WEBVTT
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Alright.
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Hi.
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Another episode with me at the piano, Daniel Anastasio, and my buddy Isabel Hagen, who is kind of a violist and definitely a comedian.
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I feel like a lot of people would say the opposite.
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She's definitely a violist and kind of a comedian.
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Who?
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I think of you as a comedian first now.
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I feel like that's because you res you just want to like be respectful of my like desire.
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Well, because I know you and I know that's what you're you're I don't want to say true passion, because it's not like you're not passionate about music.
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No, I'm not very passionate about well, dude.
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Part of this podcast I do feel is me trying to trying to remind you how to be more passionate about music.
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Yeah.
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Well, every time we do an episode, not really, I don't think we've done it on camera, but off camera, I'll like cry a little because I'll be like, I forgot how much I loved that piece.
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Yeah.
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It's just doing it and going through school and just the field kind of squeezed it out of you, all the passion.
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Yeah, I I think it's as simple as burnout.
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I think I just I personally burnt out a little bit and got so into comedy at the same time.
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So it kind of just like went like this.
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And then now it's kind of meeting again.
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I'm kind of in a way, I feel like I'm going through a similar type of thing.
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You are, because you uh were living a very traditional musician's life, right?
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You were teaching at a university, performing concerts, but you really wanted to sort of do more in this sort of like educational slash entertainment sp what would you call it?
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Space.
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Uh what would I call what I'm doing now?
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Um it's kind of music appreciation, just not in the way that it's normally thought of at the moment, I guess.
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But I'm kind of trying to bring I'm trying to bring people into the spirit and the feeling of the music that I love.
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That it's the same feeling I felt when I was seven.
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You know, when I was sitting down at the piano and feeling some kind of connection with a measure in Chopin that I felt and I couldn't explain why.
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And then, you know, school happens, life happens, you're trying to uh get better at a craft, you're trying to get technically better at something, and by necessity you you lose some of that um simple, naive connection that got you to the dance in the first place because you're trying to you're just trying to learn, you're trying to take in for uh take in information and therefore you're trying.
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And like the act of trying is not the act of connecting.
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Like in other words, if I'm trying to be good at something, to learn something, to perfect something for my teacher, um, and kind of sculpt something and then hold it up to them and say, Hey, how's this?
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Is this good?
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Um, did I do good?
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Did did I learn how to play Brahms correctly or Schubert correctly?
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It is impossible to simultaneously feel a totally personal, to me, genuine connection with the music.
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You are a student in that process, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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It's just how do we then escape that process, integrate it all, and return to something much more pure?
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Well, it starts so early on.
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If you're taking lessons, music becomes an assignment.
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Even if you really love it, you're preparing for your teacher, and every week you're checking in and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're doing competitions and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're playing just concerts and you're just trying to play as well as you can.
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And sure, there are countless artists who would say that in their concerts they're just completely transcended and connected with the music, and that's great.
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But I think the field itself really lends itself to not that, and instead, kind of a what I was experiencing, I think, was just just like a bummer relationship to the music and a a disconnect uh from it, and then also the audience will then feel it in that way rather than I mean, you know, there's some purists who would say like you shouldn't have to contextualize the music, you shouldn't talk over it, you should just let the music speak for itself.
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But I mean I just completely based on the success of like the videos you post alone, it just shows that there's so many people hungry for sort of an expert, which you are, to like invite them in and contextualize it a little for them.
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Because that's what you're doing, you're offering some context.
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Well, like one of the way I like to think of it is okay, the music speaking for itself implies a language that it's speaking, right?
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If I don't understand that language, then it's not speaking to me.
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Right.
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It's like showing someone a foreign film in a language they don't understand and saying, well, it's speaking for itself.
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We don't need subtitles, just and you're like, but I literally don't know French.
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So Right.
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Like, well, French speaks for itself.
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Okay, well, I don't know French.
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Yeah.
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So I believe you that it speaks for itself, but it's not speaking to me right now.
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So like I I mean, it it just seems like a very it always has seemed like a cop-out to me to say the music speaks for itself because um and and and it and it also does.
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Like in other words, a late Beethoven quartet would probably be a great example of oh, the music speaks for itself.
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Someone would say that as in like it needs no further context because it's just a spiritual divine thing, and like yes, and right, like like yes, it can stand on its own um in some context, but in 2026, if I'm playing for a bunch of people in my town in San Antonio, Texas, um why would I not want them to um hear what I'm doing?
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It it's like I could speak German to them and be like, by the way, this is profound.
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Hope you uh enjoy it, and they can just take my word for it and clap, or I could say, Let me translate some of this for you.
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Um, it is what it is.
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Maybe Beethoven would c rise from the grave and say, Don't translate my music.
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Okay, well, um you dead.
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And also, like and also, of course, you wouldn't care because you'd be probably be appalled that we're playing your music and not some new brand new stuff.
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You'd be like, What happened?
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Do you have music?
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Right.
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Like, why do you have to dig up mine?
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Yeah.
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To some degree.
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Okay, I'm probably gonna get some hate for that, but you know what I mean.
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So much hate.
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No, from our seven listeners.
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Everything, I everything contradicts itself for me because there's part of me that I just I love contextualizing music.
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I think people connect to more styles of music when it's in film, because we're obviously giving it a visual context.
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Like uh, take the music from Succession, the TV show, which is very like what you what would you say, like Beethoven slash Schubert inspired score by Nicholas Bertell.
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Really great score.
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Um, but if people had never seen the show and just heard that music, I bet a lot of people would just write it off as some classical stuff that they don't that's not for them or that they don't really care for.
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But because they associate it with the show and because it's such a great score, it's like the two things it makes non-classical music lovers love that score.
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Yes.
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Because they have a simple entry point that then allows them to say, I can enjoy this.
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I have a little some little visions in my head that are probably from the show, and then I'm off to the races with my own imagination.
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Yeah.
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It's like a little gateway.
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Um, at the same time, you know, a lot of people say music is the universal language.
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It needs no explanation, you know, it should just speak for itself, and it should, you know, we we must just let people, we don't want to limit people's interpretation by giving it a context.
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You know, both are great.
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Like there's different people who have different, like for me, it's probably valuable for me who are like as someone who's really familiar with the language of classical music in the broad term, classical music, broad sense of the term, who should just go and listen to concerts without context sometimes to just like exercise that part of my brain and to like let myself have my own meaning.
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But someone who's never been to a concert before or who doesn't have that much experience with this language could really benefit from a little gateway into it, which is what you're providing with your shows, like what you did last night.
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Thanks.
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Yeah, I I mean, and I I don't think it's controversial.
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Segue.
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Well, yeah, fair.
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But um, like I don't think it's a groundbreaking thought.
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Like, you know, I think so many classical musician uh classical music organizations today know they have to be doing this because they're like, okay, how do we get more audiences?
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How do we get younger audiences?
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How do we mix it up?
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We gotta we can't do the same old thing.
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They just know how to do it.
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So, like, because we weren't trained, our generation, probably the next generation, will be better trained on this, but we weren't trained not only to not talk about music, we weren't trained, I mean, into audiences, but we weren't trained to be able to understand expressively what we're doing.
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I really, I really don't think we were trained, we were mostly trained to master the instrument and to master different styles of playing from a technical and a stylistic standpoint.
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We weren't trained to be like okay, okay, uh how would you describe that first eight-bar phrase and um how would you describe it to someone who has absolutely no idea any uh about Mozart, you know?
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Like to be able to articulate, to know what you're doing, know why you're doing it, and then to be able to articulate it clearly to someone is not something that's at all in our curriculum in conservatories.
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And to me, that is the most valuable skill.
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Like so many people can play good enough, so many people can play fantastically, where the average person on the street would be astounded, like would be like, oh my god, you have such a gift.
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Talking about the the top, the top thousands of 10,000 people who are studying music right now, they would be all on an equal playing field, in my opinion, to the average person.
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It's like when I play viola in comedy clubs and I'll play just like in a way where I'm like, Yeah, this is not good playing right now.
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I'm not warmed up.
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I ooh, I missed that note.
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And I'm not trying to like like these are like it's just a lot of people go to comedy shows who have just never been to a classical music concert, they've never seen a live string player, and so they're just like that was amazing.
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Yeah.
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And and it doesn't make me feel like, oh, I'm amazing.
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It makes me feel like, oh, I've been too hard on myself and taking this way too seriously when like just the facility and musicality that that will that naturally comes from so many players who are just beating themselves up is such a gift for people.
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That is the reframing I think that is really the most helpful is to see it as think about how many people are missing out on this inspiring gift that you have.
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We just don't have that mindset that, oh my god, I I have this inspiring gift.
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We have the mindset of not good enough because that's what was drilled into us.
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Sometimes I'll play a whole Bach prelude in my comedy shows and I'll be like, That sucked.
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And then I look out in the crowd and there's someone like tearing up.
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Yeah.
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And I'm like, oh, it's not about me.
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Like it's it's like that just was really impactful for this person.
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So it's actually not about how I feel now, it's how it affected them.
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Right.
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Well, I mean, one of the joys of the past few months as I've been able to like communicate and play at the same time and take people through that in a kind of concert way, in a way, is that it it relieves some of that perfectionist mentality for me.
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I feel like I'm playing just with my shoulders down because it is about the totality of the impact that I'm making and a kind of learning process that people are uh joining me in rather than let's see how my performance measures up to some platonic performance, either in your head as someone who's listened to it a lot on a CD, or my or my head um as someone who has been drilling it in the practice room and has some kind of idealistic version of it that I want to convey.
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Right.
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I mean, it is worth noting though, to to go on the flip side.
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You are someone who maybe still, I don't think so still, but until very recently would practice like six hours a day.
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Okay, but I have a caveat for that.
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Okay.
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Because not that that's bad.
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I'm just saying you'd needed all those hours to be able to play with such like now you get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
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For sure.
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I think it's it's shifted.
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The the purpose of practicing has shifted for me, where for a long time I was playing catch-up in my own mind, where I was not someone who was practicing more than an hour a day when I was young for very long, which okay, an hour a day when you're young sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but like it's not enough to be a concert pianist.
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Definitely not who goes to Juilliard and you know, no, no.
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So when I got into Juilliard for Masters, I was like, oh my god, I have to really catch up to all these people who are blowing past me.
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They're playing all this incredible rep.
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And you know, I probably got in because people could sense that I had some kind of connection to the music, and I had a really good audition.
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I had a really strong audition.
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I played really well that day.
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Um, so I could play really well, but not reliably technically to like win a competition, win a big competition.
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So in those years, I was practicing out of sheer survival, and my shoulders went up.
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I use that as an example because it's just tension, right?
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I had a lot of tension.
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I was I was moving away from my own voice musically, just little by little.
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I needed teachers at Stony Brook University to really calm me down during my doctorate and get me back in touch with something more relaxed.
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That was post-Juilliard.
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That was post-Juilliard, yeah.
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So a lot of school and I needed every bit of it.
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But during those years of catch up, I was practicing my ass off.
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Now I practice not for that reason.
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I practice because I I genuinely enjoy the process more than I enjoy performing.
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I mean, it is like reading a good book for me.
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It's like I'm in the discovery phase at the piano.
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Um and and I know how to practice.
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And if I'm playing something technical, I'll I'll bite down on my mouthpiece and like, all right, let's do it.
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Let's like put in the hours with the metronome, do all that stuff.
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Um, and I I can do that, technical work, but for the most part, I'm just loving the process of getting lost at the piano.
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I mean, it's a luxury to be able to do that, to have the hours, and you know, I don't have a family, I don't have kids, like all this matters, right?
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You're so alone.
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I'm all alone.
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So this is my solace, but it's connection, it's where I'm finding the most connection.
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So it's filling me up spiritually to be connecting with this music for that many hours.
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Um yeah.
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I had a similar reawakening with enjoying practicing, but that came from starting a new skill and being really bad at it.
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When I started comedy, I was bad because I was just a beginner.
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You're supposed to be a good idea.
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Is there anyone in comedy who's just good right away?
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I don't in stand-up, I don't think so because I mean there are people who get better quicker due to natural talent, slash they get in more reps more quickly than other people, but not really.
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Like just to be able to consistently do well on stage is just something that takes time and then the learning how to write a joke, not only just a joke that works structurally structurally, but your voice.
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Like I write, I don't really like to write jokes with other people.
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A lot of comics like to bounce ideas off each other and give each other tags.
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I don't really like to do that because anytime someone gives me a tag, I'm like, well, that would be funny if you said it.
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Right.
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But that I know it won't be funny if I say I have to now put that in my if I'm gonna take that tag, I have to like recalculate it and process it through how I would say it me.
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So just like finding that.
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I think some people get lucky and find their delivery style and voice a little quicker, but it's not just no, I mean, I don't know.
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I'm sure there's exceptions, but generally no.
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The answer to your question is no.
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But so I was bad, and then I started going all these open mics and getting better.
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But that that is though, such a sorry to cut you off for a second, but that is such a misconception, right?
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The average person probably thinks, uh maybe some of the magic has been uh deconstructed over the years, but like the average person probably thinks, wow, this person is just they're just a funny person.
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Like they get up there and they're just hilarious.
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But the truth is, there's people who are funny in the room, there's people who are funny on stage and not in the room with a bunch of friends, and there's everywhere in between.
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And you either way, you have to put in the work.
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Either way, you slice it.
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Yeah.
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Either way, you slice it.
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Like being funny on stage into a microphone to make a group of strangers laugh is a very specific skill.
