Saturday, April 30, 2016

Questions for Music Teachers

Exceeding expectations

The original reason why I first decided to offer piano lessons is because I figured it was a decent way to make some money on the side while pursuing my career in other facets of music (performing, composing, selling my music online, etc.). The other reason is that it's a good way to network and connect with local musicians. The idea was that I would have a couple of students, maybe three, and that I would meet them once a week to make a few bucks and help pay the bills.


The first music student that I ever had was in 2011, and it was my friend's 10-year-old son. My friend knew how much I loved music and composing, and it was partly his idea for me to teach piano lessons, so he told me I could "try it" on his son just to see if I liked it. I only charged my friend $15 per lesson, because it was my first student and we considered it a "Guinea pig rate". This worked out fairly well for a while. I was living in Quincy at the time, and even in such a small town the word went around fast. After I had been teaching my friend's kid for a couple of months, I got a second student. News travels fast in place like Quincy, so that worked to my advantage. I have since then moved to Salinas and then to Chico again. 

Both the students I had in Quincy worked out well. The first one learned a few of the basics (I only taught him for a few months) and the other one learned enough to where we actually had a small, informal recital at his mother's house. The experience was enjoyable enough for me to seek out possibilities to teach piano lessons in Chico, after moving there from Salinas. What I didn't expect is that I now have 10 students -- more than I expected, initially -- and this has kept me extremely busy because I have two regular day jobs on top of this (teaching English as a Second Language and substitute teaching for Chico Unified), and all of this is in ADDITION to trying to keep up with creating, performing and recording my own music, while maintaining my new website, etc. 


Row boats have nothing to do with this

Don't worry about the unrelated heading title above, it doesn't really relate to the point I'm making in this part of the blog. What I really want to point out is that there is a possibility for me to quit my English teaching job and try to take on a full load of music students, even though this is risky financially. It's a financial leap of faith, more or less. It's kind of like sitting in a row boat, and everything is fine and dandy, and then you try to stand up, and you try to step into another row boat that's right next to it, and you're basically trying to safely get into the other row boat without falling in the water. It's exactly like that, except that I've seldom been in a row boat, and boats in general have absolutely nothing to do with music. Anyway, taking on a full load of music students is not exactly where I was headed with my musical pursuits, nor is it what I expected. The word went around and it just sort of happened. Whether or not I want to take on a boat-load of students (sorry, I had to) meaning that I would end up accumulating 30-40 students, or even more, is not actually the issue I want to discuss in this blog. So basically I just filled your head with a completely useless analogy about row boats.

What I actually want to do, now that I have more students than I anticipated, is pick the brains of other music teachers a little bit. I've had one thing going for me, which is that I've had a little bit of regular teaching experience already, with a different subject (English). This has made the patience factor a non-issue for me. Those who have never tried to teach a kid to play an instrument will quickly find out that it takes an enormous amount of patience, and my prior teaching experience prepared me for this. Either way, I feel like a lot of things have worked with regard to my teaching approach when it comes to private lessons, and I've learned a lot in the five years or so that I've been doing this. Experienced music teachers are welcome to comment on this if they wish, but what I'm still curious about is:

1) Are flashcards a healthy/productive way to get the kids to learn their notes? I've tried this a number of times and it does seem to work for those who actually quiz themselves with the cards, but I've heard a few people say that flashcards shouldn't be used.

Flashcards used to train students to identify different notes
2) I've had a couple of students who figure out the notes by looking at the finger numbers on the sheet music, instead of looking at where the notes actually are on the staff, and thereby "cheating". One student did this for months before I realized it. Thoughts?

3) I use the Alfred's method as part of my curriculum (do you even call it a curriculum?). I hear great things about this publication, which is part of why I use it, but many of the songs in the book are regarded as "old-fashioned", trite and "cheesy," like a waltz you might hear at a carnival. I've been somewhat successful about giving kids a heads-up about this, which works to some extent, but are there supplemental publications that I can use that include pieces which are, shall we say, more modern? Children definitely seem to benefit from the songs featured in the Alfred's method, it's just that some of them (especially the teenagers) seem to roll their eyes at the songs. I'm really interested in people's thoughts on this because a few of the songs that are in the last half of the book ("On Top of Old Smokey," "O Solo Mio," "Jericho," "Greensleeves," "Go Down, Moses", "Scarborough Fair," and "Raisins & Almonds,") seem more popular and most students actually like them. These later songs seem more "serious" and not as corny, so naturally I'm interested in the idea of including similar styles of songs earlier on in the Beginner Course.

4) What are some ways that I can make the learning of the five first notes (C, D, E, F and G) more interactive and fun for the younger bunch? I have a five year-old, and he has struggled somewhat with just knowing the letters, let alone making a connection between these letters and pressing a certain key on the piano. Even in my several years as a school teacher I never worked with that age group, so this is slightly further away from my element than what I'm used to.


Ideas are brewing

Relax, I'm not going to use a coffee-brewing analogy to describe the process involved with my ideas. But I did speak to a teacher at The Music Connection, and she has more than 40 students. Even if she charged as low of a price that I do, she would still be pulling in a comfortable $3,800 a month, which is higher than the salary I was making as a middle school teacher in Salinas. And she undoubtedly charges a much higher rate than me, so she could very well be clearing $4,000 a month, even after taxes. Money isn't everything, of course, but pursuing something you love to do and dumping a job that you don't love as much, in the interest of still being able to put food on the table, is something worth investigating. Besides, coffee is getting really expensive. Did you know that a "tall" house coffee at a Starbucks used to be a dollar, and now it's like $1.95? That's 2 minutes and 30 seconds worth of a half-hour piano lesson!

