Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Classical musician-turned-stand up comedian Isabel Hagen and classical pianist Daniel Anastasio explore their favorite classical pieces while discussing the creative life. Listen along for live musical excerpts paired with banter between two best friends. New episodes every Tuesday.
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Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Chopin's Darkest Prelude
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Daniel and Isabel dive into Chopin’s E Minor Prelude (and Isabel joins on a special viola rendition of it), and they briefly touch on Chopin’s E-flat Major Nocturne, Chopin’s A Minor Mazurka, op. 59 no. 1, Earl Wild’s arrangement of Gershwin’s Embraceable You, and the first movement of Bach’s Italian Concerto.
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Okay, I feel like starting in a dark place today. We're gonna play the E minor prelude of Frederick Chopin. You know that one, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I had to learn it in my piano class. I did the Juilliard, which I didn't take seriously and never learned. I learned both hands separately, but I could never put them together.
SPEAKER_02A lot of kids play it. Actually, I can barely play the last three chords just because my hand is so small. Didn't even really come out. I couldn't play all the not all the notes came out when I just played it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, when you were a kid?
SPEAKER_02No, just now. Literally, my my hand is just not quite big enough to play that comfortably.
SPEAKER_00So how are kids playing it?
SPEAKER_02Good question. I left out a note in my right hand. I left out the thumb, so I just played that instead of that. So you're leaving out the E. You do this sometimes, like the last chord of Kindersand by Shuman 2, it has a tenth in it, and I can't quite reach the span of a tenth with my left hand. And it's a bummer, but it's also like I'm fine leaving notes up. It's a real bummer. Just now I tried to play them all and it didn't come out. Anyway, kids do play this because it seems simple, it seems easy, right?
SPEAKER_00Right, it was in my beginner piano class.
SPEAKER_02All you've got, left hand is just like you don't have to move. The hard part about playing the piano is usually jumping, it's usually moving around the instrument. So if you have a left hand that's just sitting there, and actually, forget about the left hand, the right hand is also just sitting there, going back and forth between these two notes for a while, right? It's just stepwise motion, no crazy leaps. It doesn't even go outside of the span of uh like a third or s or for a while. And I think that is it's not just uh he's he's not like a technical thing, like he's trying to make the piece easy. He is in a state of depression when he's written this piece. Uh-huh. Uh when he's in Mallorca, Spain, and he's um it's it's gray and it's dark, and he's in a time in his life where he's in uh I'm sure he's in a lot of pain, he had a lot of illness, and um he was a fragile, kind of isolated human being. I mean, he wrote a lot of joyous and beautiful preludes too. Like, don't get it twisted, it's not like all of these preludes are dark, but this just evokes such isolation and depression for me because that's what it feels like when you're in that depressed or sad state, is like you don't feel like you can move. You feel or you feel like unmotivated to travel or get out of yourself or get out of your house or do anything. It's just like you're stuck in one position, you know, and then reach out a little bit. It feels like you're crying almost with this melody, and these these harmonies diminish, you know. It's the left hand is crawling down by half step.
SPEAKER_00This is a real example of less is more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's so still and I don't want to say sparse because the chords are quite rich underneath.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and actually I wonder what if it if it didn't have if it was just dyads in the left hand.
SPEAKER_00Even more depressing. See, okay, this makes me feel like death.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_00Whereas the other one made me feel like heartbreak.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. There's a lushness to these triads in the left hand.
SPEAKER_00But when you make them emptier, that makes it feel more like a death march.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's more hollow. Yeah. In in uh also in soul, not just in uh texture. Right. Well, so everything about this, including the tempo, it says largo, you know, which is a very slow tempo. It's even slower than nadagio, which is another kind of slow tempo, but largo is like, I think lethargic or something, just b, you know, it's just not moving. Um, it is in cut time, so I do think this piece tends to be played too slowly, just in general, because people tend to think of it in four. So they think uh what I mean by four is four beats per measure. So you would have one, two, three, four, instead of one, two, one, two. That's cut time. You're thinking in two instead of four, and that gives the music just a little more buoyancy of a flow to it. Same with Moonlight Sonata, by the way, which is in cut time. Most people just play it in four.
SPEAKER_00Right, and it and it makes the fourth beat feel like much more like a pickup in the line.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, good point.
SPEAKER_00And it's all, I mean, all this stuff that this is how we get taught in high-level music lessons where it's about the phrasing and these these sort of feelings, right? Because technically you were you could still be playing it in the same tempo, but you're feeling it in cut time. It's just sort of ways to trick our minds into saying things a little differently. Yeah. So it can seem a little arbitrary, especially to someone who doesn't play music. It's like, well, it's still the same notes. What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you put what we're saying to a metronome, it might actually be the same. Right. You know, technically it's lining up at the same places. But something that like Malcolm Bilson, this forte pianist who is like a historical performer, um, said once that it really stuck with me is if you say something differently, you say something different. And that's a really simple kind of truth. But it's like if you say something with different intonation, you know, um, like, where are you going today? Or like, where are you going today? Like those have two very different meanings and implications and they're the same words.