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Yeah.
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One doesn't having that skill doesn't mean you don't have other skills, and having the skill to make your friend group laugh at a party doesn't mean you'll be able to translate that on stage.
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Um I forgot the point of what I was saying.
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I'm sorry.
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No, I don't I don't care.
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Great.
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I'm off the hook.
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Um sorry, I'm a little uh a little tired.
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I went to a wedding yesterday.
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Um here, you okay?
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I'm fine.
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All right.
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But being so I was a beginner at comedy and then getting better with these tangible results because going from sucking to not sucking is very different from what we do as musicians, which is we're already good, and then we're just sort of like refining every day and just getting that much better.
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Yeah, we spend so much time refining, refining, refining, refining instead of learning maybe one other skill.
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Right, right, complement the already 98% good that we are to like okay, I mean, in that one thing that it's like like for me, learning how to talk and play is like I mean, has done wonders for my ability uh to connect with my audience.
00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:45.119
Um, you know, it's it feels it's so relieving when I have attention from people instead of if I'm only playing the piano, I'm only gonna get a certain amount of attention for for a variety of different reasons.
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:55.839
And I think a big reason is that it's a language that not everyone has the context for um in this day and age, in this society, for this, for many different reasons.
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:01.759
And that's not something to roll your eyes at or throw your hands up or say, what happened to our culture?
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.359
You know, it's more like, yeah, look, classical music isn't even ours.
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:19.680
It's this Western European tradition from like hundreds of years ago that we I would love to develop a fresh relationship with for our audience, and like any way you can, anyway you can do that.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:20.640
Yeah.
00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:27.200
Um I mean, it is I don't know if this you know the Marshall McLuhan quote, the medium is the message.
00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:27.839
Oh, yeah.
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:36.559
That's kind of speaking more towards technology, but the idea is it doesn't matter if you're reading great literature on your phone, like you're still reading it on your phone.
00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:41.039
So the medium is the phone, or I think it was a reaction to television maybe back in the day.
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:47.359
Even if you're watching something that's like educational, it's still on TV, like the just the medium counts.
00:20:47.680 --> 00:21:06.079
And I think that's a little related to like the issue of classical music and the concerts being kind of alienating because it's it's not really the music as much as it is the whole experience that is very specific and some would say outdated.
00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.200
I wouldn't say I don't think there's anything wrong with something being dated.
00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:11.039
I I that kind of annoys me.
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:12.960
Like, like get with the times.
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:20.319
Like, like I think it's good to have all different types of experiences, but there's a lack of awareness when we are doing that tradition.
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:27.599
And because of the lack of awareness, we abuse it to the point where like the concerts maybe it's just like way too long.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:27.839
Yeah.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:35.839
Or there's just way too many pieces like X, Y, or Z on the like there was no thought to the programming, besides like don't get me scared.
00:21:36.079 --> 00:21:44.400
You know, like they didn't no one thought about the whole exper the experience as a whole, which no matter what the experience is, you have to think about it as a whole.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:52.720
And these old institutions generally don't do that besides thinking, well, we need a concerto, a short modern piece, and a symphony.
00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:54.799
Like you know, and bing, bing, boom.
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:55.119
Yeah.
00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:59.119
And and and uh I uh afterthought is what do we say?
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:07.359
I've been to So many concerts where that I've been part of where people are thinking the morning of all right, what what do we what do you want to talk?
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:08.319
What do you want to talk about?
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.319
You want to say something about about Beethoven?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:11.279
Yeah, sure.
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:13.359
Totally winging it.
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:13.680
Yeah.
00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:15.920
And like, that's fine if you can wing it.
00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:21.039
I mean, if you're that skilled at it, but it's just another part of the show.
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:25.680
You prepare, you prepare like how many hours on your pieces, and then what?
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:28.079
You prepare for five minutes on what you're gonna say to the audience.
00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:31.279
It's part of the experience from the moment you step on stage.
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:34.079
Like, how are you engaging the audience and with what information?
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:34.720
Right.
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:45.759
And, you know, not to knock like different concert experiences, but there's been a lot of efforts in our world to reinvent the concert experience in this really drastic way.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:50.480
Like, oh, we're gonna do like a symphony, but it's in a bar, and like that's all fun and fine.
00:22:50.720 --> 00:23:17.279
But sometimes the like reinvention or like the fix to whatever the issue is can be as simple as maybe it's a conductor if it's an orchestra that just is like kind of more of a show person or like has more charisma, or maybe again, like thinking about the lengths of all the pieces you're like just one added thought into the whole experience, not like reimagine, because I think we want I want to preserve the symphony going experience or the concert going experience.
00:23:17.359 --> 00:23:19.119
That's something that should always exist.
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:25.279
Absolutely, but just think about it as an as an audience member for like a minute.
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:30.720
Yeah, I know like make sure you're not offering someone kind of an awful experience.
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:31.599
It's a low bar.
00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:32.799
It's a really low bar really.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:41.759
And so that's where I swoop in with my with my shtick.
00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:49.680
Um, well, you you mentioned concert length and last night uh at my show, my which I couldn't be at because I hate you.
00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:53.119
Well, you hate me on the you have a best friend who was getting married.
00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:54.240
Yeah, my friend's wedding.
00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:01.279
Um, but yeah, I was really excited as my first real show doing this, doing what I've been doing the past few months on Instagram.
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:03.599
What have you been doing the past few months on Instagram?
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:23.519
Well, just you know, this thing I'm doing of of kind of taking people through works um and demonstrating the connections uh either between them or the connections that the composers are making um with musical materials that illustrate some kind of story.
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:36.799
Um and it doesn't need to be any story beyond the music itself, but just to just guide people's attention with a little more clarity so that they can listen actively instead of passively.
00:24:36.960 --> 00:25:00.319
In other words, not just to think, wow, this music's so pretty, I can't wait to like listen to this while I'm going to bed, which is a million percent fine, or I just have a feeling like classical music is a good thing to listen to because it's I don't know, listened to by seemingly intelligent people or something that society has taught us, but instead to really just rip open the materials and say, all right, forget all that for a second.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:06.559
Listen to how this thing evolves into that thing and goes on a journey away and then returns.
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:26.880
And that is a story of patterning, it's a story of memory, how composers use our memory to um inflect like nostalgia and different feelings and different colors in the music that unlock some kind of unconscious memory in us as we're listening.
00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:34.880
It's something organic, it's something fundamental, it's where structure and theory and form actually have a purpose beyond just the textbook.
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:39.519
Because music, after all, is like temporal.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:41.680
I mean, it's unfolding in time.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.640
So in order for us to feel the expressive impact, a composer needs to use our memory.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:49.680
Right?
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:52.400
They that's why repeats happen.
00:25:52.720 --> 00:26:02.160
What do you go tell me a little more about how they use the memory, not just with repeats, but but maybe also with little motives that are recalled.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:08.400
Not like if it's a newer piece, like like a not a strict sonatiform piece, there might not be a repeat.
00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:09.119
Okay, sure.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:10.720
But some sort of recall.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.720
I okay, I'll give you a a great example, a very clear example.
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:19.039
Uh Francois Cooperin wrote this piece, The Mysterious Barricade.
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:19.599
Okay.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:34.079
Don't ask me about the title, because it's kind of enigmatic, but I think it has to do with masking at a at a ball, or maybe it has to do with people have speculated about different, I don't know, eyelashes or something that eyelashes?
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:35.200
What did I just say?
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:36.160
Don't ask me.
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:36.640
Okay.
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.119
I'm just saying nonsense at you for a second.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:41.680
You're just gonna take it and then I'm gonna go on.
00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:43.119
So now moving on.
00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:43.519
Okay.
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:44.880
Um you can look it up yourself.
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:49.200
The the Les Barricades Mysterious or the Mysterious Barricade.
00:26:49.839 --> 00:27:11.599
And the point is, I mean, metaphor aside, it's it's about a kind of ambiguity, you know, or like a a secretive maybe like um um a tension between something seen and something that is um there's a layer, there's a veil going on, okay?
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:20.160
And it and the piece lives in this kind of ambiguity of harmony and of how the voices interact together.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:26.960
So I'll just play like the first part of it, and then I'll I promise I'll get back to how it relates to memory.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:41.680
Okay, beautiful, right?
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:42.720
Just really simple.
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:44.240
What year was that written?
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:45.200
Great question.
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:46.160
I think it's right there.
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:51.680
Um well, Cooperan was born in 1668, but okay, so roughly it's a long time ago.
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:53.119
Roughly like 1700 or something.
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:53.680
Sure, sure.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:55.920
I just wanted like a a uh century.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:57.119
Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
00:27:57.359 --> 00:27:59.680
This is this is squarely in the Baroque period.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:00.480
Cool, cool.
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:04.640
Um, and but it feels kind of modern.
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.319
Uh it does.
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:06.799
Yeah.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:08.880
Why does it feel kind of modern?
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:20.000
Like it kind of feels like it would be a he's a it feels like he would be a composer in like the the Max Richter, like the new classical type.
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:22.720
Not that it sounds like Max Richter at all, but you know what I mean?
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:33.759
Just the I think I I think it's because composers return in the modern era, composers have tended to return to this to these simple harmonies.
00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:55.680
Uh, you know, minimalism had played a really profound role with like Philip Glass and Steve Reich and everything, where it's like, okay, um after it all dissipated with like Schurnberg and atonal music and uh music kind of separated out into a lot of different ways, and uh chromaticism pushed tonality to its limits.
00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:04.480
Composers rediscovered really a lot of Baroque music to to kind of find beauty in these simple sequences.
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:12.880
So right there sounds like so poppy.
00:29:13.039 --> 00:29:14.480
Oh, this like pop music.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:25.599
It's um it's because this piece, and this is one of my favorite pieces, so I don't mean this in a bad way at all, but it's like a little, it's like a little bit cheesy.
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:32.559
Yes, and uh like over-emotion, like like like uh schmaltzi, like I you know what I mean?
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:33.359
Not schmaltzzy.
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:53.359
Well, this is a little bit the difference between German Baroque music and French Baroque music, where someone like Cooperan is not afraid to write something that's a little more not trivial, but like incidental or kind of just uh ephemeral, where it's not rooted in this profound counterpoint.
00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:58.400
It's something that everyone can understand and that anyone can be moved by.
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:14.319
So before we get into the weeds about that though, because I could talk about that, what's really cool about this piece is it's a great example of how Baroque music is both the culmination of harmonies.
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.279
Like here we just hear we feel those chords, right?
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:25.680
But what a mu what a kind of contemporary composer may not do is make sure that there are actually four individual voices going on here.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.240
Like this is not just a churning of different harmonies and chords, right?
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:32.000
There's a top voice.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:40.160
There's a voice just under that.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:48.799
There's the left hand has two voices.
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:56.079
That one and then the bass.
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:04.400
By the way, that bass a little pockabell's canony a little bit.
00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:06.559
Maybe that's partly why it's so accessible too.
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:24.640
You know, um has that has that circle of four fifths kind of vibe where it's just we are just patterns are irresistible to us, those sequences that Mozart will tap into, that Beethoven.
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:30.640
Oh, that's so that is such a similar thing.
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:31.359
Very similar.
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:38.880
But the even the rhythm of it of the melody, but yeah, it's true.
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:42.559
Not just the harmonicer than the but uh but.
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:48.559
Oh yeah, that's good point.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:49.119
All right.
00:31:49.359 --> 00:31:50.240
Should I start doing this?
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:52.960
Cut to Isabel.
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:55.440
Isabel just created a new video for me.
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:56.640
Thanks, Isabel.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:59.279
Um so we have that.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:12.079
We have that like zooming into the detailed patterning of what's happening in Baroque music, which is always I mean, that's one of the things that people find so genius about Baroque composers, is like it all works out.
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:18.160
They got the inner voices, you could listen to any one of those four voices at any time if you wanted to, or bring each one out.
00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:22.079
Or you could just give in to that churning set of harmonies.
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:29.680
It's like a wheel that's just turning and turning and turning, where the spokes you can make them out at a slower tempo, but when they get fast, they get blurry.
00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:40.799
Right now, as per your initial uh question about memory, this is a whole I don't remember memory.
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:44.880
Um this whole piece is in a kind of cyclical form.
00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:53.680
So not only are the harmonies cycling, but it's a rondo, which is A, B, A, C, A in form.
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:57.200
A being that first section that I just played like 72 million times.
00:32:57.599 --> 00:33:06.480
And then the B section is a section that departs from that, not so drastically, it's the same patterning, but goes to different harmonies, it goes to different keys.
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:08.559
The C section does the same.
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:15.839
But in between those sections, and at the end, it returns to the same section, the very, very beginning.
00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:21.440
And so even though the music is exactly the same, we feel it differently.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:22.880
Why do we feel it differently?
00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:24.480
It's the same exact notes.
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:30.720
Well, it's because we did something in the meanwhile, right?
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:43.039
We had an experience, we had moments in life, we listened to different keys, we understand this subliminally as a kind of journey away and then return home.
00:33:43.519 --> 00:33:51.920
Um which is yeah, I mean, this language is a little bit overused when we're describing pieces like we started in B flat, the home key, and then we departed.
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:58.079
But this rondo form is a is a really beautiful way in a simple way to illustrate that.
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:29.440
This piece is only three minutes long, but you still get that little journey away and then return to something that is very familiar, but by the end feels more like a feeling of acceptance and knowledge and less like the opening of it, which is more maybe uh embarking on something or beginning that wheel starting to turn, or our brain are starting to to go towards something new, some new thoughts.
