Bad pianos and loony mothers.

June 11, 2007 at 5:59 AM

Greetings,
Have to feel sorry for piano players. Imagine having to change instrument every time you play outside your home. It’s crazy. Anyway, our piano trio had been rehearsing in a room with a rather average upright for the last year or so. Recently it has began to deteriorate for some reason until last week I exploded. `Sorry, this bloody instrument sounds like a toy piano now. I can’t stand it any more.` The long suffering pianist breathed a sigh of relief and we found a more expensive room that houses a decent concert grand. The pianist, who is a very talented graduate from Gedai University, is now finally able to produce all sort of interesting colors and dynamics. The clarity of the voices is great. We could actually do some serious work on the music for a change. So lesson one is `Don’t waste your time working with a piano on chamber music or whatever if the piano is no good. Too much of the music is missing. You owe it to your piano player and yourself to find the best possible instrument you can.
However, since life does often consist of `out of the frying pan into the fire` I suddenly became much more aware of something about the piano player which I had been kind of half conscious of but ignoring: this lady absorbs other peoples` performances like a sponge. Her own tend to get lost on the way. I have always tended to respond to her request to borrow all my recordings of a particular work with a wry `Why don’t you just play it ?` but now I can really hear how much she can afford to let go of to be herself. In rehearsal over the last few weeks I have suggested over and over that we all play what is written on the page as near as precisely as possible without having two lines of Stern/Istomin/Rose followed by two lines of Perlman /Ashenazy/Harrell. It’s kind of tough but it makes a difference. That’s why I get a little nervous about players who learn music by listening to recordings- it takes the onus for HAVING SOMETHING TO SAY- away from the player who is enjoying –having something to repeat-!
My friend is also an unending source of interest to me since she insists on attending her 15 year old daughters violin lessons. I actually find this quite useful because the daughter has an urgent need to break away from the overpoweringly critical intellect and commentary of her mother and I find I can gently push her in the right direction. I do this by monitoring how her mother unintentionally pulls her down and then mocking the mother back while getting her daughter to not take it at all seriously. All three of us often end up rolling around with laughter.
Her daughter is an interesting problem. She first came to me with virtually all aspects of her technique horribly skewed and screwed, virtually no skills ; unable to read music and a body locked up so tight I only had to touch the ankle and there would be a spirally shudder through the whole muscle/skeletal system as she fell over drunkenly to the left of right like the Leaning Tower of Pisa on speed. I`ve worked through a lot of that with her, got her to produce a sound without pressing that actually rings and she can do much of schradieck in tune at about mm120, the Martinu Sonatina, some Handel sonatas and the Dancla Theme and Variations with considerable aplomb. A month ago her mother informed me that her daughter has suddenly started thinking about trying to get into music school.
`Of course she can’t.` she added the inevitable rider.
I laughed. `Actually I think she can.`
`But she doesn’t play her pieces that well.`
I`d been biding my time on this for a while actually because I suspected many of her daughter’s problems were tied into her use, or lack of use of, vision so I suggested she played to her mother with her eyes closed. What a fantastic transformation. Really beautiful playing. Course it might just have been blocking out the critical parental face. Hah!
Mater hasn’t been so noisy recently….
Cheers,
Buri
`

From Robert Berentz
Posted on June 11, 2007 at 8:00 AM

I wish I had a teacher like you.

From Ben Clapton
Posted on June 11, 2007 at 12:48 PM

I am sure that many of us could learn from a lesson or two with Buri. Hmm... my youth orchestra is looking to head to Japan next year on tour, might see if I can line up a lesson.

From Tom Holzman
Posted on June 11, 2007 at 1:17 PM

Buri - you are clearly a special teacher. Good for you!

From Yixi Zhang
Posted on June 11, 2007 at 3:13 PM

With a mother like that, the daughter has to have extraordinary passion and resilience for keep up with the violin. I’m sure your support of her has been tremendous over time that could very well be one of the very reasons she has gone so far and wants to be professional. Like all others, I envy your students and wish I could be in Japan soon. But I’m also somewhat relieved to know that you are training other teachers. I hope you are writing and publishing your books too. I'll buy every one of them for myself and will give them away as gifts.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on June 11, 2007 at 10:39 PM

Greetings,
Ben , let me know when you are here and I will come and listen.
Yixi, last book I worked on was as Ghost writer. It`s called `teaching English to Children in Asia,` by David Paul. I`m afraid it wouldn`t interest you too much.;)
Cheer,s
Buri

From Yixi Zhang
Posted on June 12, 2007 at 1:32 AM

Buri, I'll buy ANY books you write. Just tell me where I can purchase them.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on June 12, 2007 at 1:38 AM

Greetings,
save yer pennies for Simon Fischers new book coming next year `The Violin Lesson.`
Cheers,
Buri
PS I have recently got into a whole new quartet sound listening to the Amadeus. Yesterday I bought theBrahms Sextet with them and Pleeth and someother viola dude. I don`t know this work but it was one of the most awesome things I have ever heard on disk. I couldn`t stop playing it over and over. A Deutsche Gramaphone classic.

From Yixi Zhang
Posted on June 12, 2007 at 2:19 AM

Is the one with 5 discs? I'll put that one on my wish list. I've got the Naxos version of sextets played by Stuttgart Soloists and I like them very much.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on June 12, 2007 at 4:12 AM

You've done wonders with both the daughter and the mother. That's quite a hard task -- especially the mother, IMO. I agree with everyone who praises you as a great teacher.

From Yixi Zhang
Posted on June 12, 2007 at 4:57 AM

I’ve known a lot of mothers in China are like this – full of negativity, demand, no imagination nor confidence. My heart always goes to the children and hope their heart will remain gentle and kind despite that.

I was thinking about this story this morning on my way to work. I though I would be choking with tears the moment I realized the meaning of all this: how beautifully I could play in front of my own mother only with eyes closed!

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Bad pianos and loony mothers.

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