SPEAKER_00Or like, hi, or hi.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Which which one do you guys think comes more naturally to Isabel?
SPEAKER_00Or how about this? Ask me if um am I okay.
SPEAKER_02Are you okay?
SPEAKER_00I'm fine. And then he asks Are you okay? I'm fine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's like, Isabel, what's wrong? Anyway, um What existential crisis are you going through?
SPEAKER_00Same with no, don't even don't even go there. Same with delivery of jokes, which is something I'm constantly tweaking, where I'll say a line one way and it doesn't get a laugh, and then I say the same words, but on a different speed and with a different inflection, and it works.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy to me. That's the side of comedy I would really love to get to know because that's the side behind, it's like behind the curtain, like what people don't understand initially about comedy. They just think, that's a funny joke. That's not a funny joke. It's like, no, no, no, joke has context.
SPEAKER_00Right. And it's not always this way works and that way it doesn't. It could be this audience responded more to a cheery delivery of this line, and this audience responded, didn't respond when I oh, oh, they like the cheery? Okay, let me try a cheery delivery again, and then another audience doesn't like it, then I do it more deadpan and they love it, but then this next audience doesn't like it.
SPEAKER_02And is it ultimately like are you ultimately trying to find quote unquote your audience that is just gonna love the way you deliver it all the time? Is that the goal? You know what I mean? Because you go to these big shows of famous comedians and it it can feel at least the shows I've been to, where it feels like, okay, these people already love this person and they're just ready to laugh because they already like the style of their comedy.
SPEAKER_00Right. As a I mean, as a in a business sense, of course, yeah. You want to find your like target audience and want them to be coming out. And from a really artistic sense, also, yes, because then you can you can trust that whatever you feel you don't have to be like it's a slippery slope, because then are you catering to this audience now that you oh they like this, so I better keep doing this. This is my audience, or are you risking it by growing and changing and hoping your audience comes with you? Yeah. So yes and no. Oh, sure. I would love a a packed crowd of people who are just so down with Isabel and whatever I have to say, but also there's something really satisfying about walking into a club of people who have never heard of me before and making them laugh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Even if it's not as hard of a kill as if it was really my audience, you know, it's I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I think you feel the same way about performing, where um there are people when you're performing, like for example, this prelude, I think there are some people who might appreciate more what I'm doing in it or be more cognizant of all the context of Chopin and stuff, and there are people who are like, Okay, that was that was fine, that was kind of pretty, or that was okay. It's and you have to meet people where they are, um, and there are people from all walks of life who are enjoying it on totally different levels, and it is nice to mix up your audience. Um it also gives you perspective. We can we can just get so lost in our own like minutiae of the interpretation of Chopin. Even just now, I was playing, in my opinion, my little myopic opinion, with quite a bit of rubato, quite a bit of like, and that means I took a lot of time in places that Chopin doesn't explicitly write, hey, take time here. In fact, Chopin rarely does that. He rarely writes uh to do a retardando or to speed up in a measure, but we do that all the time in Chopin because it is understood that it's part of the practice that the piece should have a certain freedom in it, especially in the melody line, because it's based on operatic music, it's based on song, it's based on a deep personal expression that's often coming from something bittersweet or tragic or highly romantic and expressive. And what happens when we're tr expressing ourselves in that way, we want to linger on certain notes that are extra painful or extra sweet, and certain harmonies that make us uh feel something a little extra. Um and so we have a certain liberty to do that, but it is uh a fine line. Like if you cross over to too much of that, if you're overindulging, it can sound really cheesy, it can sound lame, it can sound like, oh my god, enough of you, Daniel. Jeez, I want to hear Chopin.
SPEAKER_00It can also just pull apart what's making the music music.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's sort of how some opera singers sing so warbly, the vibrato is so heavy that then pitches stop coming through. And I'm like, I don't this isn't doing anything for me. And then I hear a piano reduction of the opera, and I'm like, this is the most beautiful music ever.
SPEAKER_02Can you sing just for them? Can you sing with some a tone or something with no vibrato at all, and then add vibrato to it?
SPEAKER_00Oh meow, va viano caro.
SPEAKER_02So that's no vibrato, right? Just straight up.
SPEAKER_00Oh meow, ma'am. And then, you know, that's like as far as you want to go. And then it's like, oh meow, baby. And it's like, what note is that even?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was a good imitation of an over over over a vibrato singer. Um Yeah, so when you're doing that, I'm more like pulled in, I'm more like, wow, I'm listening to the vibrato itself as an object. Right, it's impressive, but it's it's this balance unique or something, is is becomes like highlighted instead of the expression of the music.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this is something that classical music deals with specifically that not all performing arts uh does, I think, in the sense that you're playing an existing work of music that some m most likely someone else wrote. So the only glory you get is the interpreter, right? We're not watching Chopin play Chopin. That would be whatever he did, it would there would be a level of well, this is from his brain, this is his music. So even if it's kind of really taking time, well, it must be what he wants to say with this piece. Whereas if it's Daniel playing Chopin and you're totally changing it and and making it something so you, maybe people will like it, but also there's this when at what point do we stop r like caring that it's Chopin? Like we have to it's like this duality of composer and existing work plus interpreter, and the balance of that needs to be it needs to be quite balanced. Yeah. Because you don't want someone just robotically playing the notes and dynamics in the score. Right. Otherwise I'd hear a a recording that already exists, especially nowadays with modern recording. But you also don't want to hear something like so wildly different that it doesn't even feel like Chopin anymore.