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:39.760
This piece is so uh simple in a lot of ways that makes it pretty accessible even to someone who knows nothing about music, they might hear this and go, I like that.
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:40.960
I want to hear that again, right?
00:34:41.039 --> 00:34:45.519
They might add it to their playlist or something if it happened to come up on Spotify.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:57.360
So do you feel like when you explain pieces like this versus when you explain a more complex piece like uh, you know, I don't know, Brahms 118 number two.
00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:00.000
It's not that complex, but a more complex piece.
00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:01.199
Yeah.
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:16.480
Sometimes when you're doing your talking, it's I feel like you're sort of showing someone why they should like this or why they might find it more moving than what you would hear just on one listen.
00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:22.000
But with something like this, I feel like you're almost showing me why I do like it.
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:26.880
Which I find equally as satisfying because it's it's almost like identifying something.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:28.880
You're like, I knew I liked that.
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:30.480
Why do I like it so much?
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:33.760
Oh, I got another example of that, but can I play this real quick?
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:44.159
Because I think it might be cool for someone to hear I want to give someone the chance who's listening to this to feel what it feels like for me to return to that section.
00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:46.400
Uh I don't know how many times.
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:46.880
Twice?
00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:48.400
Yeah, maybe three times.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:53.119
Okay, so this is the entire hold that thought because it's a really nice new thought.
00:35:53.280 --> 00:36:02.320
Um, this is the entire barricade, uh mysterious barricade, Les Barricades Mysterieux, don't speak French, by Francois Cooperin.
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:26.239
One person clapping.
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:29.519
Is there anything worse than just one person clapping?
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:35.119
Because you need you need the accumulation of applause in order for it to be real applause.
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:36.079
That's interesting.
00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:40.719
Applause is only it only exists in numbers.
00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:41.840
Really.
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:43.679
Applause is plural.
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:45.599
Right.
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:47.920
Technically, the word is plural.
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:50.480
Applauding applause.
00:38:50.719 --> 00:38:56.079
But but the thing the I the idea of getting applause, you can only get that from multiple people.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:56.800
Yeah.
00:38:57.519 --> 00:38:59.760
So thank you for your clap.
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:00.400
Right.
00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:03.360
I don't know how you would call it individual clapping.
00:39:03.679 --> 00:39:06.079
Um speed also matters though.
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:12.559
Like if I was like it'd be like, oh, she loved it, but if I'm like the illusion of multiple claps.
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:13.920
Anyway, sorry.
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:15.039
It's okay.
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.840
Um so any reactions to that?
00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:24.400
Did you feel like we journeyed to a different faraway land and then returned?
00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:26.800
Or did you feel like nothing?
00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:31.199
Did you feel I mean, did you not feel you know what?
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:32.239
I don't really care how you feel.
00:39:33.119 --> 00:39:37.119
I don't want to, I don't want to give my I don't want to ruin a listener's interpretation.
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:47.760
But I will say just generally the way I listen to music, I as a child, I had a lot more of an expansive uh vision.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:54.079
Like I would listen to Dvorjak New World Symphony and I would see like a whole movie with like a field and like all these big scenes.
00:39:54.800 --> 00:40:05.679
And now music is so internal, like I just see feelings, I feel feelings and maybe a glimpse of a face or two people together or something.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:08.320
You know, it's it's it's come much more inward.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:27.119
I don't know if that's like sad because I've lost the childlike imagination or if it's fine, it just means I have more emotional stuff and working out uh right up here due to just years of so many different emotions and things happening to me in my life.
00:40:27.519 --> 00:40:39.760
But beyond that I won't say what I I think it is beautiful, kind of like returning to a book where even the same piece can feel different when you return to it at different points in your life.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:44.320
And and the associations that you make with a piece might change.
00:40:45.119 --> 00:41:08.239
And that too is a play of memory where you know that is not up to the composer or the music, but that is just a beautiful dance of association between our souls and the spirit of the soul of the composer, or however you would say, or the music that the you know the composer intended, whatever wh however you want to put it.
00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:11.840
But that is a constant uh dialogue.
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:17.599
I think that's why I really think uh music is not music until it's played presently.
00:41:18.239 --> 00:41:21.840
Like in other words, I don't think like sheet music is music.
00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:34.320
The way Boulez would say that you know you should be able to hear the music, appreciate the music just by looking at the takes a rare mind for one thing.
00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:34.880
Sure.
00:41:35.119 --> 00:41:37.519
Um, but also just music is sound.
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:41.119
And I think sound only exists presently.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:41:43.360
I know, hot take, right?
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:47.840
Um but well whatever.
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:52.079
This goes back to a little bit like the universal language thing where it's like music is a l universal language.
00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:53.360
Okay, well, what is music?
00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:55.039
Like, I mean It's sound.
00:41:56.079 --> 00:41:58.400
It's definitely what like John Cage thought.
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:06.000
But Or the absence of sound, which is still sound.
00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:13.360
Well, look, I'm not getting into the the abstract philosophical concept of music, but I just want to do that.
00:42:13.519 --> 00:42:19.760
I don't really don't want to do that and alienate all our listeners, but I do want to just bring it back to the present.
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:34.480
I think that the beauty of music is that uh it can be revived and revitalized and uh i uh uh created at any moment by someone who's willing to bring it to life.
00:42:34.719 --> 00:42:46.239
And to me, it's only alive when it's being played or performed or or um it exists in in sound on our ears that we can interpret in some way.
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:46.960
Right.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:53.199
It's a little bit of a tree falling in the forest kind of thing, but So I mean, uh are you including listening to a recording in that?
00:42:53.519 --> 00:42:54.559
I was thinking about that.
00:42:54.639 --> 00:42:56.800
I I'm gonna say yes.
00:42:57.119 --> 00:42:57.920
I'm gonna say yes.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:06.559
I'm gonna say if you listen to recording, yeah, that's a because those are sounds that are coming together to hit your ear to have an impact on you.
00:43:07.119 --> 00:43:11.280
Yeah, it doesn't need to be a live performance, of course, in order to be music.
00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:12.719
Right, right.
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:18.880
So hearing them do you ever hear music fully in your head?
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:31.920
Can you completely hear a piece like all the parts like I think I'm not someone who pretends to pretends to do eng engage with music in that way.
00:43:32.159 --> 00:43:36.400
If I want to hear something, um I I run to the piano and I play it.
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.559
So again, the process is so exciting to me.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:42.239
Like I want to feel it.
00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:43.199
You know what I mean?
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:44.079
This yeah.
00:43:44.239 --> 00:43:49.599
I don't want to judge I existing in my head is no, maybe I don't have that great of an imagination.
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:51.280
It's not imagination though.
00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:59.679
I think and I I bet our brains are are a little different in this way because I I actually and I I don't think I definitely know our brains are different.
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:02.320
Go ahead.
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:04.000
What do you mean by that?
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:13.920
I remember when I was younger, my dad played this recording of the Ravel string quartet a lot in the house, and I never heard it before.
00:44:14.239 --> 00:44:25.039
And the first movement and second movement especially just stayed with me so much that in school I was distracted in class because in my head I was just hearing the music.
00:44:25.119 --> 00:44:30.960
Just it was it was like st basically stuck in my head, but in a very rich way, like all the parts.
00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:34.559
It was like I was playing the recording over and over again.
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:38.000
And I think it's it's not like every piece I can do that.
00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:43.599
And I think a string quartet is easier than like a symphony where there's so many more parts.
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:49.679
But for me, music can kind of just exist in my head.
00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:54.400
Now, when I then put on the recording or hear someone play it, it's even better.
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:57.440
It's like, oh, we're taking it up a notch.
00:44:57.760 --> 00:45:02.639
But I for me, I don't know, for some people I do think it can exist just in our memory.
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:06.159
It's a beautiful addendum.
00:45:06.400 --> 00:45:08.239
Yeah, like I I totally agree with you.
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:09.440
I like that a lot.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.159
But maybe you don't even hear me.
00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.639
I mean, I do I don't hear a lot of music in my head.
00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:15.519
I feel bad.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:22.400
Some of my friends, I have a friend, uh Mateus, who is a violinist who I play with a lot, a lot of contemporary music.
00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:33.039
And every time we're on tour, when we're you know, getting ready for a gig, he'll stop each one of us and say, What music is in your head right now?
00:45:34.239 --> 00:45:37.199
Because for him, it's just running in his head all the time.
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:41.519
Whatever music it is, video game music, show music, classical music.
00:45:41.920 --> 00:45:42.960
We all have songs in our head.
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:45.679
I mean, even non-musicians get songs stuck in their head.
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:46.159
Sure.
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:47.599
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:47.920 --> 00:45:50.239
But not so much for me.
00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:54.639
Music is not thoughts are running through my head a lot.
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:56.880
Um, a lot more than music.
00:45:57.039 --> 00:46:02.800
I wish music was running through my head so they can kind of dampen some a little bit of the thoughts.
00:46:03.119 --> 00:46:04.320
You can stand to turn it down and not.
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:05.199
I can stand it.
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:08.239
Why don't we increase music about 20%?
00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:12.000
It's like thoughts down, maybe another 20.
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:25.360
You coming over to my house that we haven't seen each other in two months, and you're you have a concert in the city, so you're staying over, and yeah, you come over, you sit on the couch, you just launch right into some some like big trauma and you start crying.
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:29.199
Like it's just drawing, you're like, yeah, you're yeah.
00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:32.239
I mean that's it's like always on for you.
00:46:32.559 --> 00:46:42.000
Yeah, because I think I'm a little more of a introspective philosopher type than I am a natural musician.
00:46:42.639 --> 00:46:55.599
But I I will say, just for anyone who's listening who might be like, oh, like the uh musician Beethoven heard it all in his head because he was deaf, and or Isabel can hear wow, it's amazing she could hear music in her head.
00:46:57.119 --> 00:47:11.679
I it's literally a a skill that does bears no meaning beyond what it is, because I just I know so many people who claim that they have they have perfect pitch and they can hear all the music in their head, and they're just kind of boring musicians.
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:15.840
Like and but but you might not have that specific ability.
00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:30.320
However, you are like one of the most exciting, imaginative performers, and it it just doesn't like you use what you have, yeah, and it doesn't make you more or less of an artist or an or a genius to I hate the word genius.
00:47:30.639 --> 00:47:31.280
No, I yeah.
00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:45.360
I I I think I mean I value anyone who's able to connect in their own way with the music and then share that in the most meaningful and connective way for whoever's listening.
00:47:45.519 --> 00:47:45.760
Right.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:46.960
Like, period.
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:50.719
So you do that in your own way with your own skill set.
00:47:51.119 --> 00:47:59.360
I mean, you know, like s some people are bad technicians at the piano and have awkward technique by a textbook standard or by conservatory standard.
00:47:59.440 --> 00:47:59.679
Uh-huh.
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:10.239
And like and there are people who those are people maybe who I would listen to every single minute of the day over a competition winning pianist.
00:48:10.400 --> 00:48:11.679
It really just depends.
00:48:11.920 --> 00:48:15.280
It's like, what are you bringing to the table as you?
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:16.559
I want to hear you.
00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:19.199
I want to hear what you do with it.
00:48:19.519 --> 00:48:24.960
And then sometimes the piece is just so good that anyone playing it somewhat proficiently is good enough.
00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:25.519
Yeah.
00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:26.800
Like like Cooper N.
00:48:27.119 --> 00:48:27.440
Yeah.
00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:31.360
Like anyone playing that piece with the right notes, I'm like getting a tear.
00:48:31.599 --> 00:48:32.239
You know, it's true.
00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:33.920
Sometimes just the piece is enough.
00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:34.639
Yeah.
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.280
And as long as it's approached honestly.
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:48.159
But and and then there are people who you know might not even be able to decipher up upon a first listen the difference between a student playing that piece and you playing that piece.
00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:48.719
Yeah.
00:48:48.960 --> 00:49:04.239
But what what's cool, I think, is inviting those people to start hearing the differences and to start hearing the human choices that are made in addition to just these beautiful harmonies that exist because Cooperan wrote them and Yeah.
00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:04.880
Yeah.
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:18.719
I think the interpretation the interpretation is something that can only be enriched by one's own discovery of the material itself.
00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:25.920
So like uh I'll play you one more piece by Bach.
00:49:26.079 --> 00:49:28.239
Just say in the brogue period for a second.
00:49:28.719 --> 00:49:31.920
It looks like the same, it's gonna be the same rhythm as well.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:32.639
Don't ruin it.
00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:33.280
Oh, sorry.
00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:34.639
No, it's not the same rhythm.
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:42.559
But um it is a a work that relies on patterning and patterns, you know, which is a big part of my the talk I gave last night.
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:46.480
Where Bach is taking just a triad.
00:49:47.360 --> 00:49:51.199
Okay, just a B flat major triad as a starting point for a piece.
00:49:51.280 --> 00:49:54.800
This is his B flat major prelude from book one of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
00:49:56.559 --> 00:50:02.400
So staying in B flat, moving away, and coming back, and then reaching out.
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:03.360
Okay?
00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:12.000
Now he's gonna take that and use a sequence to put it down a few steps to a minor key.
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:13.760
Why don't we do it one more time?
00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:20.000
And then cadence or end the phrase basically to return.
00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:32.159
And this is all he needs to create a piece, to create a musical story, and as a prelude from the broke period, it's very improvisatory.
