Mechanically versus Lyrically: Mozart, Verdi, and Farid al-Atrash

 When I'm worried about playing all the notes correctly, I have a tendency to play mechanically rather than musically. My new flute teacher is having me play Mozart duets based on The Magic Flute. If you don't play that lyrically, you might as well throw in the towel.

In general I don't listen to opera very much, and my teacher loves opera. I'm happy to go along with him. Anything that will expand my musical horizons is of benefit. As I write this, I am hearing (not quite listening to) La Traviata (The Woman who Went Astray). I concede that the music is beautiful.

Last night my wife and I went to a concert of Arabic music, the final concert of the annual Oud Festival, with two male solo singers, a chorus, and a small instrumental ensemble. Arabic music is still alien to me, and it would have been better (probably) if I could have understood the lyrics. Again, it's a matter of expanding horizons: nothing musical should be alien to me. Though some things that other people think are musical are not, in my opinion, at all musical - but that's another matter.

The singers, Ziv Yehezel and Mamun Zayud, were not mechanical to an extreme degree, and the nai player, Jamil Bishtawi, was as astounding as the star oud player, Tayseer Elias. There were plenty of Arabs in the audience, and I'm pretty sure that a good proportion of the Jews there were conversant with the music. The seats were expensive, and they were almost all taken. That's encouraging.

Music Doesn't Mean Anything

 Not in the sense that words and images refer to specific things.

Of course, songs have words, so the melodies take on meaning based on the words: I Can't Give You Anything But Love.

In opera and musical theater in general, the words give the music meaning, but I often wonder whether, if you played someone a melody of a song unfamiliar to them, they would be able to guess what the song was about. Actually, I don't wonder at all. I'm 100% sure that they wouldn't be able to.

But music expresses emotion, or at least it arouses emotion in the listener. But whose emotion? At this moment I am listening to exquisite music written in the late 17th or early 18th century by Marin Marais. He is certainly not experiencing any emotions now, and we can only guess what emotions he felt when he wrote the music. The musicians who recorded the music certainly had emotions while they were playing it. However, as I know from my own experience, they were also concentrating on a lot of technical matters like playing in tune, together with the other musicians in the ensemble, and getting the phrasing and dynamics right. Strangely, keeping the mind and body active with those technical matters gives the emotions more freedom, because you're not paying attention to them.

Let's give the fine musicians credit. They made the recording in 1996, and by virtue of that, they're still alive (I hope they're alive and healthy now, too). 

Violin : Elizabeth Blumenstock Oboe : Gonzalo Ruiz Viola de Gamba : Roy Whelden & Steven Lehning Archlute : Michael Eagan Harpsichord : Byron Schenkman

But what is the connection between what they felt (which we can only infer) and what we feel when we listen to the music? There lies the mystery!

Distinctive Sounds

Today I was in a place where Spotify was deciding what music I had to hear, and  for a while it was playing Israeli popular music, not what I ordinarily listen to. The songs didn't sound the same, exactly. But the overall sound was distinctively Israeli, making me wonder, how did this culture develop its own idiom in such a short time?

Actually, these things have been happening very fast for a long time. Today my wife and I got together with a flautist friend, and we played two trios, one by the Swedish baroque composer Johann Helmich Roman, and one by the Flemish baroque composer, Jean Baptiste Loiellet. Though they lived at the same time, the first half of the 18th century, the atmosphere in the pieces was totally different. Roman sounded German to me, and Loiellet sounded French - two different musical worlds. Not that they were isolated from each other, and all the baroque composers listened to Italian music.

Classical musical styles evolved rapidly from 1700 on, and even more rapidly from 1800 on, and the same goes for popular music. Streaming stations offer selections from succeeding decades. After a while, this morning, Spotify decided to play American country music, which also has an unmistakable sound (which I don't prefer to the sound of Israeli pop; I never go out of my way to listen to either kind of music). A lot of listeners, myself included, are attracted to certain musical sounds - Broadway musicals, be-bop, classical piano trios, romantic symphonies - as much as we are to individual pieces in those idioms. Why does a Haydn strong quartet sound so different from a Ravel string quartet? Why do I enjoy listening to Indian classical music, even though I don't know much about it? It's the sound: the drone, the tablas, the sitar, the voice.

Composers and performers work within the sound language they are using. The great composers, along with creating individual works, create a sound of their own. But every creative person in every idiom starts within a universe of discourse, with givens, with predecessors and contemporaries, in a cultural context. Today, because so much of everything is so readily available to us, we don't have a specific cultural context anymore. On a given morning, Spotify made me hear Israeli pop, American country music, British and American rock, and I can't remember what else. If I'd been the one who put in the original search, Spotify would have taken us on a difference course. Has an algorithm become my cultural context?