SPEAKER_02Unless that's explicitly what that person is trying to do through something like an arrangement. Like there's this guy, Earl Wilde, who's like a great American pianist from the 20th century, who loved Gertchwin's tunes, for example. And he wrote seven attudes based on Girchwin tunes. And so these pieces, which are fantastic and you gotta check them out, seriously.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, check them out.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know what? I'm just gonna force you to listen to a little bit of one right now.
SPEAKER_00Whatever someone says, whenever I say I'll check it out, I will never check it out.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, how what would I have to say in order for you to actually check it out?
SPEAKER_00You'd have to tie me to a chair. Deprive me of food. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, I yeah, I would say the same thing about comedy too, sometimes. Someone's like, oh my god, this person's so funny. It's like, dude, comedy is so personal. The chance of and also the context of how I'm listening to it, when I'm listening to it can't be forced. It's gotta feel natural. But anyway, Earl Wilde, he would like add notes to Chopin and List and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_00What years were was what time frame were we talking with Earl Wilde?
SPEAKER_02Um I don't remember I don't know when he died, but basically through the 20th century, like early to late 20th century is when he lived, which is like the heyday for classical concert pianists in America. You know, you have Horowitz and these people who rise to fame, extreme fame, Claudio Rao and all these people. Um and that was that was when classical music uh being a concert pianist was an actual thing, like more than now, you know. It was a thing to strive for and become. Now the field is changing a lot, and there's only really just like uh on on one hand you can name uh pianists who are making a living or touring as classical concert pianists.
SPEAKER_00Otherwise you have to like add something to it where you like talk about the piece.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, something lame that totally bastardizes and diminishes the music, like talk about the music while playing or something like that. Something that just cheapens it. It's it's like taking the music and then just putting it through a filter so that it's just more basic and more accessible. Anyway, um Earl Wilde um wrote these A2's based on Gershwin tunes because he loved them so much. So this one, you know, Embraceable You, you know, that tune, he arranges it in his own style. Sorry, much more virtuosic. It almost sounds like list or rachmonom for something, you know? So he's he's filling out all this uh inner stuff, these constant running notes. And it sounds like Earl Wilde, really. It sounds like what he would do with something like Rockmonama for List. Um, but in my opinion, it also honors Gershwin because it's him saying, God, this is such a beautiful tune. Um and he has these little like flourishes, but it always comes back to the tune. You know? And to me it it's not a problem. It's not like, oh, how dare you do that to Gershwin. I mean, obviously Gershwin would I mean, I think he'd be thrilled that someone is honoring his tune and taking his tune and doing something with it.
SPEAKER_00And but when you play this, I'm assuming you could do this as an encore, right? Oh yeah, as a great encore. Yeah. An encore being a short piece that, you know, if you play a concerto with the orchestra, then you come out and play a little encore as a wasn't that great. Here's a little show piece at the end.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if if people clap enough, which like people don't tend to anymore because they don't realize that maybe the person wants to do encores. Like there's this whole There used to be a tradition of encore encore, encore again.
SPEAKER_00It means again. Again, again.
SPEAKER_02So like the tradition of encores was a thing. People would come out and do seven, eight, nine encores. I mean, I think that still occasionally happens with really famous people. Yeah, whatever. Um, but uh people don't know that especially in the town I live in, you know, San Antonio is a I mean town, it's a huge major city, but it can feel like a town, which I like. You know, it has this kind of local feel. But um it's not like underst I mean you clap you bow after you perform, people are clapping, and then as soon as you go off, like people might stop clapping because it's just like they don't they don't pick out their phones. Well, and by the way, I like that. That's more honest, not the phone part, but the like and it's just stop clapping when you feel like stop clapping. Don't be like oh please no, come back out. We want you to come back out.
SPEAKER_00We just did a chamber performance and we walked off stage recently, and the other quartet members were like, I was like, okay, let's walk off backstage, and they were like, No, no, no, no, no. And like we basically walked off stage and then immediately walked back on. Okay, like we gotta get that second bow.
SPEAKER_02Gotta get it in.
SPEAKER_00They're gonna stop clapping if we don't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, so we started in my chamber group in San Antonio, Agorita, we started like just basically putting the encore in the program, just to be like, and now we're gonna end with this, so that it's like, look, we want to play this piece, we know it's a great way to end, you know, to play with something that's like a dessert, kind of just a nice, pleasing, beautiful piece. Right. And so we just say, we're gonna end with this rather than put the pressure on the audience to, I don't know, bring us back out for an argument.