00:50:32.239 --> 00:50:44.559
Like he probably really did just sit down and well, I love uh this is a beautiful voicing of this beautiful B flat major triad in the same way that, like, honestly, a pop artist might, or a contemporary composer might take this triad and do that.
00:50:45.039 --> 00:50:48.239
But this is not how he feels about B flat major.
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:53.679
I'm playing it very romantically, very beautifully, sensitively, um, like Brahms or something.
00:50:54.000 --> 00:51:00.480
He thinks of B flat with excitement, with joy, with he wants to infuse it with some activity.
00:51:00.639 --> 00:51:01.440
So, what does he do?
00:51:01.519 --> 00:51:04.960
Well, let me just break up those chords with 30-second notes.
00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:07.760
Right?
00:51:08.079 --> 00:51:10.480
Same rhythm as the Cooperan, like I said.
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:13.440
Alright, fine.
00:51:13.760 --> 00:51:17.360
Now, this is the Isabelle is always right podcast.
00:51:17.599 --> 00:51:20.320
Um infuse it with some activity.
00:51:20.559 --> 00:51:21.599
Did you just do the thing?
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:22.079
Okay.
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:24.159
Um, infuse it with a little activity.
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:26.719
And this is also interpretation, right?
00:51:26.960 --> 00:51:29.360
Did Bach write a tempo marking for this?
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:33.039
No, he didn't write a tempo marking for any of his preludes in this book.
00:51:33.360 --> 00:51:36.480
So we have to interpret well.
00:51:38.559 --> 00:51:39.840
It's probably gonna be fast.
00:51:40.079 --> 00:51:42.000
We want that activity to be alive.
00:51:46.719 --> 00:51:49.760
And now we have like a little journey in B flat major.
00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:54.559
So we use some scales to kind of get to different keys.
00:51:57.039 --> 00:51:58.960
Modulate or change keys.
00:52:00.559 --> 00:52:03.840
And I'll just bounce around happily in B flat for a while.
00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:08.400
And what what changes?
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.400
The bass starts to chromatically walk up.
00:52:21.440 --> 00:52:25.280
Until we arrive at the dominant key of F major.
00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:27.519
Okay, so now we're in a new place.
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:29.280
Then we started.
00:52:30.719 --> 00:52:31.280
B flap.
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:33.199
Now we're in F major.
00:52:33.360 --> 00:52:38.559
And while we're here, he can start exploring, like we he can start improvising again.
00:52:38.800 --> 00:52:39.039
Right.
00:52:44.239 --> 00:52:45.840
Funky bass note D.
00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:50.079
Okay, this is like almost beta of vinian.
00:52:50.239 --> 00:52:52.400
This is like a suddenly dramatic overture.
00:53:03.039 --> 00:53:06.719
Okay, so these scales could take us anywhere on the keyboard, right?
00:53:06.800 --> 00:53:09.440
He's just choosing to land here on B flat.
00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:20.159
Alright, now we're back at that uh F7, the dominant of B flat, so we should expect to return to B flat now.
00:53:20.239 --> 00:53:22.159
It should be kind of maybe this.
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:25.519
You know, something like that.
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:36.639
But I mean, that is like some intense uh sidetracking here.
00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:40.239
We Diminish chord, way up here.
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:44.079
There's our B flat, but it doesn't feel safe at all.
00:53:44.239 --> 00:53:47.760
It doesn't feel like our home, because there's no harmony underneath it, right?
00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:56.880
He could have or maybe I don't know, done something kind of funky, but he just isolated by itself.
00:53:56.960 --> 00:54:04.159
That's the B flat we started with, but it feels alien until okay.
00:54:04.320 --> 00:54:06.000
Now we should have B flat.
00:54:06.960 --> 00:54:23.119
But that A flat questions it one more time before we return to the kind of playful starting point of the piece.
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:40.000
So within this improvisatory prelude, we have the start of a pattern that feels improvised, a total departure to something really dramatic and different and kind of scary, and then a return to that playfulness that we started in.
00:54:40.159 --> 00:54:47.199
So I think Bach is consciously or unconsciously creating a story in these two pages.
00:54:47.599 --> 00:54:55.920
Do you think in the time that this was originally written and performed, people would improvise in those parts and take liberties?
00:54:56.320 --> 00:55:03.840
Because now, of course, every pianist who's classically trained in playing this is gonna play pretty much exactly what is on the page of this edition.
00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:09.679
Um we don't I mean, we're not looking at the original manuscript even, but probably it's same.
00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.760
But but I'm just saying, do you think there was any improvisatory element?
00:55:14.320 --> 00:55:22.239
And also it is some a piece like this, it's interesting to think about because I was just thinking in my head, like, why did he write that?
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:25.519
Because like why did he do all those boo-doo like crazy scales?
00:55:25.679 --> 00:55:27.199
Like, what does that mean to him?
00:55:28.320 --> 00:55:35.280
And then I thought, oh, it's for the pianist to show off or the for the keyboardist to show off, and which was something they considered back then.
00:55:35.360 --> 00:55:54.800
It was it was a I I feel like we've kind of lost this in a way, maybe except in some concertos, but we're not writing for the player to show off as much as you know, writing to just for the to write great music, you know, but but we can't these were the stars of that time, I think.
00:55:55.119 --> 00:55:55.519
It's true.
00:55:55.599 --> 00:56:12.880
With with Bach, I mean, I would hesitate to say that he's trying to show off because so much of his music was written either for God or for the church, or as like an instructional uh kind of thing for students or e either for composition or for performing.
00:56:13.280 --> 00:56:14.880
Not for him to show up, but for the performer.
00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:18.239
Yeah, it you know it absolutely was mostly playing his own keyboard music.
00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:19.760
No, no, you're you're right.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:20.880
It absolutely could be.
00:56:21.039 --> 00:56:36.559
I think scales are also virtuosic scales are also a way to um maybe in a dazzling way, like in a perhaps a showing-offing way, um, of getting from point A to point B.
00:56:36.639 --> 00:56:41.360
It's like fill by filling in sound, right?
00:56:41.599 --> 00:56:55.599
Now, nowadays we have these big pianos that can hold the sound, like you can play a chord here and then you know, you can like do stuff up here, and that sound down there is still resonating.
00:56:55.679 --> 00:56:59.760
This was written for a harpsichord where the sound is dying really, really quickly.
00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:08.639
So you need like activity, basically, like like in order to just keep making sound, keep the harmony going.
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:09.760
Hey, what harmony are we?
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:11.039
Oh, we're in B flat.
00:57:11.199 --> 00:57:12.559
Or when I just played E flat.
00:57:12.639 --> 00:57:13.519
No, I played B flat.
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:17.840
Um it's the only way to just keep the sound going.
00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:23.840
So I think it's a little more subtle than just like ah, there's a virtuosic showy offie part.
00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:36.320
I think they're also um there's also a practical purpose to scales, both as a transitional material, um, harmonically, and to like express the harmony and just keep the sound going.
00:57:36.960 --> 00:57:41.440
And allowing for virtuosity is another practical thing in a in a way.
00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:43.840
It it inspires a feeling in the listener.
00:57:43.920 --> 00:58:03.039
Like it's just interesting to look at these old pieces and identify what parts were maybe more just practical or or practices of that time, and what do we feel was something that's transcendent of the time and really just directly from the composer's soul.
00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:07.119
That's beautifully put.
00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:10.400
We'll tackle we'll tackle that more next time.
00:58:10.719 --> 00:58:12.480
Are we uh close to the end of the episode?
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:13.199
I think so.
00:58:13.519 --> 00:58:16.960
Then an answer the question about or memory.
00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:23.840
Not memory, but the idea of telling someone why they like something or why they should like something.
00:58:24.400 --> 00:58:25.920
Did we ever did we finish that?
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:29.039
Oh, oh, like something familiar.
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:32.239
And that you're doing both, depending on the piece.
00:58:32.480 --> 00:58:39.440
Yeah, so I mean I do I love I really do love both.
00:58:39.599 --> 00:59:06.079
I love playing famous pieces uh like Claire Delune or or that that Cooperan maybe or the first Bach prelude that you know there is um i it's immediately accessible to so many different people, and there's something fun there seems something fundamental about the music that is uh connective for people and I mean just accessible.
00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:22.480
And for me to try to unlock why um is basically an express uh is me trying to communicate how form and expression meet.
00:59:22.800 --> 00:59:42.000
In other words, why I mean why this C major prelude, for example, is so simple and so effective in part has to do with its form and structure that uh we feel subconsciously.
00:59:42.239 --> 01:00:15.760
In other words, like those aren't random improvised harmonies that he's traveling to, it is a conscious structure that descends, you know, eventually in octave toward you know a lower version of C major that is richer and warmer, and then how he deceives us by going to uh instead of ending the way he should, he takes us to like harmonies we don't expect.
01:00:16.159 --> 01:00:41.760
And that makes us feel on some conscious, subsubconscious level, that we're experiencing kind of a reflection of our own lives, that there are surprises, that you know, things don't work out the way they should all the time, um and that this story that he's telling is woven by a thread that we are familiar with and can understand.
01:00:42.159 --> 01:01:08.559
So not only is it like in a key we can we can access, like a C major, you know, um but it's such a simple patterning, these arpeggiated figures that if the material is uncomplicated, then it almost frees him up to tell a more profound story because then it's just the story of harmony.
01:01:08.960 --> 01:01:13.519
It's not the story of an arpeggio that is, oh wow, these five notes.
01:01:13.599 --> 01:01:15.119
Like, what is he gonna do with five?
01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:16.639
Is he ever gonna go to six?
01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:30.960
Like, no, it's about how you know these harmonies gently unfold and kind of like through a thread of attention, right?
01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:36.559
The the ongoing perpetual motion of this harmony is the thing that is grabbing our attention.
01:01:36.639 --> 01:01:40.079
That is like every note we know to expect.
01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:41.519
That part's a given.
01:01:41.599 --> 01:01:46.000
We don't have to worry about is he gonna go to six notes instead of five in this measure.
01:01:46.559 --> 01:02:02.960
We can just give in to the um story of the harmony, which he will through structure and form, which is something I just honestly I probably lead people more through uh structure and form than anything in my videos.
01:02:03.280 --> 01:02:06.480
Um, just without saying, here's the structure and here's the form.
01:02:06.559 --> 01:02:12.400
I'm kind of like slipping in music theory um without people knowing.
01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:13.519
That's my goal.
01:02:18.800 --> 01:02:21.039
Yeah, or just cooking it with garlic, dude.
01:02:21.119 --> 01:02:21.920
It tastes so good.
01:02:22.159 --> 01:02:23.119
You're cooking with garlic.
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:24.800
I'm cooking with garlic.
01:02:25.599 --> 01:02:27.119
High quality olive oil.
01:02:27.440 --> 01:02:28.960
Just oil it up.
01:02:29.360 --> 01:02:31.599
Um Yeah, I don't know.
01:02:31.679 --> 01:02:34.639
I don't know if that made sense, but yeah, I think that's good to stop at.
01:02:35.199 --> 01:02:37.519
You're like, I please shut up.
01:02:38.000 --> 01:02:38.480
Great.
01:02:38.639 --> 01:02:39.360
Why did I ask you?
01:02:39.599 --> 01:02:40.719
In conclusion.
01:02:41.360 --> 01:02:43.039
Um anyway, thanks.
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:44.159
This was a fun one.
01:02:44.400 --> 01:02:45.119
Yeah, it was.
01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:45.519
Yeah.
01:02:46.719 --> 01:02:47.199
Thanks everyone.
01:02:47.599 --> 01:02:47.840
Bye.
01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:48.639
Thank you for listening.
01:02:48.800 --> 01:02:49.039
Later.
00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:01.280
Alright.
00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:01.919
Hi.
00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:12.320
Another episode with me at the piano, Daniel Anastasio, and my buddy Isabel Hagen, who is kind of a violist and definitely a comedian.
00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.679
I feel like a lot of people would say the opposite.
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.800
She's definitely a violist and kind of a comedian.
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:21.600
Who?
00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:24.719
I think of you as a comedian first now.
00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:31.359
I feel like that's because you res you just want to like be respectful of my like desire.
00:00:33.679 --> 00:00:40.799
Well, because I know you and I know that's what you're you're I don't want to say true passion, because it's not like you're not passionate about music.
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:43.679
No, I'm not very passionate about well, dude.
00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:50.479
Part of this podcast I do feel is me trying to trying to remind you how to be more passionate about music.
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:51.439
Yeah.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:01:03.439
Well, every time we do an episode, not really, I don't think we've done it on camera, but off camera, I'll like cry a little because I'll be like, I forgot how much I loved that piece.
00:01:03.759 --> 00:01:04.159
Yeah.
00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:10.719
It's just doing it and going through school and just the field kind of squeezed it out of you, all the passion.
00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.599
Yeah, I I think it's as simple as burnout.
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:22.000
I think I just I personally burnt out a little bit and got so into comedy at the same time.
00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:25.200
So it kind of just like went like this.
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:28.480
And then now it's kind of meeting again.
00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:34.799
I'm kind of in a way, I feel like I'm going through a similar type of thing.
00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:41.359
You are, because you uh were living a very traditional musician's life, right?
00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:55.200
You were teaching at a university, performing concerts, but you really wanted to sort of do more in this sort of like educational slash entertainment sp what would you call it?
00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:55.920
Space.
00:01:56.879 --> 00:01:59.200
Uh what would I call what I'm doing now?
