Thursday, November 29, 2018
Why adults don't develop perfect pitch
Rick Beato explains why adults cannot develop perfect pitch.
The first thousand days of a child’s life (starting with
conception) are critical for the developing brain’s ability to identify objects
in a swarm of random occurrences. Recognizing
a pitch is similar to recognizing a color.
It is also comparable to recognizing a phoneme.
English uses only 44 out of about 2000 possible phonemes. Tonal languages, common in the Orient, use
more. A child learning a tonal language
is more likely to retain perfect pitch. It is also well known that it is easier for children to become fluent in multiple languages simultaneously than it is for adults. As children become teens, the brain starts "pruning" into what it will be good at. Beato's comments also invoke the advice that young children should not exposed to too much screen time with fast moving images.
After about age three, musical training (ear training) will
result in the development of relative pitch, but not perfect pitch.
Beato says that exposure of children to unpredictable music
(jazz, because it is improvised, or Bach fugues, because of their chromaticism,
or maybe some complex post-romantic and early modern music – not sure about Schoenberg
or something like the Bruckner 5 finale – helps train a plastic brain to recognize
pitches.
There has been some speculation as to whether the drug Valproate
could assist adults in developing perfect pitch.
There is the idea that key signatures in classical music
have “personalities”. It is compromised
by the fact that Baroque music was often pitched a half-step lower. But Beethoven’s Fifth definitely belongs in C
Minor, and the Ninth in D Minor.
Likewise, the Brahms symphonies have personalities very closely related
to their keys (F Major is “pastoral”).
I felt that I had partial perfect pitch as a child, as I
could usually identify the key signature of a previously unheard work (say a
Haydn symphony because there are so many of them) on the radio.
As an older adult, that seems lost. Now, my brain sill sometimes perceive a piece
as a whole step higher than it is, unless I “cheat” and am told the key.
I just tried the beginning and end of the Franz Lizst “ad
nos” organ Fugue on YouTube. The beginning
sounds like C Minor to my ear, and the end is tricky: The fugue is all over the place with
modulations. I fakes an ending in E Major
before crashing back to C Major. Is this
the complexity Beato is looking for? Or
maybe the spooky B Minor Sonata, where all modern music starts? (The modulations at the beginning are really un
predicable.)
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Popular Thanksgiving Hymn by Hubert Parry based on theme from Third Symphony
Here is the hymn “O Praise Ye the Lord” by Sir Hubert Parry. It was the offertory anthem at the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington DC Nov 19 on a commitment Sunday.
The melody resembles the theme of the finale of the Parry’s Symphony
#3 in C, a theme and variations in the style of Brahms (look it up on YouTube,
several performances). How many people in
a congregation would recognize it?
Good music for November. By now, we know who survived
Halloween.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Deutscher's Violin Concerto
Alma Deutscher also plays the violin.
Here is her Violin Concerto in G Minor (2017), same performers in Vienna as for the Piano Concerto (yesterday's post).
The first movement (Allegro Maestoso) actually offers an
introduction on the solo violin, before the orchestral exposition. The development
has a nice fugato. Some of the violin work sounds a bit Paganini-like.
The slow movement (Romanza) is in the unusual (for violin
music) key of E-flat.
The finale (Allegro Scherzando) is, like the case with the
piano concerto, lighter in tone, but offers a big cadenza and a boisterous end,
all in Picardy G Major.
She also has a full length opera (and short opera) which I will take up later.
She also has a full length opera (and short opera) which I will take up later.
I wanted to take a moment to encourage artists in Europe (who
may happen to find this blog post) to pay attention to the “debate” going on
with the Copyright Directive, especially Article 13, being implemented by the
EU Parliament. Although it purports to
protect royalty earnings for artists, it could in practice seriously hinder newer
artists getting their stuff out there.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Introducing Alma Deutscher and her Piano Concerto in E-Flat
Here is the Piano Concerto in E-Flat by Alma Elizabeth Deutscher, b. 2005 (age 13). The name is German, but she was born and raised in
England.