SPEAKER_00We want to end with the with this. Piece. So just end with it. Just put it on the program. Yeah, exactly. But it with in within the spirit of this idea of uh fake spontaneity, how do you feel about playing something that's supposed to sound like someone sort of improvising around a tune, but you didn't even write that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do you wish you were when you do this, are you wishing that it's like your own improvisation that you could just build out a tune yourself, or do you not care? Um I mean, because the skill itself is obviously moving and impressive and the phrasing you're putting in it, but it's still Earl Wilde's arrangement.
SPEAKER_02I will it it and it makes me inspired to maybe write an arrangement of a tune that I like. Because like if Earl Wilde could do it, he wasn't a composer, he was a pianist. Right. And he dared to be like, you know what? I really like this piece. I play piano well enough. You know, and I and I like improvising a little bit, and I this and that. Why don't I just write my own version of it, basically? I mean, I think that is bold and daring and takes courage and gives um inspiration to someone like me, even many decades later, to maybe be like, I could do that too. You don't have to wait for someone to create an arrangement of a thing. Like, look, I can play the piano, I know how to do it. Um, yeah, I'm not a composer per se, but I think I could figure out an arrangement of something. I think an arrangement is a nice middle ground where like I don't want to make the whole step into creating something that feels like my original compositional voice, because right now I I don't know, let's say I would feel the weight and the pressure of all that, given that all I do is like analyze and work through pieces of great art, then I'm like I would feel a little anxiety over that. But how about an arrangement, especially of a tune that is from the day? That's the thing. Like Gershwin was alive when Earl Wilde was, so like that was modern music, that was pretty contemporary music. Why don't I pick something? No pressure, just pick a tune that's out there, maybe a soundtrack, maybe a film score that I'm like, man, like I was talking about we were talking earlier about Johnny Greenwood, for example, that one battle after another score we really like. I'm not saying I would do that, but let's say I I was fascinated enough by one of the tracks on there to do a video about it. So why don't I take that? I love Miyazaki movies, like, and there's gorgeous music in that. Maybe there's some kind of an arrangement of one of those tunes I could do, but Earl Wilde is giving you permission to say, guys, get out of your heads. Stop just don't just play uh music of other people. Give it a shot, you know? Put your hands on something that you like and see what you can come up with.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, I have no skill in arranging things and impro improvisation. I feel like there's a butt of it in there, but I'd have to actually just like you would need chops to play the piano, you do need technical chops to make arrangements like that. Yeah. And to understand harmony and to even even just a little. You don't have to understand it too much, but you need to know a little. And also I can't play the piano, so I don't have access to all those notes. So it'd any arrangements I'm doing is that you can't.
SPEAKER_02No one is saying that you should do any of this.
SPEAKER_00What I thought could be cool is what if I played the top line on the viola of this showpin. Oh, this is the one. And we experimented with Oh, that'd be cool. Like playing it like chamber music.
SPEAKER_02You want to try it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll play it with this mic and you can just okay, cool. Okay, I've gotten my viola out and we're gonna play this piece together.
SPEAKER_02Our own personal arrangement. Never before heard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's such a it's an instrument that lends itself to darkness really really well. Um also it's you get so much more not necessarily better, but more things you can do, right? I'm like there's sliding, there's different fingerings I can use. In the beginning, I was in third position for blah da-da, and then when I came back, I was in first, and it gives it a different how is it different?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't know the positions, like I mean. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So in the beginning, I went like this. So I'm on the uh D string. But then later when it comes back, I'm on the A string. It's a much bright a little bit of a brighter sound, but but uh since I didn't want it to sound bright, um, I just tried to make it sound kind of thin. I use the brightness to to be like a thinness. That that's that's evoking sadness, emptiness. So then I'm already up here for that for that sort of outcry. I really just wanted to play that again, so I couldn't nail it.
SPEAKER_02But wait, so wait, can you p sorry, this is dumb. This is a dumb piano question, but can you play the same note on different strings so that people can hear like the difference of the sound, even though it's the same note? Why is that last one so hard?
SPEAKER_00Um, because look, I have to do this. And the the the tension of the string as you get higher up gets, you know, it gets further away from the fingerboard, so you're pressing you're pressing down on more. You have you need more weight, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's no, that's just really cool how like fingering, like how you finger stuff on your string instruments, has such an expressive element. Like for piano, it's just like, all right, do I want to use a fourth finger or a fifth finger or a first finger? Right. It's more like for technique and ease of playing. I mean, there's still like quote unquote expressive fingerings, but it's more for articulation. Like having almost a bad fingering so that you have to lift your hand to the next note can be helpful because it forces you to do the rhetorical gesture that the composer wants, but it's not like gonna produce necessarily a more beautiful tone.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, I I will say as a lazy musician, I'm often picking the fingering that works well with what came before, but then because I'm also musical, uh whatever fingering I'm I've fallen into because of that convenience, I try to make work like what I just did with the like I was already in first position for the So I was like, I'm just gonna stay here, but oh I'll I'll use this this new tone to make it thinner.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's beautiful. I think that's I'm permanently affected now in how I play and interpret this piece because I just played it with you, because I could hear so much more clearly this sustaining singing voice. When I just play by myself, one of the things I feel like I have to do or want to do with the expression is push and pull more with the time because that's one of the tools in my toolbox that I can do. I can't use vibrato. In other words, this is never gonna start going, no matter how much I wiggle my finger, it's not gonna produce that beautiful vibrato that you have, and it's not gonna sustain through. So I'm not gonna be able to.
