Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales
Developing creativity is one of the high goals of learning an instrument. And yet over the decades I’ve taught, those advancing a more creative approach have been variously seen as either maverick outliers or magical superstars, but rarely as the piano teacher norm.
I have also met some who emit an impression that improvising pianists are somehow superior to those who “merely” regurgitate the music of others. Some even cast the concert pianist who can rattle off Rachmaninoff as a rather pitiable savant, akin to an imagined orator who can deliver a Shakespeare soliloquy, but who can’t hold a real conversation.
I think they are quite profoundly wrong. Having frequently improvised in front of an audience, I feel considerably less comfortable rising to the challenge of performing Chopin to the classical cognoscenti. I suspect many would. We all have different strengths, and need not compete.
And I would say that the creative arts of interpretation and improvisation are equal in value, complimentary in nature, and both have an important role to play in piano education.
Creativity expressing itself
Back in 1997, the national steering group for A Common Approach, Music Mark‘s comprehensive and widely adopted instrumental curriculum, identified three important ways to creatively explore music: composing, improvising, and interpreting.
Having noted that the last of these three is just as vital as the others, let’s recognise how creativity can be understood as a musical dialogue between the player and:
- the composer whose music they are interpreting.
- other musicians with whom they are playing.
- their instruments, and the creative possibilities it offers.
- the audience, if they have one.
Perhaps there is no such thing as “new music”, only fresh musical personality. All music is a response to that which has already been created. We play with the same elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, and so on, using a language that others before us have developed.
One of the main limitations on our creativity is the extent of our vocabulary, just as when we hold a conversation, we are assembling our ideas using words that we already share an understanding of.
This is why it is so helpful to have educational resources which systematically expand the player’s musical vocabulary. Understanding scales, theory, chord voicing, harmonic relationships, and counterpoint gives us a better body of knowledge and technique, which we can then apply creatively as we interpret, improvise, and compose music.
But good music is more than simply an assemblage of these elements and patterns. Drilling through these types of resources won’t automatically make us more creative musicians. Style, genre, mood, groove, idiom, and personality all contribute to the complexity, effectiveness, and value of good music.
And this is where Shakespeare comes in. For the student of English, absorbing the creative language of the greatest writers who went before, across multiple genres, enlarges comprehension, fluency, and an ability to express complex ideas.
Aged ten, our son surprised us by dropping unusual words into everyday conversation, testing language he had encountered in the fantasy books he was reading. What better reminder of the importance of a culturally diverse and enriching education?
Expanding our musical language
How much musical language have we assimilated, and can we use with confidence? The answer to this question will inevitably depend on:
- the music we have been introduced to (by teachers and others)
- the music we have listened to with intention
- the music we have understood, inside out
- the music we have practised, analysed, and played
True creativity is never a matter of sticking to our present comfort zone. If we are unwilling to explore the music of other times and cultures, or to engage with styles that we don’t initially understand or like, then our own musical understanding and creativity will be stunted. We might remain musical midgets, rather than the giants we could otherwise become!
The pianist who absorbs themselves solely in the recorded output of Einaudi and his imitators will inevitably improvise and compose music imbued with their techniques, tropes, and influence, potentially struggling to become more than a pale copy.
Similarly, if we spend extended hours listening to the music of the Baroque, our immersion will prove to be the key that unlocks the door to adding distinctive and authentic ornamentation, embellishment, and improvisation when interpreting music of that, or any other, time.
Assimilating the elegance of the Classical era, the chromatic harmonies of the later Romantic era, and the dissonant chord voicing of the modernists opens whole new vistas for our own personal musical expression.
And this is why the best jazz educators sometimes muse that “jazz is caught, not taught”.
Creativity begins with discovery, exploration, enthusiasm, and immersion. The importance of listening to, copying, assimilating, and playing the music of the greatest pioneers of past and present cannot be overstated.
We should be deeply suspicious of educators who suggest or imply that to promote a more creative education, we should limit the attention we give to the music of the past.
No! Let’s immerse ourselves in a more varied and inspiring cultural education! The bigger, bolder, and broader our vocabulary, the more we have to say. It’s really that simple.
History shows us that even the most radical pioneers built on the art of their contemporaries and of the great creatives who preceded them. It has always, and exclusively been this way.
Creativity is always a dialogue. Always!
Let’s all try to make it a richer and more meaningful one!
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