggests it should be executed. It won't provide fresh ideas, only an alternate form of robotic enslavement. In fact, many pieces have no call for ANY regularity. Some demand concious failure to accent anything for bars and bars at a time. NON-ACCENTING as the norm is the beginning of truly musical thinking.


' Some of my students play better than I because no one is a slave in my class. They are always FREE to choose ANY accentuation they prefer. '

But there must be some 'rules' surely? Some notes just cannot be accented to musical effect. The construction of a phrase usually suggests various possiblilities, but it rarely allows ANY accentuation you choose. There are many 'rights', but there are always more 'wrongs'.

I frequently like to employ the 'interruption' accent (a favourite of Nyiregyhazi), but this can't be done without first understanding that conventionally it should have been an 'unaccent'. After a long note, the remaining sound should traditionally be matched in the next sound. If it is louder it comes out as a 'bump' that destroys legato phrases (more than non-legato touch even, in most pedalled music).

However, I often decide to go the other way and make a 'point' of this note by surprise. After this the sound MUST recede from this point of interest though. This is quite essential, or there is no 'event', merely lumps. This is worlds apart from unthinkingly accenting a note. An unexpected (but very DELIBERATE) point of interest followed by a smooth lead-out can be very musical. Playing a 'lump' with no context is nothing. Unless you know the standard, you cannot execute the exception convincingly.

The concept of listening to notes as they die is probably one of the most important issues that governs the 'unaccent' in piano playing. It is a foundation. Nobody can afford to break this 'rule' without mastering it first. It totally contravenes the standard 'strong' 1st beat on countless occassions.


Have you ever heard the playing of Ervin Nyiregyhazi? Nobody has ever been less bound by 'standard' rules. The results are variable but often remarkable. Also, I highly recommened searching out those John Bell Young masterclasses on youtube. The e minor prelude of Chopin (taught according to the 'sigh', with strong 4th beats and weak 1st beats, thank god) is superbly explained from an intellectual point of view, but with an emotional sound and character as the goal. That's one piece where the unaccented first note derives from the make-up. The small unit is clearly not from beat one to beat 4. This unit has not completed. You cannot possibly stop there. It clearly goes from 4-1 ACROSS (as is most frequent) rather than WITHIN the bars. Knowing this basic unit and subdividing this way clearly suggests the vocal 'sigh' and actually unifies a stronger whole, rather than weaking it.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thank you very much for your very deep-inside and interesting answer.
Tell me please, what would you recommend for the person, who overdeveloped his Right arm and leg, while the opposite arm and leg have practically no muscles and are just hanging from the body without any use?

This is my reason to suggest the special exercises for opposite side of the body (in our case - pianistic mind). I never suggested to use only "LEFT" instead of "RIGHT". This would bring only the same result from the opposite side.

It is a pity that there is no opportunity to put my recordings on this site. "All the talking around music are not better than one only (but not eaten) well described dinner" (My translation of Liszt's words).

All the best,

Vladimir

vladimirdounin wrote:
It is a pity that there is no opportunity to put my recordings on this site. "All the talking around music are not better than one only (but not eaten) well described dinner" (My translation of Liszt's words).

All the best,

Vladimir

You can upload your music for free here 1Gig
http://www.esnips.com

and put a kink to it

Barrie,

'Thank you very much for your very deep-inside and interesting answer.
Tell me please, what would you recommend for the person, who overdeveloped his Right and Left arm and leg, while the opposite arm and leg have practically no muscles and are just hanging from the body without any use?

This is my reason to suggest the special exercises for opposite side of the body (in our case - pianistic mind). I never suggested to use only "LEFT" instead of "RIGHT". This would bring only the same result from the opposite side.'

I think I see what you mean in a way, but I'm still very sceptical. For somebody who is so used to strong first beats that weak strong is unnatural, this may start them on being able to break the pattern. However, I don't quite see the comparison with muscles. I don't think natural musical accentuation works on 'strength' of one or the other. On your analogy, the best way to acheive flowing musical phrasing is surely not to STRENGTHEN the left but to WEAKEN the right. Those players who make a long flowing lines do so on the basis of unaccented notes as standard, with accents always serving a musical purpose rather than emerging from habit, regardless of the phrase. Habitual accents (without thought) are usually a negative thing, regardless of what beat they arrive on. A vocal line is not a series of strong or weak points. It's a smooth line that usually leads to one particular peak. A feel for connection between notes, that is developed by careful listening, is the key more than the simplification to strong or weak.