But all coffee aside, I spoke to this teacher for a good half hour or so, and part of her success is that she teaches multiple instruments, including not just piano but also guitar, ukulele, and some brass instruments, as well as voice. Now, if I try to sing, I sound something like a dying whale, or (in the words of "Penny" from a Big Bang Theory episode) a cat being run over by a lawnmower. So I don't think I have any business teaching people how to sing. But my experience with the violin as a kid may be a more promising situation, meaning that if I wanted to expand my teaching services, I might just "have to" get my violin repaired and fixed up, and buy a new bow, and I might just "have to" brush up on my violin skills by practicing it at home (darn) along with the piano (darn) so that I can also offer beginner-level violin lessons and get more students that way (darn). Variety in a job is good. It's kind of like tasting different blends of coffee, with all the different flavors they have.


Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts, comments, inquiries, insults, etc. I'll be posting part of this blog on my discussion forum on the ThorGunter.com website as well, so comments on it are also welcome!
  

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Live Performance Updates, Advertising for Shows, et al

Okay, I'm going to be completely honest -- I don't actually know what "et al" stands for. I just know it means "and other stuff" and I've always wanted to use it. When I first started copyrighting my music, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. actually used this abbreviation to describe my piano album. They called it "Hailstorm at North Lagoon, et al", using the title of the first song and then just said "other stuff". My first reaction was, "How dare they?" because I didn't actually know what the abbreviation meant. I don't really know where I was going with this, except that I really hope I used it correctly, and adding a third item would have created way too long of a title.

In any case, I played a show at Wine Time last weekend, which I can touch on briefly, but I also hope to mention a few things about advertising for my shows. I wanted to talk about piano lessons too, but I'm planning to include that discussion in a future blog. So really, just a few things about the Wine Time show and advertising, and a little bit of the "et al".


My new relationship

The fist thing I want to share is that I recently rented a Roland PA system (just one speaker) from The Music Connection, the music store in Chico where I teach my lessons and buy my music equipment (or occasionally loiter). I had been using a mini-amp that hooked up to a microphone, which usually worked well if there was a small-ish crowd. But sometimes there are large crowds at Wine Time and I wanted a better sound anyway. The rental is cheap, but to buy the system is $600, which is well worth the money and in my future for sure. I was so impressed and enamored with the sound quality that I went on Facebook the same day (I'm not making this up), created a brand new Facebook profile, put a picture of a Roland speaker as the profile photo, and wrote "Roland Speaker PA" as the profile name, as if this was an actual person. I then signed off, signed onto my own Facebook account and declared that I was "In a Relationship" with the Roland sound system. That's how much I liked the sound quality (embarrassingly enough, I posted something along with this new "life event" saying that I was spoken for and that the ladies were flat out of luck).


Before making any judgments, you should know that the speaker really made the music sound better. I got feedback from a few friends saying that it sounded crisp and clear, with no distortion, so I was excited and will be renting this system every time I do a performance, assuming I haven't yet bought it. I got a lot of "hahaha's" in the comments from other Facebook friends, but the really funny part of this is that it took a surprisingly long time to make that Facebook profile. I had to go to the original Fabebook home page, pretend to be another person, start filling out all the information (including the gender, which I filled in as "Female"), had to use another email address besides my own (they won't let you make two separate Facebook accounts with the same email), and I had to go to Bing Images to find a picture of a Roland speaker that resembled the one I rented, which was harder than I expected. I then had to sign out, sign into my real account, search for myself, add myself as a friend, sign out, sign in as "Roland Speaker" and accept my own friend request, sign out and back into my real account before finally declaring a relationship with myself, and then go back once again to accept that I was in a relationship with myself and that I, and myself, were indeed in love.

I won't go into too much information about the suggestions I got from my peers, regarding this life decision ("What is wrong with you?" "Have you ever considered therapy?" et al) but I will say that this entire process of pretending to be a separate entity and confessing my own love took an entire 45 minutes on the computer. I didn't add any hashtags to this, although I believe some have started their own... you know, #PASpeakersCannotConsent,  #DontYouHaveAnythingBetterToDo, among others.

Some people have said it won't last, but whatever the case may be, the sound system is great and I think I played a pretty good show. A group of my friends showed up as well and showed their support. One of them tried to do seductive poses while rubbing his chest as I was performing, but I'm going to pretend that didn't happen.


Advertising planned for Thursday 4/28/16 (tentative)

In order to book shows I obviously have to put in substantial effort to advertise, and I've done this quite a bit in the past. I don't particularly like doing it, because I'm just not a "salesman" by nature. But until I can throw money at someone (ha!) and actually hire a person to do this, I don't have much of a choice. The few venues in Chico where I've been successful (Monk's, Wine Time, La Rocca, and the Interfaith Council of Chico) all resulted from me simply parking my car, walking around town with business cards in one hand, Demo CD's in the other, and just walking into places. I plan to do this again this week (hopefully Thursday). I rarely get hits from people finding me online, although the people at the Rock House in Yankee Hill discovered me via an ad on Craigslist. However, when I do advertise in person it allows them to go online and find me so they can listen to more of my work. So far I've learned a few key things about this whole process, in case other budding musicians are interested in doing gigs in town. I am in no wise an experienced PR guy, but for what it's worth, this is what I've learned so far:


1) Walking into the place where you want to play, and meeting the person (you know, in person) is the best way to introduce yourself. When they see your face, and your smile, they remember you. I also find it helps to dress up a little. Not super fancy, but professional. Every time I walk into a place to check out a possible venue, I ask to speak to the manager, and when the manager arrives the first thing he or she does is look me up and down. They want to see how serious you are and whether you're really a legitimate, working musician.

2) If you don't have a Demo CD they won't even look at you. Almost inevitably, in every venue I've gone to, the manager or owner always asks for a Demo CD. It's usually the first thing that comes out of their mouths. I also give them my business card so that they have a way to contact me. If you don't have a Demo CD, they won't bother. Restaurant managers are busy. They don't have time to research you on the Internet to try and find a music sample, and they aren't just going to take your word for it when you say "I'm good." A place like Chico, especially, is filled with musicians. Not only is the town filled with musicians but it's also filled with wanna-be musicians. Owners and managers need to hear your music right away before they can even consider dumping a bunch of money to have you sit in their restaurant and play an instrument.


