June

Studio News

June, 2007 --

Practice Hats - Polishing Pieces Stravinsky

Welcome to Studio News for June, and already half the year has passed. The promised recital will be held on Sunday 24^th June at 2:00 pm. It seems timely to review strategies for learning and improving performance pieces.

Our composer of the month is the Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky wrote several very well known ballets in addition to music for piano and for orchestra.

Practice Hats - Learning and Polishing Pieces

There are many aspects to learning and improving a piece under study. Students often feel lost and overwhelmed if they are simply told to get a piece ‘right’ – or are unable to see where a piece needs improvement. Sometimes students work hard for hours, frustrated with lack of progress. Some strategy is needed.

The Practice Hats are a useful tool for finding our way around this. Practice Hats help us focus on one thing at a time – they are experts to guide us, improving our playing one aspect at a time. (It is helpful for students to actually make cardboard hats of different colours and with different labels, to help make this idea more tangible.)

After you have made the hats, put them on one at a time and think about the things it tells you. Many different hats can be made, but we will focus on a number of the more universal ones.

	Correct notes: Whether you have played a piece many times, or for the first time, check every note carefully. Check new notes that might slip in, sometimes unnoticed, such as accidentals, big chords, long scale passages, changes in patterns or unfamiliar notes with new or tricky key signatures. You need to play slowly – take nothing for granted.
	Fingering: Check you are using the written and easiest fingering patterns. If you tend to slip often in one part or cross fingers in strange ways, chances are you have fingering problems. Again, work slowly – and even away from the piano, looking for the most sensible patterns. Play short sections at a time, slowly and carefully.
	*Rhythm:* Are you holding notes AND rests for exactly the right amount of time? Are you giving emphasis to the first beat of each bar? Check complicated passages, especially when there are changes in rhythm. Break the patterns down into their smallest count value and count carefully through. Are you rushing where there are shorter note values, such as quavers and semi-quavers? Don’t use Rubato until you know all you counting is correct.
	Tempo: Use a metronome! How fast should a piece be played? How fast can you play it without getting faster or tripping over? Start with a metronome and turn it off – restart the metronome when you finish. Does the beat feel the same? If not, you have changed tempo. Watch for any markings for tempo change and work out why the composer has used it. Check – do you play faster or slower when sections get tricky?
	Phrasing: Phrases give sense to the music. From two note slurs, to longer phrases, or absence of phrase marks, are you following directions? Is there a sense of softening and a moment of silence at the end of each phrase – without losing rhythm? Does your music feel like it is breathing and speaking?
	*Dynamics:* What markings are written? Experiment with rises and falls in volume that are not written. One of the common is a rise in volume as notes get higher and softening as they get lower. Also, notes at ends of phrases are either building or softening. What sounds best? If you are playing several notes in a row at the same volume, you really need to look for alternatives. Try some creative, new ideas.
	*Tone Production:* How are you touching the piano? What touch is written? There are many different types of touch for legato, staccato and portamento. Is you playing suitable for the mood you need for the piece and the section? What happens if you try some other movement? Are you listening carefully to the sound you are producing?
	*Voicing:* Where is the melody line? The voice is the note or part you need to play a little louder than the rest. Sometimes you need to hit a key from a little higher than the other notes, or lean slightly to one side or the other with your hand. You need to make the melody line sing, so try singing it with your voice and listen carefully. Can you express this with your playing? Don’t forget to look for important notes in harmonies. Experiment a little. What happens to the effect if you play this note louder, or maybe this next one? What affect do you like? How does it work with other melodies and harmonies you find in the piece? Do you have good balance between the parts or is one hand drowning the other? (Often chords are played too loud, or the left hand more heavily than the right.)
	Posture: How are you sitting? Are you comfortable? Are you centred on the bench? Are your fingers gently curved, your wrists flexible and not dropped? Are your shoulders square and relaxed? Your feet flat on the ground, or platform? Are your elbows comfortably by your side? Are you free and moving?
	*Relaxation:* Soften the light in your practice room, then check – Are your shoulders down? Are your wrists free and moving? Are you breathing smoothly? Are you using the inside muscles of your fingers rather than the big muscles of the back of your hand? Do you wrists and hands feel tired or sore – this is from tension. If so, are you using the best technique?

