When asking if I am really an Australian composer, and if it mattered all that much anyway, I was asking for trouble. Especially in the week preceding Australia Day. Comments posted to my Facebook page convinced me that when I questioned the value of national identity I did so in a myopia of macro-thinking (thinking “do I represent this nation?”), and was forgetting all about the micro-realities about identity (“do I live in my community?”). Of course it matters if I am Australian to the children from Australia who play my music: me being from where they are from tells them that composers live in their community, which is a double shock to some people (the fact that composers are alive at all, and that they live down the road). It matters to the Kiwi kids who find out I grew up half an hour away from where they live, or I went to school at their high school. Knowing
Scale of the Day #3
This scale, starting on D as shown above, is my favourite scale of all time. It feels unbelievably wonderful under the hand – three black notes in a row, four white notes in a row. And as good as it is to play in similar motion hands an octave apart, just wait til you try it thirds or sixths apart (magic), or contrary motion (strange and wonderful). What makes this my favourite? Well, it has all my favourite features: the raised 4th of the Lydian mode which communicates curiosity and optimism; the flattened 7th of the Mixolydian mode which communicates a lack of tension and a trusting approach to life; and then to top it off we have the flattened 2nd which imbues any scale with exoticism and sensuality. How could anyone not like this scale? If you’ve been following the scale of the day you will notice that this is almost the same as last week’s Simpsons Scale –
Am I an Australian composer?
It has often struck me that describing myself as an Australian composer is not an overly enlightening statement. Sure, I
Scale of the Day #2: The Simpsons Scale
Rather than alter the original post (which would make the comments below somewhat hard to follow) I will leave it
Scale of the Day: January 8
Here is the first scale-of-the-day, and this is a pattern I heard used in a composition by Australian oud player, Joseph Tawadros, when he performed recently at Government House in Sydney. It was an original composition of his, and he told me that it used a traditional Egyptian mode. Well, of course, this pattern has nothing Western about it, with those two augmented seconds, and subsequent consecutive semitones. Play through the triads based on the first four notes of the scale: you get C Major, D flat major, E minor and F minor. But just where you would expect to find a dominant chord if you were listening with Western ears, there is a complete absence of anything that resembles the harmonic function fulfilled by a dominant chord. That D flat turns it into a chord without any dominance at all. The way Joseph used the mode was fabulous: the harmonic centres seesawed from the major-inflected tonic to the assuredly
Scale of the Day (on a weekly basis)
2010 has dawned with a lot of people I know participating in a project to photograph some aspect of every day in the year – a lovely discipline to find things of visual and conversational interest in even the mundane moments life brings, I suspect. I’ve been really enjoying the photographs posted in various networking media. But it led me to thinking: how about, instead of a visual image, a scale of the day? No, not the major and harmonic minor ones we’ve all practiced frantically in the final two weeks before our instrumental examinations. Last year my most popular post, by some long way, was one I entitled Scales as Propaganda, where I argued that the patterns we learn to play are also the patterns we learn to hear, and the music of our lifetimes is replete with patterns that our [Western] culture,historically, doesn’t believe we should be recognising (otherwise we wouldn’t be able to pass our Grade 8
Choosing Repertoire
I’m preoccupied this week with thoughts revolving around how we choose repertoire for our students. I’d like to be able to say with rather than for our students, but most of the time the student gets at best a veto (not quite the same thing as being actively part of the process). This topic was one I spoke on at the 2009 Australian Piano Pedagogy Conference held in Sydney in July, and at that time I titled my presentation Repertoire Roulette, attempting to draw attention to the hit and miss nature of a piano student’s repertoire selection, the element of risking something valuable (the attention and long-term interest of the student) if we should happen to stake our lesson time on a piece of repertoire that doesn’t come up a winner. If only the pieces of piano music we use in our teaching came with guarantees. Or at least a warranty. So here’s the thing that comes first, something which
Musical Resolutions
It used to be my wont around this time of the year to think of my musical misdeeds and resolve to engage in behaviours that would counter my deficiencies of the previous twelve months over the subsequent 365 days. I would resolve to practice longer. Mastering more repertoire. In a more focussed fashion. I would resolve to put musical pen to manuscript paper for a set period of time per day. I would resolve to listen to more music; to become more than a passing acquaintance with the orchestral canon, the operatic oeuvre, the chamber music catalogue; to attend more live performances. I would resolve to work my way through recordings of famous jazz pianists, jazz trios, jazz quartets and quintets and big band ensembles. Learn to play the hundreds of standards I still didn’t know. I would resolve to get to grips with world music just a little [more than before]; to learn how to compose for hurdy-gurdy, how
Younger Beginners & Piano Exams (in Australia)
I’ve just completed a tour of the four of the major centres in Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide) and three of the smaller ones (Coffs Harbour, Launceston and Geelong) with the Australian Music Examination Board launching the P Plate Piano publications and assessments to groups of piano teachers. More of these launch events will take place in the first few months of 2010, but the eleven events we’ve already done gave a good insight into the issues piano teachers grapple with getting students ready for their first (Preliminary) AMEB exam. In my seminar I talk about the four pressures Australian piano teachers are feeling in regard to their beginners in 2009: The AMEB Preliminary examination has been getting steadily and substantially more difficult (comparing the syllabus repertoire in the mid-90s with that in 2009). Piano students are starting lessons younger. Whereas most beginners were 7 or 8 years of age twenty years ago, in 2009 beginners are often 5
Judge Not: the question of assessment (beginners)
The really big question when talking about assessing piano/instrumental students is: are external assessments of piano students a motivational tool, encouraging serious effort which certainly would not be made if an external assessment (and the possibility of failure) were not looming OR are piano exams something that strips time from the lesson that could have been spent developing a wider knowledge of the repertoire, a more varied technical expertise and a broader set of musicianship skills? A firmly believed, but often not-expressed, view amongst piano teachers is that the use of graded assessments often ends up being a way for students (and their parents) to compare themselves with their peers, and this competitive perspective can undermine the motivational benefits that an assessment deadline can deliver. I’ve recently been spending a great deal of time considering the benefits of assessments for beginner pianists, many of whom may be as young as five years of age. It can be exciting for beginner
Elissa Milne 