That's the other thing. People are not going to spend any money on you unless they become convinced that they will make that money back, and will make more money on top of that. That means your music has to bring in crowds. The nice thing about fancy restaurants is that they're expensive, and this means that even if your music brings in an extra four or five patrons, it will offset that cost for them and a little bit more. That's what they want. From the viewpoint of the business owner, regular live music will also end up bringing in more customers in general, because the news will go around that the restaurant offers live music, and people like live music.

3) They rarely call back. I found this out very quickly, and I also found this out when I was playing keys in a band a long time ago. We ended up doing a total of four shows in Chico (this was back in 2008 or so) and that was after having to call back numerous times just to remind them who we were. Again, restaurant managers are busy. They have a million things to do, and calling back some salesman-like person, who's advertising his music, who COSTS MONEY, is not going to be the first thing on their minds. I usually wait a few days and then make follow-up calls. I've always had to keep a list of the places I visited, so that I can keep track and call them back to follow up. It usually involves me saying something like, "Hello Mr./Mrs.  ______, this is Thorsteinn Gunter. I stopped in the other day to talk to you about providing live music for your guests, and just wanted to see if you'd still be interested." You know, that kind of thing -- pleasant, professional, and not too pushy. Also, remember the person's name! "Hello uh, uh, uh, Mike is it?" doesn't sound strong or professional. If you're a good people-person or have PR experience, none of this will be a problem. Also, instead of calling back to follow through, you can always go back and visit a second time.

4) Pick a good time to visit. Since I tend to ask for the manager or owner, I always try to stop in during a time when I think he or she will be working. This means business days (Monday-Friday) and I never walk in during lunch-time hours or dinner-time hours. This is when they are usually the most busy, assuming that it's a restaurant or similar venue. If you stop by during those hours they might simply be too busy to talk to you. I usually try a 2-4pm window, or maybe a morning window, like 8-10am, when it's usually quieter and there aren't as many guests. I also avoid Fridays in general because they just seem busier on Fridays, and they're usually thinking about the weekend. Many restaurant managers work weekends anyway, but I avoid those days too because that's another time when they are super busy. A lot of this is just common sense and requires nothing more than putting yourself in the shoes of the business owner, who has a ton of stuff to deal with.

5) Be clear about your rate. I've been in a couple of situations when there was a misunderstanding about the rate that I charge for live performances. This can be awkward. I charge what I believe is a very reasonable rate ($35 an hour) for live performances, and most places, especially fancy places, don't bat an eye at this at all. On the other hand, I've run into people who told me this was way too much and that they could never afford that kind of rate. The important thing is to make sure the owner, or whoever is paying you, knows your rate, and that the person you're telling is not just someone at the restaurant. I once played a show where I was crystal-clear about my 35 an hour rate, and I made sure the manager knew about this. But the actual owner of the place never got the information. On the night that I did the show, they tried to pay me $20 for two hours of playing! That's ten bucks an hour, which, these days (in my opinion) is almost insulting. The manager knew my rate, but he never relayed this information to the owner. Again, it's important to be clear. I had to actually tell the owner what my rate was (the $20.00 for two hours was their rate), and even though the misunderstanding was my fault, I still demanded my $70 for the two hours. They begrudgingly gave it to me, so it still worked out -- but again, a situation like that can be awkward.



Pardon me, I need to rant for a second...

While on the subject of being paid for a service, one thing that amazed me in this learning experience is how many people ask me to play for free. There are certain times when I am okay with this, and that is when it's for a benefit or charity of some kind.  When I played for the Interfaith Council in Chico, for example, which was a sit-down concert, I agreed to do it for free, but it was for an event that had proceeds going towards the firefighters of Chico as well as the Chico Police Department. That kind of stuff I don't mind doing for free. A good cause is motivation enough for me to show up with my piano and play where they want me. But aside from that, I generally don't do free shows. A number of people have tried to lure me into playing free shows by using the word (and this word makes my skin crawl) "exposure". It bothers me that some people think I should feel "lucky" to be "given this opportunity" to perform my music, and it bothers me even more that other musicians agree to this, for that same lame reason. Musicians should all get paid. 


In my experience trying to book shows, I've heard people say the following with regard to compensation:

1) Well, we can't pay you, but you can leave a tip jar. You could get a lot of tips, you know.
2) Well no, we can't pay you, but you're welcome to bring your CD's to sell, and you'll get lots of exposure.
3) Well, we can give you some money for gas, you know, ten bucks, or so. But I'm not going to pay you $35 an hour (laughs).
4) Oh. You charge?
5) Why do you charge so much?
6) We pay a flat rate of $20 to all our musicians.

I'm not kidding about #4, by the way. The reason I'm mad at musicians who agree to do free shows is that they are making it "the norm," so that business owners will be more likely to expect this from other performers. If all musicians charged, business owners would eventually expect that as the norm, and that's the way it should be. The "exposure" thing, honestly, gets my blood boiling. It sinks the musician down to a level where he's willing to "do anything" as long as he is heard; it's a gesture of desperation, and I simply don't want to appear desperate, regardless of how well I'm doing.

In case people are wondering, here's why musicians should all get paid for doing live shows:

1) They practice. Well, some don't, but if they don't they probably suck, in which case just don't hire them again. If someone gives me a really bad haircut, I'm still going to pay for the haircut. I just won't go back to that hairdresser anymore. It's simple economics, and it's the right thing to do -- you receive a service, you pay for it. With regard to the musicians who do practice, especially ones that are good, people have to realize that some of them practice every day. It takes work, effort, time, dedication, and for bands with multiple musicians it takes an enormous amount of teamwork and collaboration.

A studio manager (left) and a drummer (right) setting up instruments and sound systems for a rehearsal with a band that I played in (2011-ish).


2) They had to learn the instrument. This means they either taught themselves, which took time/energy/effort/practice, or they took lessons from someone (time, energy, effort, practice, and usually huge costs for the lessons).

