There is much praise in the classical music world for musicians deemed “true to the composer.” On the other hand, those who are perceived as using the music as a vehicle for their own musical personalities or outlooks are often excoriated. We can challenge such assumptions, but classical teachers and musicians may not be so much concerned with honoring composers’ actual intentions as with an extremely literal view of the relationship between notation and performance. My own piano teacher, Margaret Kohn, specifically referred in my childhood to her rebellion against the unabashedly Romantic aesthetics of her own teacher, Jan Smeterlin. Smeterlin played in the relatively free manner of many turn-of-the-twentieth-century musicians, including at times the direct contradiction of notated dynamics and articulation. His student’s rebellion was a modernistic embrace, in her words, of “the printed page”—though I must say that she, in turn, interpreted scores far less rigidly than many younger pianists. Consider, however, the supposition that the musicians of Smeterlin’s generation adhered more precisely to the printed page in many respects than previous generations of keyboardists. He was, as far as I know, not given to harmonizing a figured or un-figured bass, improvising cadenzas, lavishly adding ornaments, or throwing in extra octaves, for a few examples, all commonplace practices in earlier generations. The issue with pianists like Smeterlin may not be so much disregard of the printed page as that the historical adjustment of performers to such detailed scores was quite gradual. In the late eighteenth century, there had simply been a lot less score to follow, in Bach’s time less than that, in the fifteenth century even less, and so forth.
The classical teacher might insist that close adherence to the written score is not what it’s all about, and that he does indeed encourage his student to go her own way. He could point out how he encourages her to play Chopin with rubato, that is, rushing in certain places and broadening in others, especially in the right hand. Hence the rhythm will not always adhere precisely to what is notated. It is likely, in fact, that he may consider “unmusical” a student who, perhaps due to timidity, plays Romantic music in strict time. He might note that he may at times encourage his student to begin a passage marked forte slightly more quietly if that marking is followed by a crescendo that may be difficult for her to effect if she is starting at an already loud dynamic. The teacher may perhaps have the student roll a chord that her hands are too small to encompass where no roll is indicated, or even leave notes out of that chord.
All of this suggests that I shouldn’t be too hasty in dismissing the freedoms available to students of classical music. However, such freedoms accorded the classical music student don’t alter the fact that, for the classical pedagogue, the parameters limiting performer freedom are ultimately rigid. The teacher encourages rubato because Chopin and his contemporaries are assumed to have employed a good deal of it in their own playing. The adjustment of the dynamics to effect a better crescendo simply places a slightly higher value on Chopin’s crescendo than on his marking of forte; the hope of the teacher is that the intentions of the composer overall will be better served with this compromise. There is no issue of superseding the composer’s marking in the interests of a negotiation between different perspectives. The choice of either rolling the chord or leaving out a note or two is simply based on the question of whether we will consider the composer’s instructions with regard to time or those with regard to pitch supreme. There is no question of, even just occasionally, completely disregarding the presumed intentions of the composer, but sometimes there is simply the necessity of having to choose between intentions.
The classical teacher may well admire some fairly unconventional traits associated with performing artists like Maria Callas or Glenn Gould, and maybe this undermines my assertion that the focus of classical performance training is adherence and continuation rather than synthesizing and creating. Still, Callas actually adhered in many respects more closely to the score than a number of other singers of her generation; her unconventional vocal technique was more at issue, and this may not have been a matter of choice (though it still is undoubtedly a factor in why she is admired). Gould may be a more relevant example because he genuinely questioned the assumptions of the classical establishment in some respects, as in his famous abandonment of the concert stage in favor of the recording studio, as well as in his own eccentric responses (at least in terms of the time in which he lived) to the printed page. However, I’m not convinced that admiration for Gould is, in itself, sufficient evidence that the reverence for the composer’s text has been meaningfully challenged recently in the classical music world. In fact, I have known pedagogues who admire Gould, yet encourage even their older and more advanced students to play quite conventionally, as if such experimentation is only the special privilege of a talented aristocracy.
The teacher of classical music may well believe that it is in a possible future role as a composer that the student may stretch the envelope, differentiate herself, and rebel. This, however, only emphasizes my position that, while playing music originally imagined in the past at an instrument in real time, the student is not encouraged to experiment beyond a tightly circumscribed limit; the notes, rhythms, dynamics, articulations, and form are mostly seen as a given.
It would seem that classical training fosters not just the teaching of certain artistic disciplines, but the expectation that the conceptions and underlying attitudes of these disciplines will fully circumscribe the performing life of the student. This is supported by observing what it is that a large number of serious classical music students do not learn. I have conversed on a number of occasions with teacher/musicians, who thought it remarkable that a piano student can play a piece of great difficulty—a Chopin Concerto, for example—yet not be able to break into playing Happy Birthday at a party. I was certainly such a musician until, some years ago, I began to accompany singing students who occasionally had no conventional sheet music and, also when my teaching life began to focus more on general musicianship; I still struggle far more with extemporizing than many other musicians with less in the way of “chops.” Furthermore, in my considerable experience, the more presumably serious and skilled both the student and her teacher are in relation to European art music, the less likely it is that either has much ability to extemporize.
Very recently, there are a number of visible performers who aim to mix traditional Western music not only with avant-garde pieces, but music in (or near to) contemporary popular idioms as well. Recently on Public Radio, just to cite one example, there was an intriguing story about the pianist Jade Simmons, who performs programs that combine both elements of traditional ‘classical’ and avant-garde music with elements of hip-hop music and other pop traditions. However, few such performers that have received much attention actually seriously re-interpret “classics” in ways that meld them in some way with the recent music presented. In most cases, the older music is allowed to remain pure, unlike anything in a popular idiom, which is, in turn, fundamentally intended to reflect the performer’s own life and culture. A performance of Brahms or Schoenberg still is likely to be praised for revealing truths about those composers, not as vehicles for exposing us to a new musical performance personality. Pop music (in the broadest sense) of the past invites the generating of new ideas; Coltrane’s performances of Richard Rodgers’ My Favorite Things were probably as ‘creative’ as his playing of his own tunes.