When you pieces is sounding good – it will do if you spend time listening to what each of these hats have to tell you – then it is time to record you pieces and be the critic. Wear the hats again, but this time as the 2qlistener instead of the performer.

Finally, add the hats together, as pairs, than threes, and so on – after all, when you perform you have to think about all the hats at once.

Igor Stravinsky

By Shannon Cullen

Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia on June 17^th, 1882 and brought up in St. Petersburg. His childhood, as recorded in his autobiography, was troublesome. “I never came across anyone who had any real affection for me.” In 1890, his father, a bass singer, took him to the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’. The performance, his first exposure to an orchestra, mesmerised him and he is reputed to have met Tchaikovsky backstage after the performance.

By the age of fourteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G Minor and was writing piano reductions of other composers work. Despite his enthusiasm, however, his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. He was enrolled to study law at the St. Petersburg University in 1901 but it did not suit him and he attended barely fifty sessions in four years. With the death of his father in 1902, he was able to devote more time to his music.

In 1905, on the advice of Rimsky-Korsakov, the leading Russian composer of the time, he decided not to enroll in the St Petersburg Conservatorium. Instead he received twice-weekly tuition in composition from the older composer, who became like a second father to him. In the same year, he became engaged to his cousin whom he had known since childhood. They were married in 1906.

In 1909, his Feu d’ Artifice (Fireworks) was performed in St. Petersburg where it was heard by the Russian Impresario, Sergei Diaghilev and the director of the Ballet Russes in Paris. Diaghilev was suitably impressed to commission Stravinsky to undertake orchestrations and then a full-length ballet score ‘The Firebird’.

Stravinsky went to Paris in 1910 to attend the premiere. Then, with his family, moved to Switzerland where they remained till 1920. During this time, he composed three further works for the Ballet Russes- Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913) and Pulcinella (1914). The premiere of the Rite of Spring was probably the most famous riot in music history, with fistfights amongst the audience and the police called during the second act. After a brief return to Russia to research his next project, he crossed the border before it was closed due to World War 1. He was not to return to Russia for another fifty years.

In 1920, due to his wife’s tuberculosis, he moved his family to the south of France. His wife died in 1938 and their daughter, having caught the disease from her mother, passed away the following year. To take his mind of these losses, he accepted an invitation to lecture at Harvard University in the US where he was to reside until 1971, becoming a naturalised citizen in 1945.

Relatively short in stature and not conventionally handsome, Stravinsky was nevertheless photogenic. More photos exist of him than any other composer in history.

Stravinsky showed a keen interest in the folklore of all the countries he resided in and this is reflected in many works, i.e. his Ebony Concerto (the influence jazz in the US) and the opera The Rakes Progress (English poetry and art). His styles cover all types of music from formalism, neo-classicism to serialism. However, in all his works, certain qualities remain constant. First and foremost is clarity of sound, an almost transparent texture heightened by a masterful use of orchestration. Along with this is an approach to rhythm that articulates his melodies with certain dryness, adding to the clarity of sound.

He continued to compose late into his life and at the age of eighty, he began a grueling schedule to record all his works as conductor. These records serve as a valuable documentation of his ideas.

He died at the age of eighty-eight in New York City and is buried in Venice, Italy next to Diaghilev. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and posthumously received the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987.

Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer, born on June 17^th, 1882. He was not a happy person, but was introduced to music when he w as 8 and his father took him to see the ballet ‘Sleeping Beauty’. He was amazed by the orchestra and began learning piano. Although he loved music, his parents wanted him to be a lawyer and sent him to university. After his father died, he spent more time developing his music. He had lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov, an older Russian composer. Stravinsky’s Fireworks, was performed in 1909. After this, he was asked to write full-length ballets. Among his famous works is Petrushka, which is a sad story about a doll that comes to life because of love.

Annah-Valerie Hyrst (teacher)

Individual Dynamics

Rouse Hill, NSW

Studio News

Last modified: January 16, 2008