3) Their instruments and equipment cost them a lot of bucks.  Anytime you see a band playing, we're talking thousands and thousands of dollars worth of equipment that they bought with their own money. I'm only a "one-person band", and just the digital piano that I use, along with the stand and the bench, was well over a thousand dollars. This does not include the other equipment I use.

4) Yes, they're doing something they love, but they're giving up 2 (or 3, or 4, etc.) hours of their time to, you know, work. And actually, it's more than that. I only charge for the time that I'm sitting in front of the piano, playing my songs. I think that's generous. The time it takes me to pack up the equipment into my car (this includes the digital piano, the stand, the bench, sustain pedal, power chords, audio equipment, spare parts, duct tape, table, tip jar, etc., etc.) is about 15-20 minutes. Then there is the time it takes to unpack all of that stuff and set it up, plus do a sound test. This takes about another 45 minutes, minimum, and that's assuming there are no hang-ups. Then, after the show, 20 minutes to pack the stuff into my car again, and about another 20 minutes or so unpacking it at my place. I'm nice enough not to charge for all that time. This is why I glare at people who ask me to do free shows. And as far as the people who say, "well, you get tips!" those are the people whose restaurants I want to visit, and when I get the bill, I'll say, "I'm not going to pay this bill... I mean, you get tips, right?"

By the way, a band with multiple players has much more equipment to deal with than a soloist like myself (i.e., the drum set, for one,), the equipment is often far more expensive, is more complicated to set up, and often takes longer to get ready. The idea that some people willingly do this for free is beyond me.

Now, enough with the rant. I'm hoping to make some connections on Thursday and I'll be sure to keep people posted about future live shows. It may be a while before there are any that lock in right away, although I'm fairly sure Wine Time will book me for another one, as they do fairly regularly.

Until then, it's off to my day job!


Friday, April 15, 2016

Review of "Monday" by Ludovico Einaudi

Who is Ludovico Einaudi?



















Ludovico Einaudi is an Italian pianist and composer, now 60, who has released thirteen albums and has written music for a host of films and commercial projects. I'm a huge fan of his music, and his compositions have had a strong impact on my playing style.


What makes a song beautiful? 

Einaudi released a piano album in 2006 called Divenire, which includes a song by the same name, as well as a song called "Monday" (#3 in the album) and it's one of my favorite pieces. As a listener, I don't think too much about why I happen to love a piece of music -- I just listen to it, and sometimes I'll listen to it repeatedly until I realize that I'm late and I have to be somewhere. But as a composer I occasionally ask myself, what specifically is it about a piece that makes me love it so much? I tend to be very methodical in trying to identify the structure of a piece, and whether there is a certain part of this structure that constitutes some "magic ingredient" that makes me, or other listeners, say "Wow, that's beautiful."


Some people ask, "Why does there have to be some specific pattern or structure in a piece that makes it beautiful? Can't it just be beautiful for beauty's sake?" Along the same lines, people tend to ask these two questions as well, which are quite similar:

1) Is the "beauty" in a piece of music really just about patterns, chord structure, tempo, dynamics, etc.?

I'm going to be blunt: YES. It is definitely part of that, but it's also the emotional reaction generated by the listener, which depends on both the structure of the piece as well as how the piece stimulates the brain and the subconscious memories of the listener's personal experiences (otherwise known as relatability, which I'll talk about later), and this relatability can be especially powerful when lyrics are used. You know, the lyrics about the heartache that you could totally relate to, because it also happened to you when you were younger -- that kind of thing.

2) Can't the beauty in a piece of music be just that -- just pure beauty? Like a mystical, mysterious beauty, a beauty that doesn't require an explanation, which comes from the ether, or is merely a spiritual feeling that is just "there"?

Answer: NOPE :)

Okay, so moving on. As I said, I wondered why "Monday" struck such a chord with me. After thinking about this for some time I came to several conclusions, and one of them is that I really like "Monday" because of how much I dislike Mondays.


I love "Monday" because I hate Monday

I tried to do some research about this particular song, and I was able to find plenty of references to it, as well as recordings of the actual songs and videos of people playing it, but I wasn't able to find any information that revealed what the song is actually about. I didn't spend a ton of time researching, though, so if you're able to find anything more about it, I want to know! The song is played in a minor key, with transition notes both in the melody as well as in the background (left hand) that make it sound gloomy. It seems to match the title of the song perfectly. Whenever I listen to this piece, right from the beginning I get images of waking up on a dull, rainy Monday morning, looking out of a rain-splattered window at the ugly, gloomy wet day, and thinking to myself, "Shit, it's Monday." That's exactly the kind of emotion this song evokes in me, so I'm assuming that Einaudi had one of these days and decided to write a song about it. What's nice is that everyone has had a day like this (and most people hate Mondays), so this song is very relatable, even without lyrics.


One of the arguments I've made in the past is that the title to a song can contribute a great deal in terms of the emotional weight of the piece. You can read about this under the section entitled "That's your song title, really?" in my blog post from January, Why Music Is Incomplete Without a Background Story, Part 2. The chord structure, melodic patterns and the tempo in "Monday," for example, already create a gloomy feeling, and it tends to create images of something dreary, like a rainy day, or maybe even the image of somebody sitting at home and crying. That in itself is well-crafted, given that the composer intended to create these kinds of images or emotions. But just adding the title "Monday" makes it that much more powerful, because now we have an idea of why the person is feeling gloomy. Personally, I might have given a more specific title, but I think it's still good.

I'll reiterate again that I didn't research this song as thoroughly as I would if I had more time on my hands, so as far as I know the title could very well have a deeper meaning. The composer could have had a dog named "Monday" that died, and as far as we know that could be the real meaning behind the piece. But if that's the case, the vagueness in the title means the composer knows most people will jump to the conclusion that it's about a crappy Monday and not about a dog, or that the title has a "double meaning", in that it could mean a crappy Monday but it's really about his dog named "Monday", whose untimely death creates a similar feeling that a Monday morning does.

