pianist from the sea

Chapter 45 Lectures on Chopin

Shan Yi glanced at the crowd off the stage, and said casually to them.

"Just like what I said today, today I just put forward a possible teaching idea for everyone present to think about. Whether this teaching method is applicable or not depends on the specific analysis of specific students, and should not Straightforward formulas envelop all students in a pedagogical discussion, asking them to understand the same things."

"Because today I am just giving a lecture, not a master class, so today I will talk about a student I met recently in a relatively simple way. I won't say his specific name, but he is in music. His physical talent is very strong, especially his ability to perceive music, he is almost one of the most powerful students I have ever seen..."

"Perhaps someone may want to ask me, is there anything else to teach this kind of student who has such a strong ability to perceive music? If you just say a little, he can understand by analogy. What you teach is really important to him. Is it useful? Actually not...he has a very strong understanding of the aesthetics of music, but his performance in music is a little bit problematic."

"For example, let's say a work I taught recently, which is a work that everyone here should know, Chopin's First Piano Ballade. There should be no one who doesn't know this work? If you don't know Get out of trouble!" Shan Yi joked to everyone: "It's this very simple piece, but he actually doesn't play it very well. He can comprehend his teaching very quickly, and even directly comprehend it. Everything in it applies to my own music, but..."

Shan Yi's expression became extremely serious, and he slowly said: "But his performance is not perfect! It has not reached one percent of his talent for music comprehension! You can even say that he has completely wasted his talent! "

Fu Tiao was stunned. He always felt that this person was a bit similar to his current situation. He couldn't help turning his eyes to He Shen who was listening to the speech, and found that He Shen's expression was also a little bit surprised. He didn't expect this time at all. The example given by Professor Shan Yi is actually such a...coincidence?
Shan Yi didn't know what the two off stage were thinking, he just shrugged his shoulders and continued.

"You say he works hard in practicing the piano, he is indeed very hardworking, he can even be said to be the hardest working group of my students, but you say he plays well, but in fact he is relatively average, not really great .”

"Since I started researching and changed the direction of teaching, I soon discovered the problem...he doesn't have a complete and unified understanding of music! In other words, his understanding of music is scattered !"

"When we are teaching, we don't actually adjust the feeling of a whole piece of work. We let students complete a whole piece of work first, and then we adjust some of their details. This is most of our The direction that teachers or colleagues are doing, but there is an obvious problem, that is, this kind of teaching is too one-sided and superficial, it may be useful for ordinary people, but it is not so applicable for specific groups of people.”

"Take the Chopin Ballade No. [-] just mentioned as an example. The Napoli sixth chord we talked about at the beginning has always said that we want to play the feeling of playing the Napoli sixth chord. What augmented sixth expansion, what dissonance, what needs It’s even more sad. Using these words to teach students, they should understand the Naples sixth chord in Chopin’s work, but they don’t have a special understanding of the role of the Liuhe County in Naples in music. clear."

"For example, the role played by the Napoli sixth chord in the whole work, the expression of the Napoli sixth chord to Chopin's emotions, and why we need to play this place is actually not particularly clear, just The simplest formula, you need to do this in this place, you need to do that in that place, that’s all.”

"Then the question is, how do I guide him to start understanding a work?"

Shan Yi looked at the crowd off the stage with a smile, without any change in expression, and spoke to them in an extremely flat voice.

"Form analysis!"

"I will give you the simplest and clearest example to tell you. For example, Chopin's Nocturne, Op32, No1. For this piece, I took my students to conduct musical analysis. This piece is a reappearance of the second part. If his work is written down in words, it should be..."

Shan Yi waved his hand, and a set of formulas appeared on the screen next to him.

““A[a3（K46D7）+b4（DT）+c5（D-DD7）+a4（K46D7）+b3（DT）]+B[d5（Dt）+e6（Dt）+c11（D-DD）]+B’[d5（Dt）+e6（Dt）+c'14（D-DD7）]”

"This is the formula for writing this piece. Taking section A as an example, we can clearly see the phrase a in section A. The first three bars are the progression from K46 to D7, and the next section is followed by One appearance is also K46 to D7, so what is the difference between these two passages, what are the similarities? We should use similar ideas to understand and build the skeleton of this work.”

"The same is true for the latter, for example, the c phrase of the A section, that is, the direction from D to DD7. This section also appears in the B section, but this time it has gone from 5 bars to 14 bars. There are also deformations."

"Since these two phrases are actually the same music idea, then we have to use similar ideas to think, and at the same time, it's not just my own thinking, you also need to inspire his thinking, let him think about this How should the difference between the two places be interpreted.”

"As we often say, what is the most interesting thing in music? It is contrast! Through constant comparison, the level of music can be changed more!"

"Just like those variations, the reason why the variations are so interesting, besides the fact that many things in this work are changed from a musical idea, to a greater extent, is also the comparison of the overall content of this work. The contrast of various forms makes the music extremely interesting."

"Therefore, my lecture today is from the perspective of how to construct the skeleton of the work, and through teaching, the performer can walk the inner skeleton of the music more clearly, and explain my teaching method for specific performers' works."

"..."

Shan Yi on the stage described his method of instructing his students in an extremely simple manner, while Fu Diao off the stage was completely dazed.

His thoughts had no idea where they had gone.

A door in a completely different direction opened to him in the music, and his eyes were full of light!

classical music……

So much fun!

(End of this chapter)