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TONAL REFRACTION
A blog honoring vocal coach Barbara Maier Gustern, beloved vocal coach to so many singers of so many genres: brutally attacked on the street, died of injuries on March 15, 2022. Reflections on music, singing, teaching, listening….
Music: A noun but not a thing
In order for a tone to become compelling it must pass through a living body into a receptive ear. This observation, seemingly...
artie73
16 minutes ago1 min read
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Templates are not Gateways
Music pedagogy is too often based on short cuts which become templates which effectively limit perception while pretending to have...
artie73
2 days ago1 min read
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Out of the Traps
Over 30 years ago I fought to get as my piano student an already prodigiously gifted young composer. Breaking all the school's rules I...
artie73
3 days ago1 min read
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Talk about traps:
Words easily become traps when they pretend to name experiences which have no names. Print, too, becomes a trap when it is taken as the...
artie73
4 days ago1 min read
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The Fact Trap
The trap into which we all fall is factual: measurements rule. As a teacher of children it took me quite a while to extricate myself...
artie73
5 days ago1 min read
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This Mozart business
Why does it keep coming up? The answer is in the question mark: an element of punctuation which musicians are, as a rule, not taught...
artie73
6 days ago1 min read
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"Mozarted to death"
Raphael Mostel's apt diagnosis of so many fatalities, haunts me. For I was Mozarted to life as a child, via sounds of his music on my...
artie73
7 days ago1 min read
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Mozart: Boring?
Something's wrong but it's not him. It's the system that reduces Classical music to a system of visual coherence belied by acoustical...
artie73
Jun 111 min read
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"Mozart is boring as all get out!"
Do you agree? Then how is it that, without a clue as to who or what "Mozart" might be, sounds I stumbled upon in my first encounter with...
artie73
Jun 101 min read
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Perfection and predictability
They go hand in hand. Which came first? Now I literally hearken back to tonality as I (falsely) learned it as a child, falsely insofar...
artie73
Jun 91 min read
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Perfection rules. Or does it?
Perfection rules at this time of year: competitions, recitals, exams. Having physical disability, I was unable to do as I was expected...
artie73
Jun 81 min read
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Rule-Bending
A couple of days not posting nonetheless rich in reflection: my attention is repeatedly drawn to the over-reliance on conformity in music...
artie73
Jun 71 min read
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Why is music so difficult?
It has to do with time, not beats, but time as it flies - or doesn't: mental speed. Ear is faster than eye. Okay, but how can one make...
artie73
Jun 41 min read
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Perfection be Damned
Having worked intensively on the Schumann Fantasy Pieces Dave Eggar and I did not have time to dig into the Brahms E minor. When we...
artie73
Jun 21 min read
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I Always Hated It, Until Now
The life of the ear was proved yesterday when Dave Eggar came over for another life-changing rehearsal, this time of a work which I have...
artie73
May 311 min read
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The Box of Words
Hannah Arendt was clear on the subject of how trust in the ear was never brought up in all of her education. I have long felt that...
artie73
May 301 min read
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Vibrations Rule
It is only via vibrations that I can make myself be heard: words connect in a way, but within the commonality of the ear in no way...
artie73
May 291 min read
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