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:08.639
Um it's kind of music appreciation, just not in the way that it's normally thought of at the moment, I guess.
00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:15.520
But I'm kind of trying to bring I'm trying to bring people into the spirit and the feeling of the music that I love.
00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:19.280
That it's the same feeling I felt when I was seven.
00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:28.000
You know, when I was sitting down at the piano and feeling some kind of connection with a measure in Chopin that I felt and I couldn't explain why.
00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:56.080
And then, you know, school happens, life happens, you're trying to uh get better at a craft, you're trying to get technically better at something, and by necessity you you lose some of that um simple, naive connection that got you to the dance in the first place because you're trying to you're just trying to learn, you're trying to take in for uh take in information and therefore you're trying.
00:02:56.639 --> 00:03:00.560
And like the act of trying is not the act of connecting.
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:14.000
Like in other words, if I'm trying to be good at something, to learn something, to perfect something for my teacher, um, and kind of sculpt something and then hold it up to them and say, Hey, how's this?
00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:14.879
Is this good?
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:16.560
Um, did I do good?
00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.840
Did did I learn how to play Brahms correctly or Schubert correctly?
00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:29.520
It is impossible to simultaneously feel a totally personal, to me, genuine connection with the music.
00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:33.360
You are a student in that process, and there's nothing wrong with that.
00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:44.319
It's just how do we then escape that process, integrate it all, and return to something much more pure?
00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:47.759
Well, it starts so early on.
00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:52.000
If you're taking lessons, music becomes an assignment.
00:03:52.159 --> 00:04:07.199
Even if you really love it, you're preparing for your teacher, and every week you're checking in and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're doing competitions and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're playing just concerts and you're just trying to play as well as you can.
00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:16.480
And sure, there are countless artists who would say that in their concerts they're just completely transcended and connected with the music, and that's great.
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:46.560
But I think the field itself really lends itself to not that, and instead, kind of a what I was experiencing, I think, was just just like a bummer relationship to the music and a a disconnect uh from it, and then also the audience will then feel it in that way rather than I mean, you know, there's some purists who would say like you shouldn't have to contextualize the music, you shouldn't talk over it, you should just let the music speak for itself.
00:04:47.279 --> 00:05:06.160
But I mean I just completely based on the success of like the videos you post alone, it just shows that there's so many people hungry for sort of an expert, which you are, to like invite them in and contextualize it a little for them.
00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:08.800
Because that's what you're doing, you're offering some context.
00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:17.920
Well, like one of the way I like to think of it is okay, the music speaking for itself implies a language that it's speaking, right?
00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:22.480
If I don't understand that language, then it's not speaking to me.
00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:22.800
Right.
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:27.600
It's like showing someone a foreign film in a language they don't understand and saying, well, it's speaking for itself.
00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:30.800
We don't need subtitles, just and you're like, but I literally don't know French.
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:31.680
So Right.
00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:33.360
Like, well, French speaks for itself.
00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:35.120
Okay, well, I don't know French.
00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:35.680
Yeah.
00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:40.720
So I believe you that it speaks for itself, but it's not speaking to me right now.
00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:53.199
So like I I mean, it it just seems like a very it always has seemed like a cop-out to me to say the music speaks for itself because um and and and it and it also does.
00:05:53.439 --> 00:05:59.920
Like in other words, a late Beethoven quartet would probably be a great example of oh, the music speaks for itself.
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:28.319
Someone would say that as in like it needs no further context because it's just a spiritual divine thing, and like yes, and right, like like yes, it can stand on its own um in some context, but in 2026, if I'm playing for a bunch of people in my town in San Antonio, Texas, um why would I not want them to um hear what I'm doing?
00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:34.879
It it's like I could speak German to them and be like, by the way, this is profound.
00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:41.519
Hope you uh enjoy it, and they can just take my word for it and clap, or I could say, Let me translate some of this for you.
00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:43.199
Um, it is what it is.
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:47.360
Maybe Beethoven would c rise from the grave and say, Don't translate my music.
00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.079
Okay, well, um you dead.
00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:58.319
And also, like and also, of course, you wouldn't care because you'd be probably be appalled that we're playing your music and not some new brand new stuff.
00:06:58.480 --> 00:06:59.839
You'd be like, What happened?
00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:01.199
Do you have music?
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:02.000
Right.
00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.319
Like, why do you have to dig up mine?
00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:05.040
Yeah.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:06.319
To some degree.
00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:08.720
Okay, I'm probably gonna get some hate for that, but you know what I mean.
00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:09.920
So much hate.
00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.079
No, from our seven listeners.
00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:18.800
Everything, I everything contradicts itself for me because there's part of me that I just I love contextualizing music.
00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:25.839
I think people connect to more styles of music when it's in film, because we're obviously giving it a visual context.
00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:37.439
Like uh, take the music from Succession, the TV show, which is very like what you what would you say, like Beethoven slash Schubert inspired score by Nicholas Bertell.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:38.639
Really great score.
00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:52.000
Um, but if people had never seen the show and just heard that music, I bet a lot of people would just write it off as some classical stuff that they don't that's not for them or that they don't really care for.
00:07:52.160 --> 00:08:00.879
But because they associate it with the show and because it's such a great score, it's like the two things it makes non-classical music lovers love that score.
00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:01.120
Yes.
00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:06.399
Because they have a simple entry point that then allows them to say, I can enjoy this.
00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:13.439
I have a little some little visions in my head that are probably from the show, and then I'm off to the races with my own imagination.
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:13.839
Yeah.
00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.439
It's like a little gateway.
00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:20.480
Um, at the same time, you know, a lot of people say music is the universal language.
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:31.360
It needs no explanation, you know, it should just speak for itself, and it should, you know, we we must just let people, we don't want to limit people's interpretation by giving it a context.
00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:33.600
You know, both are great.
00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:57.600
Like there's different people who have different, like for me, it's probably valuable for me who are like as someone who's really familiar with the language of classical music in the broad term, classical music, broad sense of the term, who should just go and listen to concerts without context sometimes to just like exercise that part of my brain and to like let myself have my own meaning.
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:11.200
But someone who's never been to a concert before or who doesn't have that much experience with this language could really benefit from a little gateway into it, which is what you're providing with your shows, like what you did last night.
00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:11.840
Thanks.
00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.159
Yeah, I I mean, and I I don't think it's controversial.
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:15.039
Segue.
00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:16.399
Well, yeah, fair.
00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:20.399
But um, like I don't think it's a groundbreaking thought.
00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:32.320
Like, you know, I think so many classical musician uh classical music organizations today know they have to be doing this because they're like, okay, how do we get more audiences?
00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:33.759
How do we get younger audiences?
00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:34.639
How do we mix it up?
00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:36.639
We gotta we can't do the same old thing.
00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:38.399
They just know how to do it.
00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:56.240
So, like, because we weren't trained, our generation, probably the next generation, will be better trained on this, but we weren't trained not only to not talk about music, we weren't trained, I mean, into audiences, but we weren't trained to be able to understand expressively what we're doing.
00:09:56.399 --> 00:10:07.919
I really, I really don't think we were trained, we were mostly trained to master the instrument and to master different styles of playing from a technical and a stylistic standpoint.
00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:25.519
We weren't trained to be like okay, okay, uh how would you describe that first eight-bar phrase and um how would you describe it to someone who has absolutely no idea any uh about Mozart, you know?
00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:40.399
Like to be able to articulate, to know what you're doing, know why you're doing it, and then to be able to articulate it clearly to someone is not something that's at all in our curriculum in conservatories.
00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:43.840
And to me, that is the most valuable skill.
00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:58.399
Like so many people can play good enough, so many people can play fantastically, where the average person on the street would be astounded, like would be like, oh my god, you have such a gift.
00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:09.279
Talking about the the top, the top thousands of 10,000 people who are studying music right now, they would be all on an equal playing field, in my opinion, to the average person.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:16.399
It's like when I play viola in comedy clubs and I'll play just like in a way where I'm like, Yeah, this is not good playing right now.
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:17.279
I'm not warmed up.
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:18.960
I ooh, I missed that note.
00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:29.279
And I'm not trying to like like these are like it's just a lot of people go to comedy shows who have just never been to a classical music concert, they've never seen a live string player, and so they're just like that was amazing.
00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:29.679
Yeah.
00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:32.799
And and it doesn't make me feel like, oh, I'm amazing.
00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:49.759
It makes me feel like, oh, I've been too hard on myself and taking this way too seriously when like just the facility and musicality that that will that naturally comes from so many players who are just beating themselves up is such a gift for people.
00:11:50.720 --> 00:12:02.799
That is the reframing I think that is really the most helpful is to see it as think about how many people are missing out on this inspiring gift that you have.
00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:06.240
We just don't have that mindset that, oh my god, I I have this inspiring gift.
00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:10.799
We have the mindset of not good enough because that's what was drilled into us.
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:16.399
Sometimes I'll play a whole Bach prelude in my comedy shows and I'll be like, That sucked.
00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:19.039
And then I look out in the crowd and there's someone like tearing up.
00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:19.440
Yeah.
00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:21.360
And I'm like, oh, it's not about me.
00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:25.279
Like it's it's like that just was really impactful for this person.
00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:29.440
So it's actually not about how I feel now, it's how it affected them.
00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:30.159
Right.
00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:47.039
Well, I mean, one of the joys of the past few months as I've been able to like communicate and play at the same time and take people through that in a kind of concert way, in a way, is that it it relieves some of that perfectionist mentality for me.
00:12:47.360 --> 00:13:22.240
I feel like I'm playing just with my shoulders down because it is about the totality of the impact that I'm making and a kind of learning process that people are uh joining me in rather than let's see how my performance measures up to some platonic performance, either in your head as someone who's listened to it a lot on a CD, or my or my head um as someone who has been drilling it in the practice room and has some kind of idealistic version of it that I want to convey.
00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:22.799
Right.
00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:27.519
I mean, it is worth noting though, to to go on the flip side.
00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:35.440
You are someone who maybe still, I don't think so still, but until very recently would practice like six hours a day.
00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:37.440
Okay, but I have a caveat for that.
00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:37.919
Okay.
00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:39.840
Because not that that's bad.
00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:46.080
I'm just saying you'd needed all those hours to be able to play with such like now you get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:46.480
For sure.
00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:48.159
I think it's it's shifted.
00:13:48.320 --> 00:14:07.519
The the purpose of practicing has shifted for me, where for a long time I was playing catch-up in my own mind, where I was not someone who was practicing more than an hour a day when I was young for very long, which okay, an hour a day when you're young sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but like it's not enough to be a concert pianist.
00:14:07.840 --> 00:14:10.320
Definitely not who goes to Juilliard and you know, no, no.
00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:17.600
So when I got into Juilliard for Masters, I was like, oh my god, I have to really catch up to all these people who are blowing past me.
00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:19.200
They're playing all this incredible rep.
00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:26.799
And you know, I probably got in because people could sense that I had some kind of connection to the music, and I had a really good audition.
00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:28.000
I had a really strong audition.
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:29.759
I played really well that day.
00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:37.039
Um, so I could play really well, but not reliably technically to like win a competition, win a big competition.
00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:43.759
So in those years, I was practicing out of sheer survival, and my shoulders went up.
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:46.639
I use that as an example because it's just tension, right?
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:47.919
I had a lot of tension.
00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:53.840
I was I was moving away from my own voice musically, just little by little.
00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:00.320
I needed teachers at Stony Brook University to really calm me down during my doctorate and get me back in touch with something more relaxed.
00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:01.440
That was post-Juilliard.
00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:02.879
That was post-Juilliard, yeah.
00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:05.200
So a lot of school and I needed every bit of it.
00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:08.799
But during those years of catch up, I was practicing my ass off.
00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:12.639
Now I practice not for that reason.
00:15:13.519 --> 00:15:20.879
I practice because I I genuinely enjoy the process more than I enjoy performing.
00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:23.679
I mean, it is like reading a good book for me.
00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:27.519
It's like I'm in the discovery phase at the piano.
00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:30.240
Um and and I know how to practice.
00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:34.720
And if I'm playing something technical, I'll I'll bite down on my mouthpiece and like, all right, let's do it.
00:15:34.799 --> 00:15:37.840
Let's like put in the hours with the metronome, do all that stuff.
00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:49.039
Um, and I I can do that, technical work, but for the most part, I'm just loving the process of getting lost at the piano.
00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:56.159
I mean, it's a luxury to be able to do that, to have the hours, and you know, I don't have a family, I don't have kids, like all this matters, right?
00:15:56.399 --> 00:15:57.120
You're so alone.
00:15:57.279 --> 00:15:58.159
I'm all alone.
00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:06.399
So this is my solace, but it's connection, it's where I'm finding the most connection.
00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:12.000
So it's filling me up spiritually to be connecting with this music for that many hours.
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:13.360
Um yeah.
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:22.559
I had a similar reawakening with enjoying practicing, but that came from starting a new skill and being really bad at it.
00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:26.639
When I started comedy, I was bad because I was just a beginner.
00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:27.360
You're supposed to be a good idea.
00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:30.159
Is there anyone in comedy who's just good right away?
00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:42.960
I don't in stand-up, I don't think so because I mean there are people who get better quicker due to natural talent, slash they get in more reps more quickly than other people, but not really.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:55.919
Like just to be able to consistently do well on stage is just something that takes time and then the learning how to write a joke, not only just a joke that works structurally structurally, but your voice.
