Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales
Stephen Nachmanovitch’s inspiring book Free Play (1990) offers an uplifting paean to creativity, improvisation, playful curiosity, and personal artistry. Though endorsed by the likes of Yehudi Menuhin and Keith Jarrett, it seems many have yet to discover the book and embrace its ethos; do look it up!
Early in the book, Nachmanovitch paints an evocative scene:
“A walk, following your intuitive promptings, down the streets of a foreign city holds rewards far beyond a planned tour of the tried and tested. Such a walk is totally different from random drifting. Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your likes and dislikes, your conscious and unconscious desires and irritations, your irrational hunches, to guide you whenever there is a choice of turning right or left. You cut a path through the city that is yours alone, which brings you face to face with surprises destined for you alone…
When you travel in this way you are free; there are no have-to’s and shoulds… As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm.”
As we enter the holiday season, with many of us looking forward to travels at home and abroad, why not try out Nachmanovitch’s recommendation? Just remember to take a map, a bottle of water and provisions.
At the piano, too, how about we embrace a little more spontaneity?
Unleashing our creativity
Since childhood, I have found that the piano serves as a versatile canvas for expression. Improvising, composing, arranging by ear, and jamming in bands have always been just as important to me as exploring fresh interpretations of the great masterpieces.
Then (and how odd that it was nearly a quarter of a century ago!) as part of the original steering group for A Common Approach, I found myself working with a team of leading teachers, most of whom were far more experienced and distinguished than I was at the time, discussing the nature of creativity in music education.
With our 2002 curriculum, recently updated, but largely retained and widely used, we hoped to enthuse teachers with a broader understanding of creative education, along with practical suggestions and lesson activities.
We homed in on three major strands of music-making, encouraging and supporting creativity under these headings:
- improvising expressively
- applying instrumental skills in composing
- interpreting music, developing a personal response
Embracing any or all of these can lead to a musical journey that is more truly ours, brimming with invention. And crucially, incorporating our own creativity doesn’t diminish the importance of traditional approaches or techniques; rather, it amplifies them with a more deeply personal touch.
Pursuing creativity, we need to be emancipated from the tired constraints of the ‘have-to’s and shoulds’. Enjoying the freedom to cut our path through uncharted musical territory, following our impulses as they suggest fresh new directions, we begin to unravel the mysteries and wonders of our creativity.
A More Creative Map
Those yet to venture beyond a “traditional” notation approach may perhaps feel daunted. Embarking on a more adventurous journey at the piano, we reach out for a map to guide us. There are many resources to help, and I want to close with a personal recommendation.
Piano Creativity is a new website devised by pianist, teacher and composer Garreth Brooke, a friend who I have taught and supported professionally, and one of the brightest upcoming voices in piano education today.
Garreth’s website includes a growing wealth of insight and practical downloads to help us all learn and teach a more creative approach…
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