Jazz (and other music) in our Living Room

 Last night the Tal Gamlieli trio payed in our house. Tal plays bass, the drummer was Amir Bar Akiva, and the pianist was Chai Bar David, all three accomplished young men. They played a couple of standards (Autumn Leaves and Just Friends) but mainly music composed by Gamlieli. Each of the three was interesting on his own, and the three together communicated beautifully. I was sitting closest to Amir, and could pay a lot of attention to his creative drumming, far beyond keeping time.

Performing as a trio, a rhythm section, without a horn, places a burden on each of the musicians, both to come out and carry the music and back off to accompany it. I don't think anyone in the audience missed a saxophone or trumpet soloist.

We had an audience of about thirty, each of whom made a modest contribution to the musicians. I don't know whether they make more when they play in a club. But they didn't play for the money. They played because in an intimate setting like a house concert, they have direct contact with the listeners, who really listen.

Our living room isn't huge. We could pack in about thirty-five people before the pandemic struck. Until people started being vaccinated, we didn't have any concerts at all, but we resumed in the summer with a group that played modern Turkish music outdoors. Then we hosted a recital by the world class flautist, Idit Shemer and Shira Shaked, a fine pianist. Yesterday Tal and his trio played, and we hope to host more concerts over the coming year.

We own an excellent Yamaha baby grand piano, that pianists enjoy playing on. With a fairly large living room with great acoustics and a fine piano, what's more obvious than hosting recitals? We began doing it in the 1990s when a lot of accomplished musicians came to Israel from the former USSR. A pediatrician and serious flautist, Geoff Greenfield, began to organize concerts for them in people's homes, and we got signed up. Without being pushed by him, we would never have thought of it. Since then, in addition to the "Russians," we have hosted classical and jazz evenings, including one performance by a totally eccentric free jazz pianist. Before Covid, on several occasions, every chair we owned was filled by someone. People like to hear music in an informal setting, and musicians enjoy it.

I would have thought that flautists of the caliber of Idit Shemer and Ransom Wilson (who played here with the brilliant young Israeli pianist, Benjamin Goodman) would be above playing in our modest venue, but, on the contrary, they played here as if they were in Wigmore Hall or the Carnegie Recital Hall. Ransom Wilson wouldn't even take a penny for himself (being on the faculty of the Yale Music School, he didn't need the small amount he would have taken in at our house). He was an engaging presence and played sublimely.

Of course we don't take any money either, though we also don't pay the musicians ourselves. My wife always puts out a selection of cheeses and other delicacies at the end, and people mingle and tell each other how much they enjoyed the concert. It isn't easy to organize the performances, and more than once every month or two would be burdensome. But it's always a high point in our lives to gather friends, as well as people we haven't met, who heard about the concerts, and share fine live music with them.

On one or two occasions I have asked to play. When Geoff Greenfield gave a flute recital at our house, in the end I played a Telemann canonic duet with him, and when a young jazz quartet who call themselves Friendy played here, I took out my tenor and played "Tenor Madness" with them at the end of their performance. But usually the musicians are so great that I wouldn't dare join them. Last night, listening to Tal, Amir, and Chai, I ached to play with them. They are so good you couldn't help playing well with them alongside you. Maybe I should have been more forward and asked them.

I play in a saxophone quartet, and I hope we'll get good enough to perform in our house. We were on a decent level before Corona, but we couldn't play together for a long time, and we're finally getting back to it. But we're still pretty ragged. When we invite our friends to hear us, they don't have the same high expectations they bring to the other recitals. They may be forgiving, but we have our pride.

A New Flute Teacher?

When I first took up the flute, I didn't think I would need a teacher at all. I watched quite a few flute lessons on Youtube, and thought I'd manage with that. But I soon realized I was fooling myself and found an excellent flute teacher, Ra'anan Elon, and took lessons from him for a few years. However, Ra'anan left Israel to live in Germany with his spouse, and I didn't like taking lessons with him on Zoom. So I found another teacher, Michael Lukin and studied with him for two or three years.

Ra'anan is just a bit younger than I am, but Michael is young enough to be my son. That didn't get in the way of our lessons. We also became friends. Ra'anan was somewhat inhibiting as a teacher, though he worked me through the early stages of sound production brilliantly. Michael was encouraging and I enjoyed my lessons with him. He pretty much let me choose what to play. In addition to being an excellent musician, Michael also earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology, which is why he had to stop teaching me. He was awarded a prestigious and highly competitive research grant study of a corpus of Yiddish folksongs, to which he must devote full time. Since he knows Russian and Yiddish, and he is very musical, he's ideally situated to pursue this project. I imagine he hopes to get an academic position when he completes that project.