00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:58.720
Like I write, I don't really like to write jokes with other people.
00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:01.840
A lot of comics like to bounce ideas off each other and give each other tags.
00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:07.039
I don't really like to do that because anytime someone gives me a tag, I'm like, well, that would be funny if you said it.
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:07.359
Right.
00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:17.200
But that I know it won't be funny if I say I have to now put that in my if I'm gonna take that tag, I have to like recalculate it and process it through how I would say it me.
00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:19.119
So just like finding that.
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:27.680
I think some people get lucky and find their delivery style and voice a little quicker, but it's not just no, I mean, I don't know.
00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:29.759
I'm sure there's exceptions, but generally no.
00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:31.599
The answer to your question is no.
00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:36.799
But so I was bad, and then I started going all these open mics and getting better.
00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:41.519
But that that is though, such a sorry to cut you off for a second, but that is such a misconception, right?
00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:54.000
The average person probably thinks, uh maybe some of the magic has been uh deconstructed over the years, but like the average person probably thinks, wow, this person is just they're just a funny person.
00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:56.319
Like they get up there and they're just hilarious.
00:17:56.559 --> 00:18:04.319
But the truth is, there's people who are funny in the room, there's people who are funny on stage and not in the room with a bunch of friends, and there's everywhere in between.
00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:06.960
And you either way, you have to put in the work.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:09.200
Either way, you slice it.
00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:09.759
Yeah.
00:18:10.079 --> 00:18:11.680
Either way, you slice it.
00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:18.480
Like being funny on stage into a microphone to make a group of strangers laugh is a very specific skill.
00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:19.039
Yeah.
00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:29.440
One doesn't having that skill doesn't mean you don't have other skills, and having the skill to make your friend group laugh at a party doesn't mean you'll be able to translate that on stage.
00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:32.000
Um I forgot the point of what I was saying.
00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:32.720
I'm sorry.
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:34.799
No, I don't I don't care.
00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:37.759
Great.
00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:39.279
I'm off the hook.
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:42.480
Um sorry, I'm a little uh a little tired.
00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:43.759
I went to a wedding yesterday.
00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:45.759
Um here, you okay?
00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:46.799
I'm fine.
00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:47.519
All right.
00:18:48.160 --> 00:19:05.200
But being so I was a beginner at comedy and then getting better with these tangible results because going from sucking to not sucking is very different from what we do as musicians, which is we're already good, and then we're just sort of like refining every day and just getting that much better.
00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:11.920
Yeah, we spend so much time refining, refining, refining, refining instead of learning maybe one other skill.
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:32.319
Right, right, complement the already 98% good that we are to like okay, I mean, in that one thing that it's like like for me, learning how to talk and play is like I mean, has done wonders for my ability uh to connect with my audience.
00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:45.119
Um, you know, it's it feels it's so relieving when I have attention from people instead of if I'm only playing the piano, I'm only gonna get a certain amount of attention for for a variety of different reasons.
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:55.839
And I think a big reason is that it's a language that not everyone has the context for um in this day and age, in this society, for this, for many different reasons.
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:01.759
And that's not something to roll your eyes at or throw your hands up or say, what happened to our culture?
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.359
You know, it's more like, yeah, look, classical music isn't even ours.
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:19.680
It's this Western European tradition from like hundreds of years ago that we I would love to develop a fresh relationship with for our audience, and like any way you can, anyway you can do that.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:20.640
Yeah.
00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:27.200
Um I mean, it is I don't know if this you know the Marshall McLuhan quote, the medium is the message.
00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:27.839
Oh, yeah.
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:36.559
That's kind of speaking more towards technology, but the idea is it doesn't matter if you're reading great literature on your phone, like you're still reading it on your phone.
00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:41.039
So the medium is the phone, or I think it was a reaction to television maybe back in the day.
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:47.359
Even if you're watching something that's like educational, it's still on TV, like the just the medium counts.
00:20:47.680 --> 00:21:06.079
And I think that's a little related to like the issue of classical music and the concerts being kind of alienating because it's it's not really the music as much as it is the whole experience that is very specific and some would say outdated.
00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.200
I wouldn't say I don't think there's anything wrong with something being dated.
00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:11.039
I I that kind of annoys me.
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:12.960
Like, like get with the times.
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:20.319
Like, like I think it's good to have all different types of experiences, but there's a lack of awareness when we are doing that tradition.
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:27.599
And because of the lack of awareness, we abuse it to the point where like the concerts maybe it's just like way too long.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:27.839
Yeah.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:35.839
Or there's just way too many pieces like X, Y, or Z on the like there was no thought to the programming, besides like don't get me scared.
00:21:36.079 --> 00:21:44.400
You know, like they didn't no one thought about the whole exper the experience as a whole, which no matter what the experience is, you have to think about it as a whole.
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:52.720
And these old institutions generally don't do that besides thinking, well, we need a concerto, a short modern piece, and a symphony.
00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:54.799
Like you know, and bing, bing, boom.
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:55.119
Yeah.
00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:59.119
And and and uh I uh afterthought is what do we say?
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:07.359
I've been to So many concerts where that I've been part of where people are thinking the morning of all right, what what do we what do you want to talk?
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:08.319
What do you want to talk about?
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.319
You want to say something about about Beethoven?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:11.279
Yeah, sure.
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:13.359
Totally winging it.
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:13.680
Yeah.
00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:15.920
And like, that's fine if you can wing it.
00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:21.039
I mean, if you're that skilled at it, but it's just another part of the show.
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:25.680
You prepare, you prepare like how many hours on your pieces, and then what?
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:28.079
You prepare for five minutes on what you're gonna say to the audience.
00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:31.279
It's part of the experience from the moment you step on stage.
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:34.079
Like, how are you engaging the audience and with what information?
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:34.720
Right.
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:45.759
And, you know, not to knock like different concert experiences, but there's been a lot of efforts in our world to reinvent the concert experience in this really drastic way.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:50.480
Like, oh, we're gonna do like a symphony, but it's in a bar, and like that's all fun and fine.
00:22:50.720 --> 00:23:17.279
But sometimes the like reinvention or like the fix to whatever the issue is can be as simple as maybe it's a conductor if it's an orchestra that just is like kind of more of a show person or like has more charisma, or maybe again, like thinking about the lengths of all the pieces you're like just one added thought into the whole experience, not like reimagine, because I think we want I want to preserve the symphony going experience or the concert going experience.
00:23:17.359 --> 00:23:19.119
That's something that should always exist.
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:25.279
Absolutely, but just think about it as an as an audience member for like a minute.
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:30.720
Yeah, I know like make sure you're not offering someone kind of an awful experience.
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:31.599
It's a low bar.
00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:32.799
It's a really low bar really.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:41.759
And so that's where I swoop in with my with my shtick.
00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:49.680
Um, well, you you mentioned concert length and last night uh at my show, my which I couldn't be at because I hate you.
00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:53.119
Well, you hate me on the you have a best friend who was getting married.
00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:54.240
Yeah, my friend's wedding.
00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:01.279
Um, but yeah, I was really excited as my first real show doing this, doing what I've been doing the past few months on Instagram.
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:03.599
What have you been doing the past few months on Instagram?
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:23.519
Well, just you know, this thing I'm doing of of kind of taking people through works um and demonstrating the connections uh either between them or the connections that the composers are making um with musical materials that illustrate some kind of story.
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:36.799
Um and it doesn't need to be any story beyond the music itself, but just to just guide people's attention with a little more clarity so that they can listen actively instead of passively.
00:24:36.960 --> 00:25:00.319
In other words, not just to think, wow, this music's so pretty, I can't wait to like listen to this while I'm going to bed, which is a million percent fine, or I just have a feeling like classical music is a good thing to listen to because it's I don't know, listened to by seemingly intelligent people or something that society has taught us, but instead to really just rip open the materials and say, all right, forget all that for a second.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:06.559
Listen to how this thing evolves into that thing and goes on a journey away and then returns.
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:26.880
And that is a story of patterning, it's a story of memory, how composers use our memory to um inflect like nostalgia and different feelings and different colors in the music that unlock some kind of unconscious memory in us as we're listening.
00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:34.880
It's something organic, it's something fundamental, it's where structure and theory and form actually have a purpose beyond just the textbook.
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:39.519
Because music, after all, is like temporal.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:41.680
I mean, it's unfolding in time.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.640
So in order for us to feel the expressive impact, a composer needs to use our memory.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:49.680
Right?
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:52.400
They that's why repeats happen.
00:25:52.720 --> 00:26:02.160
What do you go tell me a little more about how they use the memory, not just with repeats, but but maybe also with little motives that are recalled.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:08.400
Not like if it's a newer piece, like like a not a strict sonatiform piece, there might not be a repeat.
00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:09.119
Okay, sure.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:10.720
But some sort of recall.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.720
I okay, I'll give you a a great example, a very clear example.
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:19.039
Uh Francois Cooperin wrote this piece, The Mysterious Barricade.
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:19.599
Okay.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:34.079
Don't ask me about the title, because it's kind of enigmatic, but I think it has to do with masking at a at a ball, or maybe it has to do with people have speculated about different, I don't know, eyelashes or something that eyelashes?
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:35.200
What did I just say?
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:36.160
Don't ask me.
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:36.640
Okay.
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.119
I'm just saying nonsense at you for a second.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:41.680
You're just gonna take it and then I'm gonna go on.
00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:43.119
So now moving on.
00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:43.519
Okay.
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:44.880
Um you can look it up yourself.
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:49.200
The the Les Barricades Mysterious or the Mysterious Barricade.
00:26:49.839 --> 00:27:11.599
And the point is, I mean, metaphor aside, it's it's about a kind of ambiguity, you know, or like a a secretive maybe like um um a tension between something seen and something that is um there's a layer, there's a veil going on, okay?
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:20.160
And it and the piece lives in this kind of ambiguity of harmony and of how the voices interact together.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:26.960
So I'll just play like the first part of it, and then I'll I promise I'll get back to how it relates to memory.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:41.680
Okay, beautiful, right?
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:42.720
Just really simple.
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:44.240
What year was that written?
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:45.200
Great question.
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:46.160
I think it's right there.
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:51.680
Um well, Cooperan was born in 1668, but okay, so roughly it's a long time ago.
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:53.119
Roughly like 1700 or something.
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:53.680
Sure, sure.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:55.920
I just wanted like a a uh century.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:57.119
Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
00:27:57.359 --> 00:27:59.680
This is this is squarely in the Baroque period.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:00.480
Cool, cool.
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:04.640
Um, and but it feels kind of modern.
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.319
Uh it does.
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:06.799
Yeah.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:08.880
Why does it feel kind of modern?
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:20.000
Like it kind of feels like it would be a he's a it feels like he would be a composer in like the the Max Richter, like the new classical type.
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:22.720
Not that it sounds like Max Richter at all, but you know what I mean?
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:33.759
Just the I think I I think it's because composers return in the modern era, composers have tended to return to this to these simple harmonies.
00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:55.680
Uh, you know, minimalism had played a really profound role with like Philip Glass and Steve Reich and everything, where it's like, okay, um after it all dissipated with like Schurnberg and atonal music and uh music kind of separated out into a lot of different ways, and uh chromaticism pushed tonality to its limits.
00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:04.480
Composers rediscovered really a lot of Baroque music to to kind of find beauty in these simple sequences.
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:12.880
So right there sounds like so poppy.
00:29:13.039 --> 00:29:14.480
Oh, this like pop music.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:25.599
It's um it's because this piece, and this is one of my favorite pieces, so I don't mean this in a bad way at all, but it's like a little, it's like a little bit cheesy.
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:32.559
Yes, and uh like over-emotion, like like like uh schmaltzi, like I you know what I mean?
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:33.359
Not schmaltzzy.
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:53.359
Well, this is a little bit the difference between German Baroque music and French Baroque music, where someone like Cooperan is not afraid to write something that's a little more not trivial, but like incidental or kind of just uh ephemeral, where it's not rooted in this profound counterpoint.
00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:58.400
It's something that everyone can understand and that anyone can be moved by.
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:14.319
So before we get into the weeds about that though, because I could talk about that, what's really cool about this piece is it's a great example of how Baroque music is both the culmination of harmonies.
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.279
Like here we just hear we feel those chords, right?
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:25.680
But what a mu what a kind of contemporary composer may not do is make sure that there are actually four individual voices going on here.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.240
Like this is not just a churning of different harmonies and chords, right?
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:32.000
There's a top voice.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:40.160
There's a voice just under that.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:48.799
There's the left hand has two voices.
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:56.079
That one and then the bass.
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:04.400
By the way, that bass a little pockabell's canony a little bit.
00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:06.559
Maybe that's partly why it's so accessible too.
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:24.640
You know, um has that has that circle of four fifths kind of vibe where it's just we are just patterns are irresistible to us, those sequences that Mozart will tap into, that Beethoven.
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:30.640
Oh, that's so that is such a similar thing.
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:31.359
Very similar.
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:38.880
But the even the rhythm of it of the melody, but yeah, it's true.
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:42.559
Not just the harmonicer than the but uh but.
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:48.559
Oh yeah, that's good point.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:49.119
All right.
00:31:49.359 --> 00:31:50.240
Should I start doing this?
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:52.960
Cut to Isabel.
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:55.440
Isabel just created a new video for me.
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:56.640
Thanks, Isabel.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:59.279
Um so we have that.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:12.079
We have that like zooming into the detailed patterning of what's happening in Baroque music, which is always I mean, that's one of the things that people find so genius about Baroque composers, is like it all works out.
