Phrasing

Alan would sometimes try to stump me with music things he learned in piano lessons. One I vividly remember was him asking me if I knew where the end of the phrase was in the fast part of Mozart's Rondo alla turca (at 1:10).

Mrs. Chang had a special way with Alan in their lessons. Her facial expression didn't change that much during a lesson. She had this stern press-lipped half-smile most of the time. But in the subtle changes in the tightness of the press, the angle of the corners of her mouth, the expression in her eyes, she could make it clear what she was thinking. The tone of her voice, too, did not change much. But there was a huge difference between, "Good," and "You need to practice this, young man."

She taught him to understand the theory and the history, the importance of form, intention, provenance, and structure.  It wasn't enough for Alan to learn how to play a piece -- he had to learn the piece. For this one, he learned that it was the third movement of a sonata, that Turkish was in that year, code for anything that sounded exotic and eastern. And of course, he learned where the phrases began and ended.

The key to this puzzle is that the phrase ends in the middle of the string of sixteenth notes at 1:22, and what sounds like the end of the phrase is actually the beginning of the next. I knew this, not only from my own music theory background, but because I was at that lesson when she taught him that. Alan had forgotten I had been there.

Sadly, Mrs. Chang died shortly after Alan did. But, I can't help but think that she is able to help him now, to set him straight, to make sure that he bows, that the bench of his piano is set up perfectly, that his feet are positioned on the pedals, before he starts to play. I can't help but hope that what we see as the end of one phrase is really the beginning of the next.

Evening at the Piano

When Alan switched from music store lessons to full on Suzuki lessons with Mrs. Chang, he really excelled. As many of you know, part of the Suzuki method is active participation of the parent in the lesson and at least early on, in the practicing.

When I started violin lessons, Mom and I would read the introductory material together, learning about chin rests, shoulder rests, f holes, the names of strings, practiced where to put each foot, each elbow, each finger. When I started playing actual music, the responsibility shifted to Dad, who was still Ricky at the time. His long-distant trombone experience in high school was enough to get him through those early days.

For Alan, Mom and Dad covered the majority of those responsibilities again, but as he became more advanced, my visits home from school included helping more and more with the technique of practicing -- when to take things slow, how to feel the music, how to adjust tempo and emphasis musically, not herky-jerky.

As Alan prepared for recitals and competitions, he had to play pieces from different periods, so there were a long string of modern pieces. One of the early ones was Bartók's Evening in the Country. Alan's first take was cutesy and light. I worked with him extensively to get the feeling that the country in question was rural Transylvania, where people were of Hungarian, Romanian and German heritage, not known for their lightness. I remember prancing around the living room like an idiot to get Alan to understand the paradox of spryness with heft.

It was an important moment in his musical development. His rendition of this piece was the first time I could really truly feel something in his music. He got it.

Maybe this was the precursor to the role of music later in his life. Maybe this is why he always had music playing -- the pensive dark music to match his mood, the light happy music to try to lift it, the songs he sang over and over again, the ones he wrote (always with lyrics full of despair). Maybe these moments paved the way for the soundtrack, the music that haunts me now that he is gone.