She performs it with the Joji Hattori conducting the Vienna
Chamber Orchestra, at the Carinthian Summer Festival in Austria.
The style of the work is classic to early Romantic, rather
like Chopin in some places, perhaps. That is remarkable, when you consider how
much commissioned work today is hyper modern and “useful” and clever (and
commissioning is turning into a political controversy of its own). This has
bearing on my own circumstances, which I will get back to later.
The first movement (Allegro, 17 minutes), opens with a full
orchestra ritornel (with a somewhat noble and majestic theme), and the second
subject is rather quiet. The coda
suddenly becomes majestic and builds up to a large climax on a pivot chord.
The second movement (Adagio, 10 min) is in the dominant key
of B-flat minor and is a bit sentimental.
The finale (a rondo, Allegro giocoso) starts out with a
theme that is almost Mozartean. The conclusion is not as convincing as the climax
of the first movement – to my own post-romantic ear, at least.
The obvious comparison will be Amy Beach.
Of course, there are various other examples of young composers
since Mozart. Eugen D’Albert’s first
Piano Concerto (patterned after Liszt) was composed largely at age 19 and
perhaps (in the enormous fugue and coda) comes across as an expression of white
hot cis male virility. Shostakovich wrote his first Symphony at 19. And James Pavel Shawcross, 18, entertains us
on YouTube with his presentations of different pianos, organs and percussion –
and I just found out he comes from an area exposed to the California wildfires. I’ll check further. “The young people will win.”
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Complete analysis of the gigantic fugal finale of Bruckner's Symphony #5
Richard Atkinson has a 44-minute analysis of the immense fugal
finale if Anton Bruckner’s Symphony #5 in B-flat Major. The work was composed at almost the same time
as Brahms Symphony #1.
The fugue (about 20 minutes) has been compared to the
Beethoven Grosse Fugue in B-flat (originally a finale to the B-flat String
Quartet).
Despite the formal setup as a fugue, the movement still has
a clear sonata form, with slow introduction based on previous material, and an
exposition, development and recapitulation based on three theme groups, all derived
from prior movements. Atkinson explains
inversion and augmentation. He uses
color codes on the scores to identify the thematic group components.
The “coda of all codas” never actually combines all the
thematic pieces at once. Furtwangler concludes
is first symphony with very similar effects borrowed from Bruckner. John Williams seems to have derived “The
Force Be With You” from one of the motives highlighted in the coda.
Friday, November 09, 2018
Homeless man gets record contract for piano playing; music community weighs in on politics a little
A homeless veteran who used to play flute in a Marine Corps
band just got a record deal for his outdoor piano playing.
That’s Donald Gould in Sarasota, FL
The video is also on Facebook Live, url.
He describes the homelessness in terms of family stability
and emotional problems. I would see this
on a “Community Assistance” project in Arlington VA a couple of years ago – a lot
of mental illness. It seems as though some people are a lot better prepared to
be alone than others.
The piano itself reminds me of the out-of-tune job in Berg’s
opera “Wozzeck” which I saw in NYC at the Met in 1974.
I also thought I would share a post-election perspective
from another (classical) musician I have presented here, Gabriel Kahane, on
Facebook. Usually, I don’t see a lot of
commentary on political issues from the music community in NYC, but this one is
worth a read. I think I’ve discussed Book of Travelers here
before, but I’ll have to check.
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Vaughn Williams, "For All the Saints", to honor those who survived Halloween costume parties unscathed
I don’t think I’ve ever presented this hymn online, “For All
the Saints”, on “All Saints Day”, on Nov. 1, with music by Ralph Vaughn
Williams.
When November comes to the DC area, it is usually mild for
another week or two, and the leaves have finally changed, and you know that the
calendar year is winding down.
And the costume season is over. You find out who survived Halloween with
their bods intact.
Saints are not the same thing as angels. Saints have really sacrificed.
Gender fluidity goes back down a little bit.
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