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:18.160
They got the inner voices, you could listen to any one of those four voices at any time if you wanted to, or bring each one out.
00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:22.079
Or you could just give in to that churning set of harmonies.
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:29.680
It's like a wheel that's just turning and turning and turning, where the spokes you can make them out at a slower tempo, but when they get fast, they get blurry.
00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:40.799
Right now, as per your initial uh question about memory, this is a whole I don't remember memory.
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:44.880
Um this whole piece is in a kind of cyclical form.
00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:53.680
So not only are the harmonies cycling, but it's a rondo, which is A, B, A, C, A in form.
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:57.200
A being that first section that I just played like 72 million times.
00:32:57.599 --> 00:33:06.480
And then the B section is a section that departs from that, not so drastically, it's the same patterning, but goes to different harmonies, it goes to different keys.
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:08.559
The C section does the same.
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:15.839
But in between those sections, and at the end, it returns to the same section, the very, very beginning.
00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:21.440
And so even though the music is exactly the same, we feel it differently.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:22.880
Why do we feel it differently?
00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:24.480
It's the same exact notes.
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:30.720
Well, it's because we did something in the meanwhile, right?
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:43.039
We had an experience, we had moments in life, we listened to different keys, we understand this subliminally as a kind of journey away and then return home.
00:33:43.519 --> 00:33:51.920
Um which is yeah, I mean, this language is a little bit overused when we're describing pieces like we started in B flat, the home key, and then we departed.
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:58.079
But this rondo form is a is a really beautiful way in a simple way to illustrate that.
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:29.440
This piece is only three minutes long, but you still get that little journey away and then return to something that is very familiar, but by the end feels more like a feeling of acceptance and knowledge and less like the opening of it, which is more maybe uh embarking on something or beginning that wheel starting to turn, or our brain are starting to to go towards something new, some new thoughts.
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:39.760
This piece is so uh simple in a lot of ways that makes it pretty accessible even to someone who knows nothing about music, they might hear this and go, I like that.
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:40.960
I want to hear that again, right?
00:34:41.039 --> 00:34:45.519
They might add it to their playlist or something if it happened to come up on Spotify.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:57.360
So do you feel like when you explain pieces like this versus when you explain a more complex piece like uh, you know, I don't know, Brahms 118 number two.
00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:00.000
It's not that complex, but a more complex piece.
00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:01.199
Yeah.
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:16.480
Sometimes when you're doing your talking, it's I feel like you're sort of showing someone why they should like this or why they might find it more moving than what you would hear just on one listen.
00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:22.000
But with something like this, I feel like you're almost showing me why I do like it.
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:26.880
Which I find equally as satisfying because it's it's almost like identifying something.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:28.880
You're like, I knew I liked that.
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:30.480
Why do I like it so much?
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:33.760
Oh, I got another example of that, but can I play this real quick?
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:44.159
Because I think it might be cool for someone to hear I want to give someone the chance who's listening to this to feel what it feels like for me to return to that section.
00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:46.400
Uh I don't know how many times.
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:46.880
Twice?
00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:48.400
Yeah, maybe three times.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:53.119
Okay, so this is the entire hold that thought because it's a really nice new thought.
00:35:53.280 --> 00:36:02.320
Um, this is the entire barricade, uh mysterious barricade, Les Barricades Mysterieux, don't speak French, by Francois Cooperin.
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:26.239
One person clapping.
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:29.519
Is there anything worse than just one person clapping?
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:35.119
Because you need you need the accumulation of applause in order for it to be real applause.
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:36.079
That's interesting.
00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:40.719
Applause is only it only exists in numbers.
00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:41.840
Really.
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:43.679
Applause is plural.
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:45.599
Right.
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:47.920
Technically, the word is plural.
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:50.480
Applauding applause.
00:38:50.719 --> 00:38:56.079
But but the thing the I the idea of getting applause, you can only get that from multiple people.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:56.800
Yeah.
00:38:57.519 --> 00:38:59.760
So thank you for your clap.
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:00.400
Right.
00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:03.360
I don't know how you would call it individual clapping.
00:39:03.679 --> 00:39:06.079
Um speed also matters though.
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:12.559
Like if I was like it'd be like, oh, she loved it, but if I'm like the illusion of multiple claps.
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:13.920
Anyway, sorry.
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:15.039
It's okay.
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.840
Um so any reactions to that?
00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:24.400
Did you feel like we journeyed to a different faraway land and then returned?
00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:26.800
Or did you feel like nothing?
00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:31.199
Did you feel I mean, did you not feel you know what?
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:32.239
I don't really care how you feel.
00:39:33.119 --> 00:39:37.119
I don't want to, I don't want to give my I don't want to ruin a listener's interpretation.
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:47.760
But I will say just generally the way I listen to music, I as a child, I had a lot more of an expansive uh vision.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:54.079
Like I would listen to Dvorjak New World Symphony and I would see like a whole movie with like a field and like all these big scenes.
00:39:54.800 --> 00:40:05.679
And now music is so internal, like I just see feelings, I feel feelings and maybe a glimpse of a face or two people together or something.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:08.320
You know, it's it's it's come much more inward.
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:27.119
I don't know if that's like sad because I've lost the childlike imagination or if it's fine, it just means I have more emotional stuff and working out uh right up here due to just years of so many different emotions and things happening to me in my life.
00:40:27.519 --> 00:40:39.760
But beyond that I won't say what I I think it is beautiful, kind of like returning to a book where even the same piece can feel different when you return to it at different points in your life.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:44.320
And and the associations that you make with a piece might change.
00:40:45.119 --> 00:41:08.239
And that too is a play of memory where you know that is not up to the composer or the music, but that is just a beautiful dance of association between our souls and the spirit of the soul of the composer, or however you would say, or the music that the you know the composer intended, whatever wh however you want to put it.
00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:11.840
But that is a constant uh dialogue.
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:17.599
I think that's why I really think uh music is not music until it's played presently.
00:41:18.239 --> 00:41:21.840
Like in other words, I don't think like sheet music is music.
00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:34.320
The way Boulez would say that you know you should be able to hear the music, appreciate the music just by looking at the takes a rare mind for one thing.
00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:34.880
Sure.
00:41:35.119 --> 00:41:37.519
Um, but also just music is sound.
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:41.119
And I think sound only exists presently.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:41:43.360
I know, hot take, right?
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:47.840
Um but well whatever.
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:52.079
This goes back to a little bit like the universal language thing where it's like music is a l universal language.
00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:53.360
Okay, well, what is music?
00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:55.039
Like, I mean It's sound.
00:41:56.079 --> 00:41:58.400
It's definitely what like John Cage thought.
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:06.000
But Or the absence of sound, which is still sound.
00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:13.360
Well, look, I'm not getting into the the abstract philosophical concept of music, but I just want to do that.
00:42:13.519 --> 00:42:19.760
I don't really don't want to do that and alienate all our listeners, but I do want to just bring it back to the present.
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:34.480
I think that the beauty of music is that uh it can be revived and revitalized and uh i uh uh created at any moment by someone who's willing to bring it to life.
00:42:34.719 --> 00:42:46.239
And to me, it's only alive when it's being played or performed or or um it exists in in sound on our ears that we can interpret in some way.
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:46.960
Right.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:53.199
It's a little bit of a tree falling in the forest kind of thing, but So I mean, uh are you including listening to a recording in that?
00:42:53.519 --> 00:42:54.559
I was thinking about that.
00:42:54.639 --> 00:42:56.800
I I'm gonna say yes.
00:42:57.119 --> 00:42:57.920
I'm gonna say yes.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:06.559
I'm gonna say if you listen to recording, yeah, that's a because those are sounds that are coming together to hit your ear to have an impact on you.
00:43:07.119 --> 00:43:11.280
Yeah, it doesn't need to be a live performance, of course, in order to be music.
00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:12.719
Right, right.
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:18.880
So hearing them do you ever hear music fully in your head?
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:31.920
Can you completely hear a piece like all the parts like I think I'm not someone who pretends to pretends to do eng engage with music in that way.
00:43:32.159 --> 00:43:36.400
If I want to hear something, um I I run to the piano and I play it.
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.559
So again, the process is so exciting to me.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:42.239
Like I want to feel it.
00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:43.199
You know what I mean?
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:44.079
This yeah.
00:43:44.239 --> 00:43:49.599
I don't want to judge I existing in my head is no, maybe I don't have that great of an imagination.
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:51.280
It's not imagination though.
00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:59.679
I think and I I bet our brains are are a little different in this way because I I actually and I I don't think I definitely know our brains are different.
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:02.320
Go ahead.
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:04.000
What do you mean by that?
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:13.920
I remember when I was younger, my dad played this recording of the Ravel string quartet a lot in the house, and I never heard it before.
00:44:14.239 --> 00:44:25.039
And the first movement and second movement especially just stayed with me so much that in school I was distracted in class because in my head I was just hearing the music.
00:44:25.119 --> 00:44:30.960
Just it was it was like st basically stuck in my head, but in a very rich way, like all the parts.
00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:34.559
It was like I was playing the recording over and over again.
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:38.000
And I think it's it's not like every piece I can do that.
00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:43.599
And I think a string quartet is easier than like a symphony where there's so many more parts.
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:49.679
But for me, music can kind of just exist in my head.
00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:54.400
Now, when I then put on the recording or hear someone play it, it's even better.
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:57.440
It's like, oh, we're taking it up a notch.
00:44:57.760 --> 00:45:02.639
But I for me, I don't know, for some people I do think it can exist just in our memory.
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:06.159
It's a beautiful addendum.
00:45:06.400 --> 00:45:08.239
Yeah, like I I totally agree with you.
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:09.440
I like that a lot.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.159
But maybe you don't even hear me.
00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.639
I mean, I do I don't hear a lot of music in my head.
00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:15.519
I feel bad.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:22.400
Some of my friends, I have a friend, uh Mateus, who is a violinist who I play with a lot, a lot of contemporary music.
00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:33.039
And every time we're on tour, when we're you know, getting ready for a gig, he'll stop each one of us and say, What music is in your head right now?
00:45:34.239 --> 00:45:37.199
Because for him, it's just running in his head all the time.
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:41.519
Whatever music it is, video game music, show music, classical music.
00:45:41.920 --> 00:45:42.960
We all have songs in our head.
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:45.679
I mean, even non-musicians get songs stuck in their head.
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:46.159
Sure.
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:47.599
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:47.920 --> 00:45:50.239
But not so much for me.
00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:54.639
Music is not thoughts are running through my head a lot.
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:56.880
Um, a lot more than music.
00:45:57.039 --> 00:46:02.800
I wish music was running through my head so they can kind of dampen some a little bit of the thoughts.
00:46:03.119 --> 00:46:04.320
You can stand to turn it down and not.
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:05.199
I can stand it.
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:08.239
Why don't we increase music about 20%?
00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:12.000
It's like thoughts down, maybe another 20.
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:25.360
You coming over to my house that we haven't seen each other in two months, and you're you have a concert in the city, so you're staying over, and yeah, you come over, you sit on the couch, you just launch right into some some like big trauma and you start crying.
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:29.199
Like it's just drawing, you're like, yeah, you're yeah.
00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:32.239
I mean that's it's like always on for you.
00:46:32.559 --> 00:46:42.000
Yeah, because I think I'm a little more of a introspective philosopher type than I am a natural musician.
00:46:42.639 --> 00:46:55.599
But I I will say, just for anyone who's listening who might be like, oh, like the uh musician Beethoven heard it all in his head because he was deaf, and or Isabel can hear wow, it's amazing she could hear music in her head.
00:46:57.119 --> 00:47:11.679
I it's literally a a skill that does bears no meaning beyond what it is, because I just I know so many people who claim that they have they have perfect pitch and they can hear all the music in their head, and they're just kind of boring musicians.
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:15.840
Like and but but you might not have that specific ability.
00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:30.320
However, you are like one of the most exciting, imaginative performers, and it it just doesn't like you use what you have, yeah, and it doesn't make you more or less of an artist or an or a genius to I hate the word genius.
00:47:30.639 --> 00:47:31.280
No, I yeah.
00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:45.360
I I I think I mean I value anyone who's able to connect in their own way with the music and then share that in the most meaningful and connective way for whoever's listening.
00:47:45.519 --> 00:47:45.760
Right.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:46.960
Like, period.
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:50.719
So you do that in your own way with your own skill set.
00:47:51.119 --> 00:47:59.360
I mean, you know, like s some people are bad technicians at the piano and have awkward technique by a textbook standard or by conservatory standard.
00:47:59.440 --> 00:47:59.679
Uh-huh.
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:10.239
And like and there are people who those are people maybe who I would listen to every single minute of the day over a competition winning pianist.
00:48:10.400 --> 00:48:11.679
It really just depends.
00:48:11.920 --> 00:48:15.280
It's like, what are you bringing to the table as you?
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:16.559
I want to hear you.
00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:19.199
I want to hear what you do with it.
00:48:19.519 --> 00:48:24.960
And then sometimes the piece is just so good that anyone playing it somewhat proficiently is good enough.
00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:25.519
Yeah.
00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:26.800
Like like Cooper N.
00:48:27.119 --> 00:48:27.440
Yeah.
00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:31.360
Like anyone playing that piece with the right notes, I'm like getting a tear.
00:48:31.599 --> 00:48:32.239
You know, it's true.
00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:33.920
Sometimes just the piece is enough.