Doing this exercise with a piece of music that does not naturally suggest weak-strong is surely totally counter-productive? Anything that contravenes the natural shape of a phrase is doing harm to the mind and thought process that needs to evolve for a player to truly understand where accentuations should occur or not. Once or twice might help break a pattern but repetition of a piece on this pattern will simply lead to the point where the player is unthinkingly accenting the off-beats, regardless of context. This is no better than accenting first beats.

The only way (in the long-term) to lead to a logical sense of accentuation and emphasis is strip away periodic emphasis (a good sense of rhythm clearly must be present before you can do this) and then look to the phrase to see where it suggests accentuation and add it. Anything that is systematic (whether strong-weak or weak-strong) will frequently go against the natural flow of music (unless the composition is so dull that it really does work that way). It cannot lead to musical results. It is merely an initial exercise in preparation for moments where the MUSIC demands a stronger off-beat.

Indeed, it may feel strange to somebody not used to accenting fourth beats. This may require preparation before it can happen comfortably as required. Surely the way to build up this capacity is by practising pieces that NATURALLY go against standard first beats (such as Chopin's E minor prelude with it's stronger 4th beats and weaker firsts beats- this is a fine exercise in sound) or by practising specially written exercises in which it is natural to emphasise 2 and 4? Accenting off-beats in a piece that does not musically support it simply dulls the brain to natural musical shapes- as much as simply accenting first beats systematically.

Andrew

Habitual accents (without thought) are usually a negative thing, regardless of what beat they arrive on. A vocal line is not a series of strong or weak points. It's a smooth line that usually leads to one particular peak. A feel for connection between notes, that is developed by careful listening, is the key more than the simplification to strong or weak.

Doing this exercise with a piece of music that does not naturally suggest weak-strong is surely totally counter-productive? Anything that contravenes the natural shape of a phrase is doing harm to the mind and thought process that needs to evolve for a player to truly understand where accentuations should occur or not. Once or twice might help break a pattern but repetition of a piece on this pattern will simply lead to the point where the player is unthinkingly accenting the off-beats, regardless of context. This is no better than accenting first beats.


Dear Andrew,

Don't you think that the words "NATURAL" and "THAT WE USED TO CONSIDER NATURAL" are not completely identical, and we have no reasons to substitute them in our conversation without some trustworthy proof.

Thanks to Mr. Barrie Heaton (Web Master of this Forum), I uploaded a few of my Songs-Improvisations with exactly the (mentioned by you negatively) LEFT accentuation. I love to play like this for a change: it is my way to root out slavery from my musical mind and it works effectively in spite of your scepticism.

http://www.esnips.com/web/vladimirdouninsBusinessFiles
then: vladimirdounin's music (piano)

Would you, please listen to "My Way" (F.Sinatra used to sing it), "Love Story", "Cherbourg's Umbrellas", "Don't Reproach Me",
"Drinking Song" from La Traviata, "Fur Elise" etc. (I am going to upload
other songs as well, if somebody will be interested)? You can see that all of them are just vocal songs except "Fur Elise".

Are you sure that all of them are not music, as you say? You can hear on some of these recordings that at least a few hundreds of music lovers "strongly disagree" with you at this point of view.

I will appreciate your always interesting comments (of negative or positive contents - it really does not matter).

Thanks,

Vladimir Dounin

"Thanks to Mr. Barrie Heaton (Web Master of this Forum), I uploaded a few of my Songs-Improvisations with exactly the (mentioned by you negatively) LEFT accentuation. I love to play like this for a change: it is my way to root out slavery from my musical mind and it works effectively in spite of your scepticism."

