Music History and Performance
Dynamic Music
In our May 31st master class, we examined "Dynamics." My goal was to get everyone thinking outside the box--to take "dynamics" out of the safe, familiar (and sometimes rather dry) context of musical terms and to present a bright and colorful view of the concept. I wanted to shake out our deep wrinkles and create fresh perspectives on music by presenting "dynamics" as an exciting force we can influence every time we touch our instruments.
We first answered two questions:
1) What does "dynamic" mean? and...
2) What is the opposite of "dynamic?"
-->We defined dynamic as "changing" and the opposite of dynamic as "static," remaining the same.
Breaking down the limits around their thinking, we listed anything that is dynamic or changing:
- humans
- music
- the weather
- animals
the ideas kept coming....
One thoughtful student listened quietly before he added:
"I know something that is static; a picture!" Precisely the kind of thinking I was hoping for.
Of course, we delineated the most common terms describing dynamics in music:
pianissimo..........piano...........mezzo piano..........mezzo forte..........forte..........fortissimo..........crescendo and decrescendo
But then we acknowledged that "Dynamics" merely describe a general idea, a moment in time--they are limited in their ability to inform the sound we should be shaping from the piano or flute throughout a piece of music. Music, as you hear it, never stays static. Morphing and changing, growing and shrinking, music is DYNAMIC!
As we listened to two very different musical examples, one sung by a choir, one played by a concert pianist, we charted the changes we heard on a piece of paper. No two charts looked alike. Could you have ever said, there is a forte, there is a piano, and here is a crescendo? We rarely would have agreed. "Dynamics" are relative. What matters is change--growth, and diminution throughout the entire piece. We are not looking at a picture, we are creating a musical performance, our art is dynamic!
Finally, we proceeded to think of ways to create dynamics--meaning changes--on the piano, both from the composer's point of view, and from the performer's. We listed:
- weight with which we play the keys--light versus heavy
- sparse texture to full texture
- low register to high register
- open fifths or octaves to full chords (like texture)
and the list went on...
Throughout the week, I continued to hear volunteered ideas at each lesson from those who had attended. "Here is how I am adding dynamics to this piece of music..." I was pleased with the outcome!
It's easy to get trapped into thinking of dynamics as 6 or 8 specific sounds you can make--but this mentality bores all of us. How many times have I asked a student, "and what dynamic should you be playing there?" only to get a yawn and a knee-jerk answer. This does nothing to help us create beautiful music. We are not becoming artists by mechanically following bland, two-dimensional directions on the page. Instead, we should be approaching these directions as suggestions, starting points. Like a relief map, an overall sea-level--which contains tiny slopes and dips too numerous to document. Never let your music become static, we are blessed to be creating an ever-dynamic art!
In our May 31st master class, we examined "Dynamics." My goal was to get everyone thinking outside the box--to take "dynamics" out of the safe, familiar (and sometimes rather dry) context of musical terms and to present a bright and colorful view of the concept. I wanted to shake out our deep wrinkles and create fresh perspectives on music by presenting "dynamics" as an exciting force we can influence every time we touch our instruments.
We first answered two questions:
1) What does "dynamic" mean? and...
2) What is the opposite of "dynamic?"
-->We defined dynamic as "changing" and the opposite of dynamic as "static," remaining the same.
Breaking down the limits around their thinking, we listed anything that is dynamic or changing:
- humans
- music
- the weather
- animals
the ideas kept coming....
One thoughtful student listened quietly before he added:
"I know something that is static; a picture!" Precisely the kind of thinking I was hoping for.
Of course, we delineated the most common terms describing dynamics in music:
pianissimo..........piano...........mezzo piano..........mezzo forte..........forte..........fortissimo..........crescendo and decrescendo
But then we acknowledged that "Dynamics" merely describe a general idea, a moment in time--they are limited in their ability to inform the sound we should be shaping from the piano or flute throughout a piece of music. Music, as you hear it, never stays static. Morphing and changing, growing and shrinking, music is DYNAMIC!
As we listened to two very different musical examples, one sung by a choir, one played by a concert pianist, we charted the changes we heard on a piece of paper. No two charts looked alike. Could you have ever said, there is a forte, there is a piano, and here is a crescendo? We rarely would have agreed. "Dynamics" are relative. What matters is change--growth, and diminution throughout the entire piece. We are not looking at a picture, we are creating a musical performance, our art is dynamic!
Finally, we proceeded to think of ways to create dynamics--meaning changes--on the piano, both from the composer's point of view, and from the performer's. We listed:
- weight with which we play the keys--light versus heavy
- sparse texture to full texture
- low register to high register
- open fifths or octaves to full chords (like texture)
and the list went on...
Throughout the week, I continued to hear volunteered ideas at each lesson from those who had attended. "Here is how I am adding dynamics to this piece of music..." I was pleased with the outcome!
It's easy to get trapped into thinking of dynamics as 6 or 8 specific sounds you can make--but this mentality bores all of us. How many times have I asked a student, "and what dynamic should you be playing there?" only to get a yawn and a knee-jerk answer. This does nothing to help us create beautiful music. We are not becoming artists by mechanically following bland, two-dimensional directions on the page. Instead, we should be approaching these directions as suggestions, starting points. Like a relief map, an overall sea-level--which contains tiny slopes and dips too numerous to document. Never let your music become static, we are blessed to be creating an ever-dynamic art!
When Was It Written?
Here's a worksheet we used in our March 29th master class. It's not an exhaustive source of information, but rather a broad, extremely generalized guide to music history from 1600 to now. We used it to help us play a game in which we listened to various music and had to identify which time period each was written in. Even though the girls won the game, the boys did some impressive sleuthing!
To play this game on your own:
Read the chart
Turn on your radio to a classical station
See if you can place the currently playing music in the right time period
To check your answer, listen until the composer is named then look up the composer's dates online. Even if you guess the period next to the correct period, you did very well!
Application
It is important to learn to play music from all periods of music history. Because harmony, theory, compositional styles and performance techniques changed significantly throughout the period of music history from 1600 to today, a wide variety of skills is needed to be prepared to perform from the whole spectrum of musical style. Pianists are extremely fortunate to have a HUGE repertoire by all of the greatest composers to choose from. There is more than a lifetime's worth of music to dive into!
Here's a worksheet we used in our March 29th master class. It's not an exhaustive source of information, but rather a broad, extremely generalized guide to music history from 1600 to now. We used it to help us play a game in which we listened to various music and had to identify which time period each was written in. Even though the girls won the game, the boys did some impressive sleuthing!
To play this game on your own:
Read the chart
Turn on your radio to a classical station
See if you can place the currently playing music in the right time period
To check your answer, listen until the composer is named then look up the composer's dates online. Even if you guess the period next to the correct period, you did very well!
Application
It is important to learn to play music from all periods of music history. Because harmony, theory, compositional styles and performance techniques changed significantly throughout the period of music history from 1600 to today, a wide variety of skills is needed to be prepared to perform from the whole spectrum of musical style. Pianists are extremely fortunate to have a HUGE repertoire by all of the greatest composers to choose from. There is more than a lifetime's worth of music to dive into!