After Michael left me in the lurch (with my blessings, of course), I considered looking for another teacher but decided to go it on my own. After all, I've been taking music lessons since my childhood. I know what to do. Besides, I felt that I wanted to find my own musical direction and not be directed by a teacher. But I may have reached the end of my tether. I'm not sure which way to go.

Recently I've been in contact with two excellent flutists, Idit Shemer and Vladimir Silva. I'm a bit shy about working with either of them, because they're so much better than I can ever hope to be. I think I'll be more comfortable with Vladimir, so I set up an appointment with him so he can evaluate where I am and discuss a plan of study.

Just setting up the appointment has prompted me to think of my goals as a flutist and musician. First of all, I want to be as comfortable playing flute as I am playing saxophone (which I've kind of neglected in the past few years, because every time I pick up the instrument again, I'm satisfied with the way I play). Second, I want to reach beyond the material I've been playing, which is: baroque music (Handel sonatas, recently), Piazzolla tangos (which I play with a pianist friend), standards (I have been memorizing tunes and playing them in all twelve keys), and occasional bossa nova songs (Desafinado, Triste, Wave).

My main musical objective is to enjoy myself, but if I'm not playing as well as I ought to, I don't enjoy myself. Thus seeking a teacher!

By Ear, By Heart, From Notes

Recently I've been doing an exercise that makes me feel sorry for anyone who happens to be listening. I pick a song that I know by heart. Recently I played Autumn Leaves, Pennies from Heaven, and I Could Write a Book on the flute. I start in the key the were written in and then transpose them, moving around the circle of fifths (C-F-Bb-Eb- etc.) until I cover all twelve keys. Things get somewhat difficult when I reach the keys with a lot of sharps and flats, and I occasionally have to stop and think - and LISTEN to myself.

My ear isn't so great, and my musical memory is also weak, so I often have to remind myself, let's say, that a melody moves up and spells a half-diminished chord (as in Pennies from Heaven), or shifts briefly into another key. But I'm sure this exercise is doing me good.

When I read music, I don't listen to what I'm playing in the same way as when I play by heart or by ear. By forcing myself to play in all the keys, I'm hearing better and moving my memory of the tune from my fingers to my mind. By listening to what degree of the scale the song starts on (Autumn Leaves is in a minor key and starts on the tonic; I Could Write a Book is in a major key, starts on the third degree, and jumps to the seventh before we actually hear the tonic note), I hope I'm training my ears to hear what key the song is in. With some songs, like Desafinado, you don't hear what key it's in until the very end.

Jazz musicians were (are still?) expected to transpose easily, because vocalists often required a lower or higher range than the original key of a song. I have read that Coleman Hawkins was often so bored with the standards he was playing on a club date, that he called them in unexpected keys, making things tough for the musicians he was playing with. It's more or less standard procedure to play Mack the Knife in a new key every chorus, moving up chromatically.

The Computer Doesn't Listen

Singing or playing music with other people who are listening and making music at the same time is the height of music for me: duets, trios, quartets, playing with a piano accompaniment, playing in a band or orchestra. Then music becomes communication with the other musicians, between us and the music (the composers and arrangers), and with listeners. Necessarily, when you're learning how to play your instrument and to improve your playing, you have to play alone, but playing alone is never as enjoyable as playing with and for other people.

During the long corona virus lockdown, I occasionally played with some other musicians, but not often. Now that we're emerging from it, I've started playing with a saxophone quarter and with a community orchestra. Recently, I played with people I'm not used to playing with. A Dutch friend of mine, visiting Israel with his saxophone, suggested that we get together, so last week we sat outside in a his father-in-law's front yard and played some standards to the accompaniment of his computer. He introduced me to Ireal pro - I may be the last musician in the world to be acquainted with it. Now I've downloaded it to my phone, and I'm convinced.

My Dutch friend (my daughter's brother-in-law as well as a friend) knows a lot of songs by ear and practices by playing them with the computer. We had a good time as a trio: two alto saxes and a computer. The computer never gets distracted or lost. But it also doesn't hear what you play and respond to it. That's why I've always resisted playing with an electronic assistant.

It's a crutch  I might never outgrow. As it plays the accompaniment, the chords appear on the screen, with the current measure lit up, so you can't get lost. It tells you what notes are in the chord and what scale goes with that chord. So you barely have to use your ears to know where you are and what to play. But I have to admit to myself that I need that crutch. It makes working on songs enjoyable, and helps you to play them right. I think I'll improve if I keep using it. Today I played "Pennies From Heaven" with it on my baritone, and having the backup track supply the rhythm and the chord changes definitely kept me steady.

Another advantage: it doesn't mind if you make a mistake, and if you improvise and get lost or play shit, it goes on about its business unperturbed. Since it's uncritical, maybe I'll be free to take chances.