On the one hand, I sometimes wonder if "Monday Morning" would be a better title, but in a way  I actually like the single-word title, because it seems to imply that it's not just the mornings on Monday that suck, but the entire day sucks. It puts Monday on the receiving end of this blanket-sweeping judgment (in a good way) that many people can relate to, because of their distaste for this dreary, tiring first day of the workweek.


"Wrap it up already!" some might say

If you have already listened to this song via the link below, you'll notice that it's well over six minutes long. Many musicians and songwriters today consider that "too long" for a song. With some songs, I would agree with this. With others, not necessarily. I think it depends on the song. I used to agree that anything over 5 minutes was "pushing it" and that people would generally become bored. I do find this to be true with a lot of songs, but throughout my experiences I've also come across 6-minute and 7-minute songs that left me stunned, or speechless, because of how perfectly well-written I found it to be.

I also believe that the concept of people who push this "5-minute limit" idea, as if they are some kind of authority on music, is actually cultural. We live in a world where everyone is in a hurry. We have things to do, and six minutes can be a long time. We need to go somewhere. We have to stop by and get milk. We need to check on our kids. We need to check Facebook. A six minute song requires you to step back from that world, sit back, close your eyes, and actually suspend yourself from reality for a moment while you immerse yourself in the piece.

Nevertheless, my first reaction to hearing "Monday" for the first time, other than I found it profoundly beautiful, was that it seemed to drag a little towards the end. But I've listened to it several times since then, and each time I hear the song I seem to be less bothered by the song's length. A song that has a nice melody and a beautiful background, like this one does, can often get away with a long-ish song. This is especially true if there is a decent amount of variety in a piece. Even a beautiful piece, although it can get away with being longer, will get repetitive if there's only one or two parts to the song. In this particular case, the dragging out that seems to occur towards the end doesn't bother me quite as much as it first did. I've spoken to some other people that have listened to it (and Einaudi's music in general) and some have said they love the piece and could listen to it another two minutes without being bothered. There are other people who will get impatient after just three minutes. The ones who get impatient after just three minutes, as far as I see it, are in too much of a hurry. So people have different reactions to things, and this leads me to my next topic.


There is no music police

As an artist, and someone who is now reviewing a song on a blog post (which reminds me to mention, by the way, that I do not pretend to be even close to qualified to critique any kind of music) I do subscribe to the notion that quality is important. But the word quality is a qualitative word, and it's often very subjective. I believe that structuring a song in a certain way, i.e. using a good melodic contour and a well-balanced ostinato pattern, is a good way to create quality. But to me, "quality" does not mean that you're just following a bunch of rules about how to write music. Something is "quality" because a large number of people love it when they listen to it, regardless of whether they know why, and regardless of whether somebody, somewhere, made up some rule saying "you can't do this" or "you can't do that."

To this end, I'm going to immediately challenge (and disagree with) the following commonly-uttered arguments:

1) A song should never exceed five minutes. If it's more than five minutes, it's too long and people will get bored.

2) There should never be two consecutive notes repeated in the background.

3) The more complex a song is, the better.

4) The simpler the song is, the better.

5) A song has to have a bridge.

6) You can't change key signatures during a song.

7) You have to change key signatures during a song.

8) The melody of a song should stand out in an obvious way and be completely separate form the background.

9) The first verse, second verse, chorus, verses with embellishments, and the bridge have to be in the same place in a song, thereby following a "magic formula" that all songs need to have in order to be good.

10) You can't (fill in the blank here), and you have to (fill in the blank here).

These are just a few that I've heard. The main reason why I adamantly oppose all of these "rules" is because they can all fit into the sentence "A good song must be _______" or "A good song must have ______". But under whose authority? There is no music police, and there is no music code, like there is a Vehicle Code at the DMV or a penal code to determine punishments for breaking laws.


The only thing that gauges how "good" a piece of music is, and I mean the only thing, is the effect it has on the listeners. If people like it, they like it. It is also my opinion that you shouldn't really have to "learn" how to like a piece of music; you should be able to just listen to it and like it instantly, without any effort, and without having to analyze or pick apart the piece. There's no such thing, in my opinion, as learning how to be "sophisticated" enough to like a song. If you're one of these people who believes this then you're being pretentious. The enjoyment of a musical piece should be effortless, and instant. It's a little different from reading a novel, in which case it sometimes needs to "sink in". I think that with music there should be instant gratification.

To avoid any confusion, if I ever say that songwriters "should" do something, it only means that, based on my experience, I think most listeners would like it. For example, I do believe that it's good to alternate between ordinary chords and more sophisticated chords, or even just use sophisticated chords in a song (i.e. use 7th chords, diminished chords, suspended chords, alternate bass notes, etc.), but I suggest this because the vast majority of listeners seem to love it, and not because I'm being a pompous jerk.

Now, back to this issue of length. Yes, I think people often find songs in excess of five minutes to be too long, and they can start twiddling their thumbs towards the end. But I think there are exceptions. Some songs, for example, in addition to having a bridge, will have some sort of climax or dramatic riff in the end. In this case, I think some people don't mind a song being longer because there's more variety. I do think that if there is only a verse, a chorus and a bridge, especially if the verse has no "second verse" or embellishment, then yes a lot of people will get bored after about four and a half to five minutes.


But the song "Monday" comprises quite a few components. It's like being served a dish at someone's house when you come over for dinner, and instead of the expected three- or four-course meal (which would be typical) you find that there are six different courses on your plate. You know the experience well -- you see that there's chicken, but then there's also the potatoes, the rice, the green beans, the potato salad--geez!--and the bread? It seems that Einaudi wanted to take a bunch of different stuff and squeeze it into one song. The verse in itself seems to have three different parts. The first part of the verse can be heard immediately at the start, with no intro. There's also a very distinctive bridge, starting at 2:55 in the video (the link is below). I could go on a little more about the structure of the bridge, and about how the rhythmic structure of the bridge is different from the verse (which, I think, makes a good bridge), but I just want to point out that this song has quite a few things going on. It seems that Einaudi was trying to "fit" all the parts into the song, and was trying to give each part a justifiable amount of time. The relative complexity of the structure is what makes this song six and a half minutes. He also repeats one of the parts to his verse in the end of the song, and he could have avoided that. But again, this song is so pretty that I feel like he was able to get away with a song of this length. The bottom line is that there is no rule about how long a song should be. We can critique this guy until we're blue in the face, but the fact still remains that Ludovico Einaudi tours internationally, performs his pieces in front of thousands of people who spend a lot of money to see him. People go and see him for a reason, so it's clear that many people don't seem to mind his lengthy songs (he writes other songs that drag on like this as well). Now, the ones who write lengthy blogs are another story -- don't even get me started on those people.