SPEAKER_00That's like bo vibrato. It's like um instead of like when I was having a lot of performance anxiety, I would my bow would shake and it would be bo vibrato, like stunning.
SPEAKER_02Warbly vibrato. Um so I I think as a pianist, and I mean you especially get this in an extreme way on the harpsichord, they can actually take a ton of interesting time, more than you might expect. We think of Baroque music or Renaissance music as like very strict and very structural. But if you're playing on an instrument like the harpsichord, where one of the main things you can do, you don't really have dynamics, um, you don't really have much, but what you do have is timing, so you can really play with that. But here too, it's like let's get through this measure so that I can take time going into the next measure, and then because if I slow down too much, that right hand note is already dead. And and I'm no longer singing. You know, the literal line, the melodic shape, is gone. What's interesting about when I'm playing the left hand? Not much. It's just meant to be supportive of what's happening in the right. So I want to get through so that I can keep singing. And then I take time on these special harmonies that feel painful, but you don't want to do that every half measure or every single chord change. So you gotta pick out certain ones in the structure and the phrase that are extra special for you so that you both get this long line of the right hand and also the emphasis and pain of the left hand. And Roboto, I mean, let's talk a little bit about it. Like taking time in music, it's so personal. I don't think it's really something you can I think it's something that is often taught carelessly and um is maybe something you can't teach at all. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. It's hard because it's roboti, and I don't mean to sound like it's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02And this is taking time, by the way. Roboto means taking time. I think it literally means stealing, so like to steal time away, and also it implies to give time back too. You're not just taking time, you're also giving it.
SPEAKER_00That's the trick. If you take time, you have to give it back, which I don't think people always do. And the skill comes in knowing, remembering where you took time and sort of making up for it later because otherwise it becomes this nebulous thing. And so to keep it cohesive while still so and then you're back. So if you don't have a good sense of time ironically, to be able to play out of time, you have to be able to play in time. Because if you can't have a you know, if you don't have a good sense of time in your in your gut and in your brain, even, you're gonna just lose the tempo once you start taking the time.
SPEAKER_02That's true. However, I mean I don't even want to do the however yet. I want to totally and fully agree with you. Period.
SPEAKER_00Validate my I love your brain.
SPEAKER_02Now, the in that moment that you just pointed out, what if I didn't give it back?
SPEAKER_00So But you just gave it back by speeding back up.
SPEAKER_02Well, but I I went back okay, okay, what kind of giving it back are we talking about? Because I went back to the tempo, but I'd say net, I net lost time in that whole thing.
SPEAKER_00In other words, Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm actually curious about this because people do say that, like, oh, you gotta give it right back. And it's like, well, I would you sped up a little bit, boom, I don't maybe. No. I mean, I was just I just did a giant writ pretty much. But I think if you do that, it has to come from such a place of self-conviction where it's like you're pulling. You have a question? Raise your arm. Um, you're have you not played viola in a while? You're like, I've got a sore now. That was a lot for me. You're like, that's about as much beautiful playing as I can handle this year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, my arm was just falling asleep by holding it in a specific position.
SPEAKER_02Um man, I I like I'm willing to I'm willing to give a lot of leeway for someone who's taking time if it comes from a personal and connected place. Well, that's it. I don't care if they give it back. It'd be like, dude, you commit to your time the way you want to do it, but where it where I feel like it rubs against the music too much or where it doesn't make sense is if it goes against what the composer is obviously wanting. So if if if I take time, take time, and then this is just slower, then I'm going against what I said earlier, which is like, okay, the right hand needs to flow. It's a beautiful melody in the right hand, the left hand is just chords, like let's get going here.
SPEAKER_00I was thinking it would be really impactful if when you took time on the and then you just stayed in that new slow tempo.
SPEAKER_02But you're no, you're this is definitely slower than when I started. But here's where it doesn't make sense. This is going somewhere. Where is it going? Like, if I stay slow here. That's not very dramatic. What about this? This is a like to me that sounds awful slow because it is it is this Yeah, it sounds kind of psychotic. And I'm gonna take time there because it's like finally, after all that buildup, after all that pain, after all that outburst, we have a cadence coming or the end of a phrase, and then yada. Um, but there's so many moments in a piece like this, you do run the risk of overdoing it. Right. And that's another reason why I think this piece just needs to flow.