Getting Together Again

The Covid pandemic has isolated me from most of the musicians I used to play with. The amateur wind orchestra I used to go to every Tuesday night hasn't met in a year or so. We aren't so great, but the conductor is dynamic, and we work on difficult music that we'll never be able to play properly. The challenge is fun. Rehearsals are also a social event. The other musicians are friends of a sort.

I also play baritone sax in a sax quartet. We were able to meet sporadically over the year, but now all four of us have been vaccinated, and the restrictions are lifting, and we hope to be able to meet regularly and even start performing again. We have played in schools, old age homes, and even a mental hospital. Not demanding audiences, but rewarding ones.

We played against last night after a very long break, and, amazingly, we can still play together and sound decent. It's fun of a deep kind. It takes concentration. You have to listen to yourself and to the other musicians at the same time, you have to know when to blend in and when to stand out, and you have to stay in tune. The concentration is both tiring and energizing. In the middle of the rehearsal, one of us said, "I forgot how much I missed this."

One of the pieces we played was an arrangement of two bourrees from Bach suites. How uplifting it is to play Bach with other musicians - sublime.

Composer, Song-Writer, Arranger, Orchestrator

 I've started reading Jan Swafford's biography of Beethoven, written by a composer, with the insights of a composer. I'm only up to the point when Beethoven has gone to Vienna and started studying with Haydn. One of Swafford's points so far has been that Beethoven learned the techniques of composition - how to develop a musical idea, for example.

I am not much interested in pop,, but I do listen to a lot of jazz, much of which is based on show tunes and the melodic popular and theatrical music of the 1920s-1950s: what is sometimes called the Great American Songbook, mainly songs by Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers, Carmichael, Arlen, and Porter. Of those, Gershwin also made himself into a composer, and Rodgers also composed impressive instrumental works. However, very few classical composers proper wrote songs as good as those (an exception is Vladimir Dukelsky, aka Vernon Duke), and not many song-writers, as far as I know, were also serious classical composers.

Diversity of talent is one of its most fascinating aspects.

Recently I read a Hebrew article in Haaretz about recent scientific challenges to the belief in individual identity. The boundaries between us and our fellow beings, human and others, are much more permeable and blurred than we like to think. It's seductive to think of and admire great geniuses in whatever field we're interested in, like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest. But without the ordinary good musicians who played their works and the non-professional musical lovers who appreciated them, there would have been no context for their genius. And if talents were not diverse, creative people would not stimulate one another.

Finding a Musical Direction

 I practice flute every day, with rare exceptions. I begin with a long series of warmup exercises that I learned from Ory Schneor, an excellent Israeli flautist who is now based in Vienna. I took the three-hour warmup course he gives and have been diligently using the exercises he taught me. He suggested that I should think about them as a form of meditation, and that works for me.

After doing the tone-production exercises he prescribed, I have been using the sixteenth note passages in the Bach flute sonatas as exercises in articulation. First I play through a page or so with breath articulation, blowing on each separate note, hu-hu-hu, etc. I can only do that rather slowly, of course. So playing it that way helps me master the notes. Then I play the same page with single tonguing, tu-tu-tu, etc. I can play it a bit faster that way. Finally, I play the page with double-tonguing, tu-ku-tu-ku, etc. I can play the passages even fast that way, and, since I've already gone through them twice, I am close to getting them up to true allegro.

Playing Bach rather than an exercise by Taffanel, for example, might be less valuable for developing technique, but it's of more value musically. For a while I was playing mainly baroque music like the Haendel flute sonatas and some sonatas by Locatelli, and pieces by Telemann, but I'm leaning toward more recent music now. I've been playing a flute arrangement of Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte," the three Schumann romances (originally written for Oboe), and just now I've started playing a Minuet by Bizet from the Arlesienne suite. With a pianist friend I've been playing arrangements of tangos by Piazzola (just about the only playing with someone that I've been able to do recently), and now and then I take out my fakebook and play a bunch of standards. Mainly I prefer to play standards on sax, but bossa nova sounds great on flute.

The one direction I know I don't want to go is toward flashy, virtuosic playing, mainly because I'll never get there, having started flute at such an advanced age, and lacking the necessary talent in any event. Recently, while driving to have my Covid inoculation, I heard a broadcast of Galway playing the "Concierto Pastoral" by Rodrigo, and I was bowled over by both the music and by Galway's brilliance as a performer. When I looked it up on Youtube I found a performance of the piece by a twelve-year-old prodigy, Julin Cheung. Since I'll never be able to play that well technically, I'll have to aim at playing as musically as I can, and at getting to as deep an understanding and appreciation of music as I can.