I love Monday because of the repetition... and because it repeats itself

I want to cover this characteristic about the piece before I touch on a few others. One of the attractions of music is that much of it has a certain amount of repetition, and there's a fine balance between having just the right amount of it versus having too much. For some people, too much of it can get annoying. On the other hand, a song with no repetition at all can seem too random and people can get the feeling that the song doesn't "go anywhere". These characteristics also seem to hold true with lyrics and poetry.

As far as my take on this piece, I find the repetition absolutely beautiful. The first three notes in the right hand (the melody) create an introductory theme that gets played repeatedly throughout the piece, and with different variations. One of the variations is played with intervals (double notes) instead of the single notes. I have always found this effective when trying to come up with a second version of a main verse.

Then there's my absolute favorite part of this piece: the repetition in the background. The left hand part is very well crafted to begin with, because it harmonizes nicely with the melody. But the part I love even more is that whenever the melody "pauses," the left hand plays two distinct notes to fill in that pause. It then stalls, and plays a third note, which is the same note as the first. In the video link below, the pianist first does this at 0:25, and the second time you'll hear it is at 0:50. It repeats many times after that. (For you nosy music snobs, the three notes I'm talking about are F sharp and G sharp, along with the leading tone A and B with the right hand (respectively) and then back to F and A, respectively. The right hand part constitutes a minor (flatted) third and fourth in the key of F sharp minor). The fact that it only does this when the melody "takes a break" is a great example of a perfect balance between the melody and the background. The right hand's addition to those three notes creates a nice harmony, which just adds to the effect (the right hand can be used to play parts of the background, even though the background is typically played with the left hand on piano).


If you only compose in the key of C, you're lazy

I'm probably going to get assaulted by a mob of angry rock musicians for even daring to write the above line, but I really believe it's true. For those who may not be aware, the key of C is the easiest key to write in, because on the piano it only involves white keys. You don't have to worry about playing any black notes because there are no sharps or flats in the key signature, unless there are accidentals, and if you don't know what an accidental is that's okay. For this reason, songs in the key of C are the easiest to write on paper, and easiest to play on the piano. All of the songs that are taught during the first couple of months of a beginner piano course are in the key of C.  Many bands and rock musicians, therefore, tend to write in the key of C because it's just easier, and they think it doesn't make a difference if you play a song in C versus G, or F, or any other key. So let me state for the record, I believe very strongly that it does make a difference.


C major scales played with both hands, using the "thumb-tuck" technique

The "key" that a song is written in, for those who may be wondering, has to do with the range of pitch that the song is in. A song that's in the key of G could be played at a fairly high range (depending on which octave you play in) while the same song played in the key of C will be at a lower pitch range. The reason why the two would be considered the same song is because the "distance" between the notes in both versions are exactly the same. People who do not have perfect pitch (which is most of us, including myself) will not be able to tell which song is in which key just by listening to it -- a person with perfect pitch will. However, the same song that is played in two different keys will sound different to any listener, and may even have a different emotional effect.

One of the reasons why "Monday" sounds so beautiful is, undoubtedly, the key that it was written in, which is F sharp minor. Had it been written in a different key, like C or B flat, it would still be the same song, with the same exact melody, but it would sound different. It would have a different "feel," and very possibly it would sound a lot more bland.

To illustrate this concept, we can use the images below as an analogy of songs written in different keys. Most would agree that both images are essentially the same picture, they just look a little different. The difference, obviously, is in the colors. The two versions can even have a different emotional effect when they're being viewed.

                    

In the same way, two of the same songs that are written in different keys are kind of like those two pictures, and the difference in the colors is analogous to the different keys that the songs are written in. And as far as critiquing the images, doesn't the picture to the left appear to be a little more bland, and slightly more dull, than the picture on the right? Many would agree that the picture on the right creates a little more emotion (whatever that emotion is) because the colors are more vibrant, making it look more "dramatic." This difference in quality can be just as great when you're dealing with two songs that are each in a different key.

I have even explored the different effects that certain key signatures have -- for example, slow melodies in G major or F sharp major, when played below middle C and in the 2nd inversion, will usually create a very "warm" and romantic feel, which is great for the sappy love songs that some people love so much.


Simple songs are not always simple

There are several other points I can make about "Monday" and why I really like the piece, but I won't delve into it too much because it would mean transitioning into other topics that I can definitely cover in a future blog. But the melody is one, as is the difference in rhythm between the verse and the bridge. The pianist who performs the piece in the YouTube video (no last name in his channel but he goes by the name of Alex) also does an amazing job at creating the emotional effect that I think Einaudi had in mind. He does this by slightly delaying some of the eighth notes in the left hand, a very common and effective technique for adding emotion to a piece. You can see examples of this at 2:36, 2:45, and others. He essentially delays the bass notes in the beginning of some of the measures.

There is also the third part of the main verse, where Einaudi uses a series of trills, followed by his use of syncopation. To me, this is brilliant. If you don't know what those things are, don't worry about it, you can still just listen to the song and bask in its beauty :D

With regard to the key signatures, the example I will end with is one that many are familiar with, which is the German composer Beethoven and his famous piece The Moonlight Sonata. The first movement of that piece is known for having a very serene, sad but beautiful progression, with triplets in the background and a very solemn, simple melody. Depending on who you ask and what skill level they are, many would regard the first movement of this piece as a very "simple" but pretty song. As far as the actual complexity of the piece, the first movement is simple -- sort of. It's simple in terms of people actually hearing the song, if that makes any sense. When you play the song, however, it's mostly simple except that it's in a very difficult key signature. Beethoven wrote the piece in C sharp minor, which has a bunch of black keys, while the song happens to feature constant chord changes, accidentals, and "double sharps" (I'm not even going to get into explaining what that is). For beginners this piece is actually very difficult because of the key it's in, but otherwise it's a relatively simply song. For experienced/advanced pianist this piece is not hard, and especially not hard compared to the third movement.


