ROVING PIANIST

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Tempo Rubato

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Red light with green filterDrivers slip into the Exit Only lane to get past traffic at a red light. They cut ahead when the light changes. The time they save is stolen time – tempo rubato.

Those who cut ahead of us on the highway, at the store, at the bus stop, may be your neighbor, my child, anyone. They get to their destination faster, by delaying those whom they pass. I doubt that they consider themselves thieves, but they steal.

In music, rubato takes various forms. It can be holding back for just a moment. It can be speeding and slowing over several measures. In Armenian composer Khachaturian’s piano concerto, a conductor can use rubato to make the entire work heave like a vessel in heavy seas.

At the piano, rubato can be like traffic on a multi-lane highway. One hand maintains the tempo while the other speeds and slows, but never breaks entirely free from the flow. Time is not stolen, it is borrowed and returned.

One time I was running late driving to my piano lesson. Never mind that my tutor might also be behind schedule: I did not want miss a moment. I like to get to music school early to inhale the ambience and ogle the Steinways. And it is oddly soothing after a draining day at work, to exchange a nod and a smile with parents waiting for their kids, those same parents who are there at the same time every week, waiting for the same kids.

When I got to Rubato Red traffic light, the Exit Only lane was open. Like those rats who cut me off every day, I took it. When the light turned green I unleashed 450 ft/lbs of gut-wrenching BMW diesel torque and reclaimed 20 seconds of my life, proceeding stretto to class.

On Being an Adult Beginner Pianist

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Ken Turner, Carnegie Weill Hall, May 2015I started piano lessons when I was over 60 years old. Being an older adult beginner pianist has been a delirious adventure of discovery, joy, frustration, glory, aches and pains.

It is hard to balance such time-intensive activities as learning an instrument and writing. Until now I have given the piano priority, because of my age. My tutor has been playing for over 20 years. Her fingers flit across the keys with deft precision and economy that I do not have 20 years to attain.

Creative Expression

Both writing and pianism are forms of creative expression. Playing the piano may not appear creative, since we perform music that was (usually) written by someone else. But when you perform for others, every nuance of dynamics, pace, pedal, facial expression and bodily motion is part of the unique experience that you create for your audience.

You Can Do This Too

I read a post from a guy in his 30’s asking if he was too old to learn the piano. He had had “a few years” of lessons at school, but fretted that too much time had passed. I am in my 60’s and have a modest Bach, Beethoven and Chopin repertoire after just 15 months. If your heart is in the right place you can do this too, no matter how old you are and how little you know when you start. The rewards are life-changing.

My music is better than your music

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Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall

I remember when I was a young man, driving around with my car window open and loud music blaring. I wanted everyone to hear this music because I thought they would be awestruck. I did not have massive subwoofers, I was not a “notice me” guy. I just had music to share.

For example the bass solo 10 minutes into the Ashes are Burning track of Renaissance’s Live at Carnegie Hall is perhaps the world’s most magnificent bass guitar cadenza. You won’t find this on any studio album, it was a one-time live performance and this is the only recording. (Don’t play it on tinny speakers, at least use some decent headphones!)

These days I would not dream of pushing my music on others in this fashion. But plenty of people love that feeling of the windows down and the music up so loud that your car itself seems silent. It feels like you are floating down the highway on a cushion of joy.

During the extremes of winter there were a few twisted souls who would drive with their windows open, at great personal discomfort, simply to impose their noise music on the rest of us, but most of the Boom Boom Bullies settled for blowing their own own eardrums out behind rolled-up windows.

Now spring is here, car windows are rolled down, and once again an uncivil minority will decide for the rest of us whether we must listen to their music when we are stuck in traffic with them.

I understand why you may love your music so much you want to share it, but I don’t understand amping your bass with subwoofers so that I can hear the thumping two blocks away.  What we hear is not music, it’s more like a steam hammer in a shipyard.  You put $$$$ on your credit card for THAT?

There’s a spectrum of wilful noise pollution that ranges from the benign but insensitive “I thought everyone loved this song” to the arrogance of “I don’t care that you can’t hear your music because of my music” to the sonic violence of “my subwoofer up your ASS”.

It’s a sad reflection on your life when the best you can think to do with your irreplaceable allotment of time on this pale blue dot is to force others to listen to your crap.