00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:34.639
Yeah.
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.280
And as long as it's approached honestly.
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:48.159
But and and then there are people who you know might not even be able to decipher up upon a first listen the difference between a student playing that piece and you playing that piece.
00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:48.719
Yeah.
00:48:48.960 --> 00:49:04.239
But what what's cool, I think, is inviting those people to start hearing the differences and to start hearing the human choices that are made in addition to just these beautiful harmonies that exist because Cooperan wrote them and Yeah.
00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:04.880
Yeah.
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:18.719
I think the interpretation the interpretation is something that can only be enriched by one's own discovery of the material itself.
00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:25.920
So like uh I'll play you one more piece by Bach.
00:49:26.079 --> 00:49:28.239
Just say in the brogue period for a second.
00:49:28.719 --> 00:49:31.920
It looks like the same, it's gonna be the same rhythm as well.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:32.639
Don't ruin it.
00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:33.280
Oh, sorry.
00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:34.639
No, it's not the same rhythm.
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:42.559
But um it is a a work that relies on patterning and patterns, you know, which is a big part of my the talk I gave last night.
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:46.480
Where Bach is taking just a triad.
00:49:47.360 --> 00:49:51.199
Okay, just a B flat major triad as a starting point for a piece.
00:49:51.280 --> 00:49:54.800
This is his B flat major prelude from book one of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
00:49:56.559 --> 00:50:02.400
So staying in B flat, moving away, and coming back, and then reaching out.
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:03.360
Okay?
00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:12.000
Now he's gonna take that and use a sequence to put it down a few steps to a minor key.
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:13.760
Why don't we do it one more time?
00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:20.000
And then cadence or end the phrase basically to return.
00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:32.159
And this is all he needs to create a piece, to create a musical story, and as a prelude from the broke period, it's very improvisatory.
00:50:32.239 --> 00:50:44.559
Like he probably really did just sit down and well, I love uh this is a beautiful voicing of this beautiful B flat major triad in the same way that, like, honestly, a pop artist might, or a contemporary composer might take this triad and do that.
00:50:45.039 --> 00:50:48.239
But this is not how he feels about B flat major.
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:53.679
I'm playing it very romantically, very beautifully, sensitively, um, like Brahms or something.
00:50:54.000 --> 00:51:00.480
He thinks of B flat with excitement, with joy, with he wants to infuse it with some activity.
00:51:00.639 --> 00:51:01.440
So, what does he do?
00:51:01.519 --> 00:51:04.960
Well, let me just break up those chords with 30-second notes.
00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:07.760
Right?
00:51:08.079 --> 00:51:10.480
Same rhythm as the Cooperan, like I said.
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:13.440
Alright, fine.
00:51:13.760 --> 00:51:17.360
Now, this is the Isabelle is always right podcast.
00:51:17.599 --> 00:51:20.320
Um infuse it with some activity.
00:51:20.559 --> 00:51:21.599
Did you just do the thing?
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:22.079
Okay.
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:24.159
Um, infuse it with a little activity.
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:26.719
And this is also interpretation, right?
00:51:26.960 --> 00:51:29.360
Did Bach write a tempo marking for this?
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:33.039
No, he didn't write a tempo marking for any of his preludes in this book.
00:51:33.360 --> 00:51:36.480
So we have to interpret well.
00:51:38.559 --> 00:51:39.840
It's probably gonna be fast.
00:51:40.079 --> 00:51:42.000
We want that activity to be alive.
00:51:46.719 --> 00:51:49.760
And now we have like a little journey in B flat major.
00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:54.559
So we use some scales to kind of get to different keys.
00:51:57.039 --> 00:51:58.960
Modulate or change keys.
00:52:00.559 --> 00:52:03.840
And I'll just bounce around happily in B flat for a while.
00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:08.400
And what what changes?
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.400
The bass starts to chromatically walk up.
00:52:21.440 --> 00:52:25.280
Until we arrive at the dominant key of F major.
00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:27.519
Okay, so now we're in a new place.
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:29.280
Then we started.
00:52:30.719 --> 00:52:31.280
B flap.
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:33.199
Now we're in F major.
00:52:33.360 --> 00:52:38.559
And while we're here, he can start exploring, like we he can start improvising again.
00:52:38.800 --> 00:52:39.039
Right.
00:52:44.239 --> 00:52:45.840
Funky bass note D.
00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:50.079
Okay, this is like almost beta of vinian.
00:52:50.239 --> 00:52:52.400
This is like a suddenly dramatic overture.
00:53:03.039 --> 00:53:06.719
Okay, so these scales could take us anywhere on the keyboard, right?
00:53:06.800 --> 00:53:09.440
He's just choosing to land here on B flat.
00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:20.159
Alright, now we're back at that uh F7, the dominant of B flat, so we should expect to return to B flat now.
00:53:20.239 --> 00:53:22.159
It should be kind of maybe this.
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:25.519
You know, something like that.
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:36.639
But I mean, that is like some intense uh sidetracking here.
00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:40.239
We Diminish chord, way up here.
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:44.079
There's our B flat, but it doesn't feel safe at all.
00:53:44.239 --> 00:53:47.760
It doesn't feel like our home, because there's no harmony underneath it, right?
00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:56.880
He could have or maybe I don't know, done something kind of funky, but he just isolated by itself.
00:53:56.960 --> 00:54:04.159
That's the B flat we started with, but it feels alien until okay.
00:54:04.320 --> 00:54:06.000
Now we should have B flat.
00:54:06.960 --> 00:54:23.119
But that A flat questions it one more time before we return to the kind of playful starting point of the piece.
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:40.000
So within this improvisatory prelude, we have the start of a pattern that feels improvised, a total departure to something really dramatic and different and kind of scary, and then a return to that playfulness that we started in.
00:54:40.159 --> 00:54:47.199
So I think Bach is consciously or unconsciously creating a story in these two pages.
00:54:47.599 --> 00:54:55.920
Do you think in the time that this was originally written and performed, people would improvise in those parts and take liberties?
00:54:56.320 --> 00:55:03.840
Because now, of course, every pianist who's classically trained in playing this is gonna play pretty much exactly what is on the page of this edition.
00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:09.679
Um we don't I mean, we're not looking at the original manuscript even, but probably it's same.
00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.760
But but I'm just saying, do you think there was any improvisatory element?
00:55:14.320 --> 00:55:22.239
And also it is some a piece like this, it's interesting to think about because I was just thinking in my head, like, why did he write that?
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:25.519
Because like why did he do all those boo-doo like crazy scales?
00:55:25.679 --> 00:55:27.199
Like, what does that mean to him?
00:55:28.320 --> 00:55:35.280
And then I thought, oh, it's for the pianist to show off or the for the keyboardist to show off, and which was something they considered back then.
00:55:35.360 --> 00:55:54.800
It was it was a I I feel like we've kind of lost this in a way, maybe except in some concertos, but we're not writing for the player to show off as much as you know, writing to just for the to write great music, you know, but but we can't these were the stars of that time, I think.
00:55:55.119 --> 00:55:55.519
It's true.
00:55:55.599 --> 00:56:12.880
With with Bach, I mean, I would hesitate to say that he's trying to show off because so much of his music was written either for God or for the church, or as like an instructional uh kind of thing for students or e either for composition or for performing.
00:56:13.280 --> 00:56:14.880
Not for him to show up, but for the performer.
00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:18.239
Yeah, it you know it absolutely was mostly playing his own keyboard music.
00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:19.760
No, no, you're you're right.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:20.880
It absolutely could be.
00:56:21.039 --> 00:56:36.559
I think scales are also virtuosic scales are also a way to um maybe in a dazzling way, like in a perhaps a showing-offing way, um, of getting from point A to point B.
00:56:36.639 --> 00:56:41.360
It's like fill by filling in sound, right?
00:56:41.599 --> 00:56:55.599
Now, nowadays we have these big pianos that can hold the sound, like you can play a chord here and then you know, you can like do stuff up here, and that sound down there is still resonating.
00:56:55.679 --> 00:56:59.760
This was written for a harpsichord where the sound is dying really, really quickly.
00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:08.639
So you need like activity, basically, like like in order to just keep making sound, keep the harmony going.
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:09.760
Hey, what harmony are we?
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:11.039
Oh, we're in B flat.
00:57:11.199 --> 00:57:12.559
Or when I just played E flat.
00:57:12.639 --> 00:57:13.519
No, I played B flat.
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:17.840
Um it's the only way to just keep the sound going.
00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:23.840
So I think it's a little more subtle than just like ah, there's a virtuosic showy offie part.
00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:36.320
I think they're also um there's also a practical purpose to scales, both as a transitional material, um, harmonically, and to like express the harmony and just keep the sound going.
00:57:36.960 --> 00:57:41.440
And allowing for virtuosity is another practical thing in a in a way.
00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:43.840
It it inspires a feeling in the listener.
00:57:43.920 --> 00:58:03.039
Like it's just interesting to look at these old pieces and identify what parts were maybe more just practical or or practices of that time, and what do we feel was something that's transcendent of the time and really just directly from the composer's soul.
00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:07.119
That's beautifully put.
00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:10.400
We'll tackle we'll tackle that more next time.
00:58:10.719 --> 00:58:12.480
Are we uh close to the end of the episode?
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:13.199
I think so.
00:58:13.519 --> 00:58:16.960
Then an answer the question about or memory.
00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:23.840
Not memory, but the idea of telling someone why they like something or why they should like something.
00:58:24.400 --> 00:58:25.920
Did we ever did we finish that?
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:29.039
Oh, oh, like something familiar.
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:32.239
And that you're doing both, depending on the piece.
00:58:32.480 --> 00:58:39.440
Yeah, so I mean I do I love I really do love both.
00:58:39.599 --> 00:59:06.079
I love playing famous pieces uh like Claire Delune or or that that Cooperan maybe or the first Bach prelude that you know there is um i it's immediately accessible to so many different people, and there's something fun there seems something fundamental about the music that is uh connective for people and I mean just accessible.
00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:22.480
And for me to try to unlock why um is basically an express uh is me trying to communicate how form and expression meet.
00:59:22.800 --> 00:59:42.000
In other words, why I mean why this C major prelude, for example, is so simple and so effective in part has to do with its form and structure that uh we feel subconsciously.
00:59:42.239 --> 01:00:15.760
In other words, like those aren't random improvised harmonies that he's traveling to, it is a conscious structure that descends, you know, eventually in octave toward you know a lower version of C major that is richer and warmer, and then how he deceives us by going to uh instead of ending the way he should, he takes us to like harmonies we don't expect.
01:00:16.159 --> 01:00:41.760
And that makes us feel on some conscious, subsubconscious level, that we're experiencing kind of a reflection of our own lives, that there are surprises, that you know, things don't work out the way they should all the time, um and that this story that he's telling is woven by a thread that we are familiar with and can understand.
01:00:42.159 --> 01:01:08.559
So not only is it like in a key we can we can access, like a C major, you know, um but it's such a simple patterning, these arpeggiated figures that if the material is uncomplicated, then it almost frees him up to tell a more profound story because then it's just the story of harmony.
01:01:08.960 --> 01:01:13.519
It's not the story of an arpeggio that is, oh wow, these five notes.
01:01:13.599 --> 01:01:15.119
Like, what is he gonna do with five?
01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:16.639
Is he ever gonna go to six?
01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:30.960
Like, no, it's about how you know these harmonies gently unfold and kind of like through a thread of attention, right?
01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:36.559
The the ongoing perpetual motion of this harmony is the thing that is grabbing our attention.
01:01:36.639 --> 01:01:40.079
That is like every note we know to expect.
01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:41.519
That part's a given.
01:01:41.599 --> 01:01:46.000
We don't have to worry about is he gonna go to six notes instead of five in this measure.
01:01:46.559 --> 01:02:02.960
We can just give in to the um story of the harmony, which he will through structure and form, which is something I just honestly I probably lead people more through uh structure and form than anything in my videos.
01:02:03.280 --> 01:02:06.480
Um, just without saying, here's the structure and here's the form.
01:02:06.559 --> 01:02:12.400
I'm kind of like slipping in music theory um without people knowing.
01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:13.519
That's my goal.
01:02:18.800 --> 01:02:21.039
Yeah, or just cooking it with garlic, dude.
01:02:21.119 --> 01:02:21.920
It tastes so good.
01:02:22.159 --> 01:02:23.119
You're cooking with garlic.
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:24.800
I'm cooking with garlic.
01:02:25.599 --> 01:02:27.119
High quality olive oil.
01:02:27.440 --> 01:02:28.960
Just oil it up.
01:02:29.360 --> 01:02:31.599
Um Yeah, I don't know.
01:02:31.679 --> 01:02:34.639
I don't know if that made sense, but yeah, I think that's good to stop at.
01:02:35.199 --> 01:02:37.519
You're like, I please shut up.
01:02:38.000 --> 01:02:38.480
Great.
01:02:38.639 --> 01:02:39.360
Why did I ask you?
01:02:39.599 --> 01:02:40.719
In conclusion.
01:02:41.360 --> 01:02:43.039
Um anyway, thanks.
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:44.159
This was a fun one.
01:02:44.400 --> 01:02:45.119
Yeah, it was.
01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:45.519
Yeah.
01:02:46.719 --> 01:02:47.199
Thanks everyone.
01:02:47.599 --> 01:02:47.840
Bye.
01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:48.639
Thank you for listening.
01:02:48.800 --> 01:02:49.039
Later.