I wanted to bring up this last example to emphasize that Beethoven wasn't being a jerk by composing a song in C sharp minor. He knew that some people would find it difficult. But he chose C sharp minor anyway for aesthetic reasons, because he knew it would sound beautiful; he knew it would sound a certain way in that particular pitch range, versus writing the song in a different key. Even when the song is played in good old C, it's only a half-step away from the original key, but the song still sounds different in C natural (and in my opinion, not as good).

So if you want to write good music, be like Beethoven -- don't be lazy. An artist might be happy painting with just three or four colors, but just think how much more creative and better he would be if he had a range of 12 different colors to choose from. That kind of freedom is the freedom you have when you know how to play songs in different keys.


"Monday" by Ludovico Einaudi








Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Elephant in the Room (Musically Speaking)

Pay no attention to that elephant...



I'm going to be performing at Wine Time Restaurant in Chico next weekend, so I thought I would say a thing or two about live performances. And yes, it has everything to do with elephants. Anyone who has read more than a few of my blogs should be confident that I can successfully relate the two. (Hashtag: "Enough with the analogies already, Thor!"). But I'll get to the elephant later.

In the mean time, it should suffice to know that I've regularly performed at three different venues in Chico: Wine Time, Monk's Wine Lounge, and La Rocca Wine Tasting Room (I don't know what it is about mixing wine with piano music, but people seem to like it). I also performed at The Eagle's Nest Art Gallery in Quincy (Plumas County) for a retirement party, and at the Drunk Brush Wine Lounge (again, these people with their wine and music). The other out-of-town gig I've done is a restaurant in Yankee Hill called The Rock House. It's actually a wine tasting room, beer tasting room AND a restaurant, all rolled into one.


Surprisingly, my experience with these venues didn't differ very much from one another. There were some acoustic differences where I had to adjust for the sound, but not much. The set-up and sound testing took about the same amount of time in all places (about 45 minutes -- a short-ish time, since all I have is a digital piano to plug in and some kind of sound source to connect).

There are several experiences that I keep having in all of these venues, and the main one is that there are always distractions. Some venues have more than others. It would be fair, I think, to mention a few examples of these distractions, and to then explain what I call "The Elephant Test."


Hearing versus Listening

To understand the nature of these distractions, it's important to know that casual "live performances" are usually different from actual sit-down concerts. Casual live music is more like "dinner music," or background music, which has usually been the case with the gigs I've been doing here in Chico. A "concert" is often thought of as a little more formal, planned, organized, and focused, where people actually purchase tickets in advance and have to wait in line to see the person perform. In casual live performances, the audience members (who are often eating, drinking, socializing, etc.) are often just "hearing" the music and not so much "listening" to it. This is completely okay, and actually it's sort of the point -- it's background music. In this type of environment, I expect people to merely "hear" the music while they're relaxing with their fancy wine glasses, and I've learned to keep the volume level down just enough so that they can clearly hear it, but at the same time the music doesn't drown out their conversations.

A concert is a bit different. In a concert, you can be the spotlight. You're expected to be the spotlight. You're allowed to be a little bit of an "attention whore" and you're expected to sometimes talk between songs. The volume level can be louder and more attention is directed at you. The interesting thing is that these two types of performances -- the "background music" and the sit-down concert -- sometimes overlap with each other. Sometimes a casual live performance can turn into a sit-down concert, if people get drawn enough to the music. They will start turning their chairs to face the musician, they stop their conversations, etc. I've had this happen several times, and it does happen quite often in general, depending on the dynamics of the audience, the quality of the music, and how much wine the people have had (I've found that when they're about three or more glasses in they usually go on yammering for at least another hour).


I just got distracted from writing about distractions...

Okay, so onto the actual distractions. Seeing as I have had a couple of small sit-down concerts in Chico, I can tell you that there are far more distractions that happen during a "casual" live performance than there are at a sit-down concert. What are they, you ask? Well, here they are:

1) Background noise. This includes things like chatter, people socializing, laughing, the clunking of silverware and dinner plates, people coughing, etc.

2) People moving around. This surprised me slightly when I first started performing, but it is a significant distraction. People walk in front of you quite a bit (or sometimes behind you) and sometimes they stand right in front of you, blocking any view you had of the audience. This is especially true in small venues. There is a surprising number of times when people stood in front of me with their big butts right by my face. After a few glasses of alcohol, a live pianist kind of becomes a piece of furniture; the wine-intoxicated patrons still hear your music but they sometimes "forget" you're there.


3) Street noise. Very often, people hire me to play on a patio or a courtyard. These wine tasters don't always get enough with the wine and music, so they need to absorb the wine and music outside for a pleasant atmosphere. Monk's Wine Lounge (which has closed now) was right in the heart of downtown Chico, and when I used to play there I was constantly bombarded with traffic noise -- cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, etc., even though the patio was at the back of the building, and not in front where the main street was.


4) The staff at the venue. This, of course, is not a criticism against the staff, since they have to do their jobs and also since they are the reason I'm getting a paycheck in the first place. But yes, they have to walk around a lot and serve the guests. Sometimes they ask me to "pause" for a moment so that someone can make an announcement, or because they have a guest wine maker who wants to talk to the patrons about the grapes he used, where they were grown, etc. I actually played at one venue where the door of the restaurant's kitchen kept swinging open when the servers came out with the entrees, and inside the kitchen the cooks were blasting their own music on a CD player, not realizing that there was live music going on in the patio. See, distractions.