I had a listen to those files. Very nicely played and very nice arranging. I was rather suspicious of the idea in the manner you described it, but this sounds very good. I don't think your playing is generally as formulaic as the manner you described though. It's not always strong on 2 and 4, just at times. The faint emphasis in Fur Elise doesn't really emerge as an 'accent'. The effect is merely of no unecessary accent on the first beat. Very nice smooth flow here.

The way you accent the upbeat of a phrase at times is rather similar to the principle of 'interruption' accents that I described in the earlier post. It's not just inappropriate 'thuds' in the middle of nowhere. However, I'd say that these could be even more effective though, personally, if you used these as variants rather than as standard. In 'My Way' I found it a little overpowering to have the upbeat strong on EVERY occassion. I think it might come out more as an emotional effect if you generally played a weak upbeat (that doesn't mean the first beat has to be 'strong') but occassionally used the expressive 'interruption' as a 'free' variant. I did feel that this strong upbeat became a restriction rather than a freedom. Human expression is not repetitious. The character of somebody's voice is never the same when repeating a sentence (be it a question, command, plea or whatever). Sometimes the same setence may start softly, sometimes it may begin loudly and recede. You do vary the extent of the emphasis, but I'm not convinced it sounds 'free' if always on the upbeat. Also, I missed the emphasis on the suspension at the peak of the phrases. The chromatic 'sigh' is what calls out for an emphasis there, to me, not the fact that it's on a conventionally strong beat.

Similarly in the Verdi, the constant strong upbeat was a little overpowering for me. Here I feel it really reached the point of being a 'formula' that restricted the music rather than freeing it. Personally I wouldn't regard that note so much in terms of standard strong or weak beats. As a 'lead-in' to the phrase it is more musically natural for it to start weak. However, in the repeat a singer might (in a more heated moment) gasp for breath quickly before the new phrase and start strongly with more emotional intensity instead, for a change. I still feel that musical circumstances should dictate these things, rather than the idea of actively reinforcing 'different' beats. I don't believe in the idea that 1 is 'strong' at all, but accenting 3 repeatedly didn't make this 'freer' to my ears. Personally, I think the main thing is to AVOID accents as the rule (applying them where appropriate), rather than to move them onto different beats with any system.

Anyway, I enjoyed your playing very much and I'm certainly not accusing these of being 'unmusical'. My personaly opinion is that by mixing things up a little more your playing would sound very free indeed.

Andrew

Just one other thing about the recording of My way. I hope you'll forgive me for being critical, by the way. Let me assure you that it comes out of respect for your playing which is very good indeed. I enjoy the stronger off-beats very much in places and find them very expressive in places where the phrase suits this execution, but I was just listening to the start and I noticed that the manner of re-inforcing the off-beats leads to the repeated emphasis of the same pitch on three or four occassions within a short phrase. To my ears the repetion of this single note is the least important part of the line and the details in the upper register are of far more interest melodically. Surely this is the most beautiful and important part of the line to reveal, especially in the first statment to a listener? In that sense I feel the make-up of the phrase (independetly of rhythmic analysis) suggests rather strongly that this low note is least worthy of emphasis. Much as I like the expressive variant of occasionally 'interupting' with the off-beat I don't think the concept of deliberately accenting the off-beats regularly really suits the make-up of the phrase. Also, to sing this way would lead to 'AND now THE end IS near AND' so etc. I don't think this a very natural line.

Personally, I would have to say that I enjoy the unaccented nature of your first beats far more than your tendency towards strong off-beats.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for your listening to my recordings and your comments. I do not object them - it is a FUN for me to play with LEFT accentuation for a change. And, probably, I pay too much attention to this variant forgetting the necessary ballance between both paterns. Do you know: all of us-musicians are always a bit like children. And all the children prefer to play with a new toy more than with old ones. This LEFT accentuation is simply my favourite toy nowadays.

My concern is that contemporary pianists and teachers DO NOT KNOW THIS WAY AT ALL !!! I want to inspire them to try, to overcome their fear of our warders and their lashes.

By the way, what do you think about my "Style" as a LASH OF SLAVERY"? I am sure that you and other readers have something to say about this great disaster in our business.