Consider a couple of scenarios regarding the teaching of non-classical music that I think fairly represent the musical training of American kids in recent years—the lucky ones, because so many learn nothing about music at all that they can’t pick up easily online or on the radio. The musical educations, for example, of a young saxophone student who studies with a jazz player and that of a guitar student taking lessons with a steel-string folk rock player are themselves probably dissimilar in some respects. The saxophonist student may study some classical repertoire to develop her reading and her technique. This is probably not the case with the guitarist who is learning the basics of folk guitar; the technique is entirely different from classical guitar technique, and the student may never be required to develop his reading much. Still, the respective teachers are likely to share an interest in imparting to their students an understanding of stylistic habits rooted in the past. The teaching only of present-day currents probably does not exist, for there is little controversy regarding the notion that it is good for us to understand something about the roots of whatever we are playing in the present; here again, understanding something about Hamlet on terms other than our own is desirable. The jazz teacher may be quite insistent about her student learning something about the blues, and, if necessary, what it means to swing—and she will probably correct him whenever he fails to achieve it. The guitar teacher may well alert his student when she fails to use voicing, figuration, or even bending of pitch that adhere to a range of stylistic conventions of guitar playing. Therefore one teacher takes the position that a saxophonist should know something about how Charlie Parker or Cannonball Adderley played, and the guitar teacher thinks a guitarist should be familiar with Lightnin’ Hopkins, Pete Seeger, and Jimi Hendrix as well.
To this point, the focus of these teachers’ concerns appear comparable to those of the classical piano teacher’s—who wants her students to learn about Beethoven’s style, to follow Schubert’s dynamics, etc.—in that they are all learning about musical traditions originating in the past. Are the teachers of saxophone and guitar always so interested in their students developing into innovators? Are the visions of the saxophone and guitar teachers for the one student to play as much like Coltrane as possible forever, and for the other always to play something like Hopkins? Or is the idea rather that acquaintance with important pre-existing styles informs the range and taste of the student in forging her own way of playing, and hence—this is critical—forging her own music? I suspect that the answer is in between these two suppositions.
Teachers’ efforts to go beyond merely using the learning of traditions as valuable examples can have the effect of placing such figures as Hopkins or Coltrane in a rarefied mold similar to that applied to “the classics.” This may sometimes result in pious beliefs about what today constitutes ‘authentic blues’ or ‘true jazz’ aesthetics comparable to the “correct” adherence to musical scores we see encouraged in classical music lessons. Many years ago, I got to know, for the first time, a seasoned jazz pianist with many students, and I noticed, despite all of the fascinating currents in jazz at the time, how tightly circumscribed his notions seemed to be of what music is good and, indeed, of what music even qualifies as jazz. The expansion of jazz pedagogy in recent years illustrates how often, though certainly not always, a narrow bebop-oriented definition of jazz—or, at any rate, a “straight-ahead” concept—is assumed. Perhaps it’s inevitable that ideas of purity and fidelity applied to a style or a tradition can justify inflexibility as surely as fidelity to a composer can, especially when that composer is seen ultimately as a participant in a tradition as well. If we were to put our focus on which habits of musical education are extremely likely to enable sweeping creativity, jazz, rock, or folk instruction might well disappoint us just as much as classical teaching.
We must be realistic; after all, it is not only classical musicians who are very good at talking the talk of “creativity” while lacking the freedom to walk the walk. But if we instead focus on which teacher provides the student the chance to interact regularly with a number of different types of musical situations in relative comfort, the non-classical teachers do often achieve something most of the classical teachers do not. There are genuine contrasts between the classical pedagogy and the others at issue.
The guitar and sax students are likely to learn to play in a far more expository fashion than a classical music student. The saxophone student, in lessons and perhaps also in a school jazz band, will be encouraged to move toward taking improvisatory solos. This skill will not only be handy in ensembles playing jazz per se, but in groups playing gospel, funk, blues, or rock and roll. If the student becomes an at least proficient improviser, she will be able to walk into many situations and make music comfortably with her colleagues.
As I stated before, the guitar student probably learns to work from lead sheets and tablature. He may have been shown certain voicings, formulas of arpeggiation, and so forth, but ideally he becomes highly familiar with them and not only uses them with ease, but can perhaps extend his arsenal to related but different voicing, accompanimental figuration, and so forth. He has, if he’s worked hard, similarly learned to enter into different situations, maybe playing with singer-songwriters, handling lead or rhythm parts in rock bands, folk or country groups, bluegrass, etc., and to manage in these all pretty well. The saxophonist and the guitarist can fill the room with music with a minimum of notation or on-the-job instruction. They can extemporize, vamp, and solo; they can make music that is not entirely pre-planned take shape.
Recently, I was at a sort of vocal-music salon, during which a jazz pianist with a lot of accompanying experience played for several women as they jammed a bit on a Gerschwin tune from Porgy and Bess. Some of what he did had been, in a sense, worked out, but much was not. He was comfortable in either situation; he was also playing music that has straddled the genre categories of classical music, show music, and jazz. I wouldn’t be able to pull off what he did with such aplomb, but neither would most of the people I know who can play Beethoven or Debussy with sureness. In this way, he and I are isolated from one another, and this isolation is, I think, analogous to the alienation between relatively open-minded American music-lovers and classical music, especially as it is perceived in this country.