5) Temperature. This one is huge. Like I said, I often play outside, and Chico can get baking-hot in the summers. Even when it's in the mid 80's or anywhere in the 90's, when you're playing outside, you sweat. The people who come to listen to my kind of music usually expect to see someone who's dressed up, too, so I typically wear nice clothes, even if it's warm out. This can be an issue inside as well, depending on whether the building has good air conditioning, or sometimes it's crowded and the body heat starts to add up. One solution to this is that you can bring a small fan to keep you cool (and you can make jokes to the staff about it being your "number one fan" in the audience).


6) Smells. Not always an issue, but sometimes. At a restaurant there can be a variety of smells, like delicious shrimp, or something like a stir fry. Even the appetizing smell of gourmet food can distract you a little. Sometimes people can smell, too. You know, body odor, too much perfume, too much cologne, or they just flat-out smell funny.

7) Positioning. This often depends on what kind of instrument you play. For me, I use a sustain pedal that attaches to the digital piano, and the petal has to be taped down or it will move around too much when I use it. I sometimes tape it down in the wrong spot and my foot has to be in a position I'm not used to, but I still do fine. As long as I practice enough, this isn't much of an issue. This same thing can be true with the position of the piano bench,whether or not the ground or floor is at an incline, etc. All kinds of things like this can come up, because the spot you're playing in is always going to be different than the spot you play in at home.

8) Nerves. Some people get nervous, and this can be a distraction, although this has never been an issue with me so far, mainly because I've done this enough times that I've grown numb enough to it. Having worked as a teacher has also helped because I'm used to standing in front of a bunch of people and talking, so stage fright is not so much of a thing with me. The key to solving this problem (no pun intended) is an ample amount of practice, as well as experience. Just as it was in the case of my teaching career, the more you do it the less nervous you get.


How you will never have to worry about ANY of these distractions

Yes, the solution is exactly as simple as I'm making it out to be. All of the eight distractions I mentioned above (there are probably more) can be conquered and rendered inconsequential by doing one thing: practicing your set list, over and over, every day, until the songs become so automatic that you can virtually play them while nodding off from not having enough sleep. When the distractions happen, you will notice -- but your fingers will keep playing. Just acknowledge the distraction and stay focused, while letting the fingers automatically do what they've done a thousand times already. It's somewhat similar to having someone talking to you while you're driving. Most of us can still drive and make a left turn, for example, while a passenger is in the other seat talking, because we've done this so many times that it just becomes automatic. In the same way, if you practice your music enough, the distractions will fail to throw you off your game. Unless the distraction is a fiery meteor that comes crashing through the ceiling and sets the building on fire -- and even then, keep your focus and keep playing. If you only practice once in a while, and it's not enough, the distractions will throw you off a little bit, and even if it's in some subconscious or insignificant way, some audience members may notice a little bit.


This is where the elephant comes in handy. The "Elephant Test" involves the necessity to get into the "zone", which means that you just get into your music emotionally, while you're playing it -- close your eyes, become a little bit uninhibited, pretend that you're practicing by yourself, pretend nobody's watching, etc. This is very healthy, and -- assuming you've practiced -- it will help you play better. It can also help those people who get nervous when they play in front of others. The "test" to see if you're really focused, and that no amount of distraction will deter you, is that an elephant should be able to walk across the room, and you should still be able to stay focused. The only problem with the Elephant Test is that, for some reason, I've had a really hard time finding an elephant. What would be really great is if the elephant walked up to the musician and made that squealing elephant noise, and it still didn't distract the musician.


Can't find an elephant? Then play like Hilary Hahn

The idea of the Elephant Test came to me when I watched a performance by an American violinist named Hilary Hahn. As a professional, she clearly practices her violin on a consistent basis, because you can see how focused she is when she plays. During her performances she is completely absorbed in every single note she plays, as if the audience is totally blocked from her mind. I really think that an elephant walking across the room during her performance would fail to get her attention. That's how you should play an instrument. I maintain this argument even in light of the fact that Hillary Hahn (as far as I know) typically performs at formal, sit-down type concerts, where there are minimal distractions to begin with. Anyone who watches her would undoubtedly agree that she gets so much into the "zone" that a little chatter or breaking of plates at a restaurant would not throw her off one bit.

Hilary Hahn

Running out of practice

I've come across a few people that seem to have a misconception about practice. They believe that if you practice a piece to a certain degree, you will always be able to play it flawlessly, even in the midst of multiple distractions. I have found that this is far from true. A musician may be able to remember the piece, and may be able to actually play it quite well -- but playing it and performing it are two different things. Performing a song involves having to multi-task even more, because you have distractions to deal with and, for some people, nerves, or even sound issues. Not only do you have to practice a piece but you have to keep practicing it on a regular basis to make sure you don't get "rusty". After a number of months of not playing a piece (even if it's a piece you wrote) you'll find yourself hesitating in certain places, playing parts a little "sloppily", or pausing slightly in parts of the song because you're thinking about what needs to come next. So yes, you can play it, but to be able to fluidly perform something, you have to keep practicing it regularly.

The same thing is true with running. What do you think a marathon runner does? He runs regularly, presumably every day, along with any other exercises he makes to prepare for a marathon (stretching, aerobics, other types of cardio to keep in shapes, eating the right foods, etc.). If he does all these things, runs the marathon, and wins, he is obviously thrilled and is entitled to full bragging rights for all his endurance and hard work that helped make him win.


But let's say he stops running completely, right after the marathon, and doesn't run or exercise at all for the next five years. Do you think he would be ready to win a marathon again? No, he wouldn't. The same is true with music. You have to keep playing certain pieces, or keep playing music at that same difficulty level to maintain those skills and not get rusty. Yes, music is like riding a bike (you can go years without playing, then pick up your instrument and play like you never took a break), but to keep being able to perform with one hundred percent confidence you have to play regularly. Again, the distractions that present themselves during a performance are a whole new thing you have to deal with that you won't experience when you're practicing at home.

And on that note, here's a link to a Hilary Hahn performance. And yes, that pun was intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnIrE7_1YA