Klarinet Archive - Posting 000336.txt from 2003/07

From: Jeremy A Schiffer <schiffer@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] pianoless background [was accidentals et al]
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:26:34 -0400

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Christy Erickson wrote:

> P.S. I liked your comments about theory, young students and the piano
> keyboard. I'll never know how college instrumental majors who have never
> played piano get through theory courses.

Let me tell you, it's difficult. I took three terms (5 days a week,
8:30am) of theory in college, intending to be a music major, and it was
the hardest thing I attempted there (leaving aside the drugs...).

I was at a small liberal arts college, and by theory 3, there were only
six people in the class. I was the only one who wasn't a competent piano
player, and I was by far the worst student in the class. Granted, I
have a poor oral sense of pitch, so my sightsinging was bad, and a not
great aural sense of pitch, so my ear training was below average (the
tests, of course, had the professor playing passages on the piano; I
would have scored much better were he playing on a clarinet because I'm
more familiar with the timbre), but that was nothing compared to the
composition exercises. Those were impossible because I wasn't at the point
where I could really work things out on the piano (I was taking my first,
and only, year of piano lessons concurrently with theory). The last
composition was to pick a German romantic poem and set it to music; a lied
in the style of Hugo Wolf, to be specific.

I was sorting through my college papers after I moved last month, and came
across the graded copy. It was filled with comments like "I don't know
what you're doing here" (several times) and culminating with "I don't
think you know what you're doing here". Despite spending at least 30 hours
on the assignment, I didn't receive a passing grade. A large part of it, I
attribute to my lack of piano (or any harmony based instrument, for
that matter) skills. Even though we were composing on computers, with MIDI
keyboards, my lack of experience playing a polyphonic instrument was
essentially insurmountable because I had never really been trained to pay
attention to more than one part. Band directors and orchestra conductors
yelling "listen to all the parts!" doesn't cut it.

Though I never really took up the piano, I have begun playing the guitar,
and I have no doubt that my clarinet playing (especially in my ability to
accompany the melody in klezmer music) has improved tremendously because
of the work on the guitar.

Well, that's my thoughts on the subject.

-jeremy
http://klezmer.org

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