About everything you wrote on my "I am free" - I can say only: read this quote from this article, where is the difference between our positions?!
It is a pity that nobody else looks interested to discuss this fundamental problem in musical teaching and performing.

Is the pattern “soft LOUD soft LOUD soft LOUD” any better ? It is not better at all. Everything on Earth is bipolar. There is North and South, left and right, heaven and hell, good and evil, etc. We have two eyes, two ears and nostrils, arms and so on. Imagine that artists were forbidden to draw “anything left” on their pictures: no left legs, no left ears, hands and no clothes with the buttons on the left side; no left-hand traffic portrayed in pictures of countries with motorcars, only right, right and right again.

This is exactly the situation in music. Nowadays, there are more than two generations of pianists who do not suspect nor even imagine that the music Left (one TWO three FOUR) and Right (ONE two THREE four) are equally legal and both absolutely necessary for any normal performance despite official theory in the matter. Listen carefully to any great pianist : no one plays only that “march-like” style; both patterns always support each other. This is what makes their music come alive. But WHAT do we have to teach our students instead ? Only what is written in our textbooks and dictionaries full of false rules and statements. We are only making idiots of our audiences, our students and ourselves when we blindly follow them !



With my best wishes,

Vladimir

"My concern is that contemporary pianists and teachers DO NOT KNOW THIS WAY AT ALL !!! I want to inspire them to try, to overcome their fear of our warders and their lashes."

Yeah, indeed. We certainly should hear this kind of thing more often. I agree that we are looking at things in a pretty similar way. I think the only difference about my position is that I feel that 'unaccenting' is the main key toward freedom of shape. The thing I hate most about modern playing is the sheer lumpiness, caused by habitual accenting.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Maybe these quotes from my correspondents will be interesting for you and other Forum readers. By the way, I am still waiting for your comments on "STYLE" as a LASH OF SLAVERY"!

All the best!

Vladimir

"A lot of what you are saying sounds like Godowsky's teaching methods.

Dear Vladimir Dounin:

He said to practice with similar variations in rythms..

... for practicing techniques, you have hit it on the dot. Godowsky said to practice with alternating accents to no accent to negative accent, which means less than the non-accented, try various patterns, but always do their inverses so that your mind will be "free" to phrase and make the music you want to make. Similarly, rythmic variations

About your stylistic correctness- I believe that it should be played in a similar style. Now, it's ok to modify it somewhat, such as bach harpsichord works on the piano. However, I believe that once one has mastered it technically, one should experiment with different interpretations, at different tempi, and different volumes to see which characters can come out".

"Dear Mr. Vladimir Dounin,

thank you for your sincere interest and information.

I have been studying the relationship between freedom, culture and rhythm for a few years now, and have noticed that there were distinct periods in time when the freedom of the INDIVIDUAL was sacrificed for a pre-conceived TEACHABLE simplified version of reality.

my favourite pianists were professionals before the first world war.

after WWII the pianists up until about 1962 played with less freedom, but still an individual slant of expression.

after 1962 pianists began to be robotic, with the final blow being about 1969.

I had thought that the strictness in rhythm and style was due principally to a farm-animal type of teaching method where the farm animals are fed food on a conveyor belt...much as students received information which was generic in nature and constant in dose.

I also thought that the invention of tape-editing and tape manipulation made it possible for recordings to be technically perfect and BEYOND CRITICISM of the media, reviewers etc..

NEVER did I consider that the soviet model was being assimilated by the western world

I WILL SAY that everything I learned about professional music was from pop records, and therefore my concept of rhythm is more advanced than the average classical student..

Jazz as well as rhythm and blues was traditionally varied in rhythmic accents..

as far as classical piano, the main teachings I respect are from the writings of Chopin, and other classical pianist/composers...NEVER A TEACHER..

please, could you tell us more about the influence of censorship of culture on the lifestyle of the average citizen?

what happens to people?

what kind of other restrictions were put on musicians' interpretation and why?"