SPEAKER_00I generally am in favor of things flowing. I mean, I used to have the I went through this phase, it's almost like an ASD teen phase where I was like, all music must be played in time. Like Robotto is just cheating, and the expression should come from from just the dynamics and the tone and like music exists in time. It was wild. I don't feel that way anymore. But space-time continuum, but I think I think it gave me a perspective on how Roboto can often be so overindulgent. I I don't want, I don't like I don't care about your journey, if that makes you know, like if a performer is like like so moved by the music, like they look like they're gonna like throw up, or I'm just like I I don't I I don't know what's going on with you right now, but that's not my experience. That's not like like you should it should be really transcendent and connected to the music where I'm not even aware of that. Yeah. Um I don't really know what I'm saying. Back to your question though.
SPEAKER_02No, it's it's ste like you run the risk of making a robotic, it's like putting too much makeup on. It's like, okay, I'm losing the essence of you now. Now I'm like technology, makeup. Whoops, sorry. Um, yeah, now I'm just like super aware of yeah, I see you're going for the you're like, oh my god, this beauty is so beautiful that it's beautifying my beauty. It's like, dude, relax. Like, allow. There needs to be some organic allowing of the music to come out. Um, that's why I think in general, you should come from a place of no time. It's actually a really good exercise to come from a place of no time, even if it's like seems absolutely ridiculous. Okay, fine. I just played with no time at all, right? Sounded a little heartless, but then you start to add in, like, well, where might you sense that something happens? This is something that a teacher of mine said once is like, don't you like have a heart here? Or like, can't you do you sense like something is happening here? And it just to point out that there might be something expressive going on there without telling me what it is, without telling me how to do it. So that, okay, um, even that, well, you know, I guess that is kind of a leap. And if you were gonna sing that, can you sing it? Because yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh. My uh there you go.
SPEAKER_02So you just did a little yi. There's a little sliding up, but we can't do on the piano. But what I can do is take a little time, and then there's an even bigger leap coming up, and that is a beautiful harmony. That man, that feels like an event. That feels like something different. B flat minor, that's resolving to F minor. So if you come from no time or nothing, and then begin to point out your own personal uh moments that you're like, I like that, I like that for this reason, then you start to add time and it becomes organic. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00So it's almost like we're showing people our taste rather than our emotional journey, which sounds less interesting, actually, if you say that, but I think taste is a little more compelling in this situation, you know? It's just a word.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, here's what it's so subtle. It's so subtle, but I do not want to hear, and this is my own taste, but I don't want to hear someone showing me what they love about the music when they're playing.
SPEAKER_00Oh, see that's what I was that's what I was just saying. Like I'm showing you my taste, but this is the part I love.
SPEAKER_02Well uh I guess to some degree you are showing no matter what. I mean you're we're playing. Yeah. But as it it's the it's that's why it's subtle. It's a tone. It's a it's an inflection of like like there's a difference between singing a song and saying um Hey, isn't this song so beautiful? Listen to this and listen to that and listen to this and listen to this part, listen to that part. You're removing The uh possibil like an actor, you know, it it'd almost be like if an actor is giving a monologue and then like halfway through they they break the fourth wall and they turn and they're like, This is the best part coming up. Like, check this out. I'm about to get really heated, and then it's like I don't want you to be like, I don't want you to be the audience member too to some degree. I want you to just be channeling um in as presently as possible what it is you're doing, and and if you're not moved in the moment, don't do it. So rather than be like, as a performer, I'm going to replicate this, like I already know this part's coming up. This is my favorite part. I'm gonna take a lot of time here. I can hear that, I can hear that in your head when you're playing. I can hear you thinking this part's gonna be really beautiful. Listen to this. And like that means you're not present. That means that you are anticipating a little too much, you're you're a couple measures ahead, or or you're like relishing in the music rather than um feeling what it is inside the music that's actually expressive, originally expressive by the composer. It's a tricky acting job that you have to do.
SPEAKER_00It's acting, and you know how people say acting is reacting sometimes in acting? I don't know. Exactly the way it's acting is reacting, which I've felt as an actor, because I've acted. I I'm the more I just react to what's happening, the more natural it's gonna be because it's an actual reaction, right? So it when you're a musician, you're the actor, and the music is the other actor. And the music is affecting you, and then that's affecting how you play them. Ironically, it's affecting you how you play the music, which is then affecting you.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's this weird loop, yeah, which makes it so cool. It's a loop. I love that though. I love that it needs to be a loop. You have to be listening to and loving the sound you're making all the time.
SPEAKER_00Uh but not because you're making it, not because you're making it. Because it's happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And because it's a beautiful piece of music. That's a bit like in the same way that uh man, I don't I don't know if this is just me, but when people say you have to imagine the sound first before you begin. Imagine clearly the sound you're about to make. You know what that does to me? It puts me in all kinds of knots, it gives me the expectation of a certain sound that I'm not gonna be able to get because that sound is in my head. It's not in reality. But here's what I would like to do: I would like to sit down at the piano, trust that if I want a tender, beautiful sound, I'm gonna be able to be in the ballpark because of my technique that I've built over the years, where, all right, let me just start playing. Okay, I actually let me work with that. Let me work with that sound. I'm in the realm of piano. Now, how do I react immediately to what I just did and how does it grow? And I'm just listening to the sound I'm making. And the time I took there is only because of how this sound decayed. So if I if I didn't do that, if I did, I wouldn't take so much time because I'd be like, get me out of that chord. I played that way too loud. So I would probably do this. I'm sorry, not that. I would do something totally different with my timing because I have to be reacting to the sound that's happening out of the piano. That's what keeps you present, is listening, not playing.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's actually both, but your mind has to be interacting with your own sound all the time constantly. And that's that only really happens in a quote unquote performance, even if you're just alone performing for yourself or playing through. When you're practicing, we're like trying to practice. We're trying to be like, how easy can I play this? What's my fingering? What is my ideal sound? But like you have to let go of all that when you're playing, when you're performing.
SPEAKER_00Right. And when you're performing with others, the obvious advice is listening, because you need to be listening to the other player and being in time with them, you know, being in sync with them. When you're a soloist, it's not as obvious to say listen. And that might sound kind of narcissistic, you know. Oh, he loves listening to himself talk. I would argue people like that who talk too much aren't listening to themselves talk. Because if they were listening, they would stop talking. They would slow down. They'd be like, ooh, this doesn't sound great. This is too much talking.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, people who talk quote unquote too much or feeling.
SPEAKER_00It's not that they love listening to themselves talk, they just love talking. Active talking.
SPEAKER_02Maybe it comforts them or it r it relieves a kind of insecurity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But anyway, back to Robato. Dude, I think this is pointless to even I don't know why I need to say this, but like, can it be taught? I think it can be cultivated. I think it's something you're either m musical and you're not, and a good teacher can bring out something that's that's in there, but uh you can't build it from scratch. There has to be some sort of sensibility in there, and and also I think it can be learned but not taught. Someone could start listening to a lot of music, someone could start uh you know, expanding their mind, and maybe it would awaken something totally new. But I I don't see how a teacher could be like, so you want to take time here, you know?
SPEAKER_02No, because it also ultimately it is subjective, but people have better and worse taste.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what's tricky, is like if you're learning from someone, like you gotta go with them. You are putting your hands completely, or you're putting yourself completely in their hands. This Missurka in A minor that I just played Opus 59, number one, is a good example that I brought this to a teacher. Um, and I was stopping after every phrase because first of all, it's kind of marked that way in these little two-bar segments that feels like something, and then this feels like another thing, and then this feels like something else, and then a longer thing, and then a little codetta. So, but just because those are maybe four or five or whatever, like different phrases or different uh gestures, that doesn't necessarily mean that we want to stop on each of them because then we might lose the structure of the entire eight-bar phrase, which we on some level should feel, and we should feel it organically and naturally. Um, and when we study music theory, we understand why. We understand that, well, we started an A minor. Although it's it's so beautiful how he starts with no left hand. It's like a question, it's like it's so improvisational. It's just like, what if I just sat down on the piano and just like kind of tried to make a little melody? Um, but then we so we start an A minor, we venture far away from that. We eventually get to E major, but then suddenly with that D minor chord, we return to A minor, and we should feel on some structural level that we started an A minor, we ventured onward, and we returned to A minor. If you take too much time in every two-bar segment, you don't feel that. So let me try to play it in a way that is sensitive to a little bit of those smaller gestures, but connects the eight bars, I don't know if I succeeded, but and it's subjective. It's like some people are gonna say, Wow, you took too much time, or some people are gonna say, but the chord there in the middle of the phrase, how dare you just pass through that? And it's like, dude, I don't uh you try it. Like there's someone's gonna have an opinion about someone's gonna want to hear something more, and some people are gonna want to just get through the phrase. And it is ultimately a matter of taste. Um, and I honestly think, honestly, every which way is possible, but you can feel when someone is completely convinced of it, uh who's playing it and someone who's not. If someone is uh timid about that or they don't have good reasons for doing it, like if you're just taking time to take time because someone told you, or a recording of Martha Argorich or some great pianist, well she did it. It's like she also had really good reasons for doing it. It's like what I learned in philosophy. There's there's true beliefs and that's different than knowledge, as in like knowledge is a true belief grounded with good reasoning. So you can have accidentally, you can have a true belief uh, you know, about something, but unless you have really good reasons for believing that thing and you can articulate what they are, you don't actually have knowledge. So like that deeper understanding coming from a place of conviction is what um is transmitted more than anything. That when someone has conviction, real true conviction, we don't talk about robota anymore. We don't talk about dynamics anymore, we don't talk about but the structure of the phrase. Dude, I don't I don't care about any of them. It is just like it is coming through, whatever you're doing. And by the way, I'm not gonna do it your way. Are you kidding me? Your way is your way. Everyone needs to find the thing that they find most interesting and beautiful in the music and try to cultivate that. Yeah, you play for someone and maybe it's too much for one person, or maybe it's not enough for another person. Ignore that, you know? Trust what it is in your gut. Now, if they're coming at you with good reasons, like, hey, you realize it's an eight-bar phrase, right? And not a two-bar phrase, then you'd be like, oh yeah, good point. I didn't know that. I I just didn't know that. I was ignorant to that. And when you're young, you're gonna be ignorant about a lot of things, and you're probably gonna stop too much in the phrase because we don't have a longer view. Just naturally, when you're young, you just you want to stop and smell every rose. You you you you're trying to emote, you're trying to add like expression, maybe where it's not there because you're afraid or insecure of sounding flat or plain in the music. At least that's the way I was.