"... for practicing techniques, you have hit it on the dot. Godowsky said to practice with alternating accents to no accent to negative accent, which means less than the non-accented, try various patterns, but always do their inverses so that your mind will be "free" to phrase and make the music you want to make. Similarly, rythmic variations"

Interesting. I have sometimes practised passage work very slowly, first with strong accents on the 1st, then on the 2nd and the 3rd and 4th etc (assuming semiquavers in fours). Most important of all is NO ACCENTS on other notes though. This is more of a physical preparation than a musical exercise, although it does sometimes give interesting sounds.

I think I do so see what you mean with the idea of spending SOME time doing unusual emphasises. Personally I feel it's essential not to spend too much time going this way on a formula, because it can potentially get stuck in the mind after time. I just fear that an amateur going this way is still not thinking about what the phrase suggests and may spend as much time contradicting the natural musical suggestion as one who accents first beats.

"I WILL SAY that everything I learned about professional music was from pop records, and therefore my concept of rhythm is more advanced than the average classical student.."

Funnily enough, I had a related learning experience. I started young and was hopeless for many, many years, before I began to improve slowly. My sense of rhythm didn't even exist for many years. I tended to try to imitate sounds that I heard and wouldn't even think in beats, let alone strong or weak beats. I would play bars of all kinds of inappropriate lengths and I was truly awful, but when I later came to understand rhythm as notated, I had learned to hear in a certain way that did not fit a standrad patten. Funnily enough, I have a terrible sense of pitch (I cannot play even the simplest tune by ear) but if I have the score available I have a very good ear for voicing and a good ability to analyse how a pianist like Horowitz constructs his sound. In a way I learned through what I heared more than what I was instructed to do. For many years I imitated poorly, (hopelessly) although over time I grew to understand the ideas I was attempting to convey rather better.

If you're interested here's a film of me playing the Scriabin etude op. 8 no. 12:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tFmo1lp3aXI

I analysed how Horowitz plays it in some detail. I wouldn't like to think of this a 'copy' as such but I worked out various concepts that his performance is based on and feel this comes far better as a result of them(although I don't claim for a second this competes with Horowitz). I described a few of his 'tricks' in the comments section (such as pedalling on the quaver upbeat before a bass note for a BIG sound, rather than 'cleaning' the sound on the D sharp- that just sounds empty). I'd be interested in your thoughts.

I always dispute the tendency for teachers to tell a younger student NOT to listen to recordings when they play a piece. Imitating a great pianist simply opens doors of sound. Once you have attempted these sounds, you may be able to find your own way in other music without imitating anyone. If you've only ever taken ideas from one person (your teacher) you're even more restricted than if you've spent hours listening to many different players-to see the worlds of possibility withint the piece you're playing. I actually suspect teachers are often just worried that the student will hear something different to what they told them to do and want to know why they can't do it too, making life harder for them. Copying a Horowitz (but with understanding, not like those idiots that just play loudly and fail to understand ANYTHING about what he actually did) or Bolet should be part of the learning process for any pianist before they can find their 'own' way. This usually just means finding no particular way at all. One of the best pianists I've heard is called Joseph Villa. There is a recording of him playing the Rachmaninoff 2nd sonata that is cloned from Horowitz throughout. He actually sounds MORE like Horowitz than Horowitz himself though and the performance is actually even better. You could play this to ANY expert and they would be sure it's Horowitz playing, I promise you. Lyrical sections, dramatic sections, whatever it is- it all has the sound of Horowitz.

I had a great teacher before who was MASSIVE on the 'unaccent'. I was often deeply confused at the time, but I realise how much I learned from him now. Schnabel was the biggest exponent of this. There is a fantastic book on his teaching by Konrad Wolff. It is clumsy in some ways, but if you look through it then nothing is ever the same again. It's all based on the construction of phrases and ideas. He didn't believe in periodic accents at all. It's all down to what is required by the musical shape.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thanks for this very interesting information. I could not listen to yourScriabin because it always says to me:
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia's Flash Player. Get the latest flash player.

I downloaded this LATEST FLASH PLAYER 4 times - it says about some errors on the page.

Sorry. I am not good in computers, I need help. Maybe somebody will say me: what to do.

All the best,

Vladimir.