SPEAKER_00Um so but I was never afraid of sounding flat or plain. No, I was the opposite. I was sort of reserved, and teachers would always be like, come on, give us mmm, you know, and it took me till I was much older and had more like emotional experiences in my life to cultivate from you know, it it That's really interesting because when we were playing through the E minor prelude, like I bet if we played it again, it would be like because we haven't we haven't obviously we don't play together, but I think you could be freer in it. Sure, yeah, that's why I was just like, what notes are they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know all that, but like, but like it it's interesting to note that uh I mean obviously whatever, but like you have maybe more of a tendency to like, okay, let me let me not go overboard. You know what I mean? Right and then um and I think I I would go overboard but for the wrong reasons. Not because I loved it so much, but because I would be afraid of not being perceived as expressive.
SPEAKER_00See, I have no trouble being perceived as boring.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Um but also That's part that's part of what makes you awesome and interesting, actually.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, thanks.
SPEAKER_02No, it's also part of your act to some degree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is. But but but it's funny you say that because even though you said, Oh, it could be freer, I felt very emotionally connected playing that just now. Yeah, you know, I and I did too. It's always coming from a real place. Whether or not I'm I'm ex exaggerating it enough for for the person in the back to hear it. Yeah, it's always there. I mean, I can't help it. Yeah. Um, but it's but then I get in my head and and then people say you could be freer, and then I think, oh, okay, and then you know, and it it starts like a spiral really quickly. Um and that's why I have to treat music so quickly.
SPEAKER_02I probably shouldn't have said that. No, and it's also like it also has that really um triggered you. No, but I I think it's also like there's also then when you're playing chamber music the issue of interpretation, yeah. Where it's like, and so you play through and then you talk about it, and then you change what you did, and then you come to some middle ground, and then you come to a place where both people are like, okay, this feels really good to both of us, or whatever. I mean, that's the beauty of chamber music, is a conversation. Like, yes, it's really nice to be able to lay things down together, and it's like if it's if you have two really good players, like it's virtually perfect, or it's like just fine or totally great, but there's also a lot of compromising happening on both sides automatically. And so it it's taken me a lot of time actually and experience to have the courage to be like, let's do something totally different.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Like totally outside of our comfort zone. And sometimes you have to really push people because they won't do it. It's like, no, no, no, let's play like twice as fast. Yeah. Like just for the experience of doing that. Wasn't that cool? It's it's hard to get out of get out of your own way, you know. Maybe classical musicians more than others, but yeah. Anyway, did we solve it?
SPEAKER_00I think we solved it. What time is it? Time to save.
SPEAKER_02I will say there's there's one piece, uh, there's one, there's one style. Oh no, you're gonna love this. Um there's certain pieces that just, you know, don't work with robato. Bach Italian concerto.
SPEAKER_00Try to play it with robato.
SPEAKER_02Okay, sure. Literally by braid rope. Okay, I just gave like all classical musicians a stroke. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, actually, once you got going, I was like, oh, he's he's being freer.
SPEAKER_02It's so fun. That's funny because I'm trying to like figure out how I would even add Rabotto to that. I mean, there's some music that's just so like structural.
SPEAKER_00That's the only yeah, I mean, that'll be the natural spot for it. Slam.
SPEAKER_02What about doing it during well here's what harpsichordists do is they they just separate the hands. So, like in order to bring out certain notes, it would be like if you don't have any dynamics or pedal.
SPEAKER_00They don't have any hands. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So if you have this this comes out naturally because I can play my right hand more than my left or my left hand more than my right, right? My right hand is playing softer, so I can bring out the left hand. But in harpsichord, they're equal, so it's like it's like the dynamics are just the same, so it's hard to bring out what's happening. So they would actually play like kind of separating slightly the hand sometimes. So like how do I even do it? Oh man, it's really hard. I mean, dude. It's on a dry instrument. It works on harpsichord, trust me. Um, because you're you're hearing the notes popping out of the texture in the space between the notes.
SPEAKER_00You're playing it like that. It works on harpsichord. Trust me.
SPEAKER_02Don't have a harpsichord with me, so I don't know why I'm making you suffer through this. Anyway, um to talk about with Roboto with you. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for letting us steal your time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, we won't give it back.
SPEAKER_00Bye.
SPEAKER_02Good night.
