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Joined: May 2007
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Activity One: Brick on a String
Give students a brick with a string (one meter in length) tied around it. The free end of the string will be tied to a rubber band. Place the brick on a carpeted floor and pull on the rubber band. Watch very closely. What happens? Why?
Note to the teacher:The rubber band stretches until the brick starts moving. As it is pulled further it stretches less because the initial inertia of the brick has been overcome making it easier to keep the brick moving. You might bring to the students' attention how hard it is to get a stalled car moving by pushing it. Once its inertia is broken, however, it's easier to push. Those acquainted with acoustics will know the defining moment for wind/string instruments is the transient (beginning microsecond of the note). On piano is it the moment of breaking the inertia? Do pianists vary in their sensitivity to this moment? edit: i.e. all notes start from pp! I do believe that's what Bel Canto means.
Last edited by keyboardklutz; 05/19/09 03:30 AM.
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Joined: Jun 2007
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I'm not quite sure what the question is? Then again, it's been a long day!
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The question is (I didn't realize till after posting): Is there a Bel Canto school of piano playing? I believe there is though I may be it's only member.
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I was taught that direction (bel canto) and understand it's considered old fashioned, obsolete, etc. and possibly people don't even hear those qualities these days when it's there. As I understand it, the tone quality changes as it progresses, like a thickening and thinning, or change in texture. It would not be exactly the same as cresc. dim. i.e. pp, but in a way yes, and in regards to how one starts, (and continues and finishes), yes. Obviously I'm still learning, and that's the gist of it that I caught so far.
Are there examples where one can actually here this in anyone's playing on piano? Or one of the older instruments?
Last edited by keystring; 05/19/09 10:25 AM.
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Bel Canto is too neglected an art to have much meaning today. The late Esther Salaman had much to say about it. Where I find it's apposite to my post is "One can soon learn to feel the actual place [her italics] where sound starts: the area where the vowel is formed. The most basic Bel Canto exercise was about precisely this, the onset of the note. The exercise draws attention to the tiny 'click' that accompanies the meeting of breath and vocal cords." Messa di voce is part and parcel of this same tradition.
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Yes, that sounds like it.
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The question is (I didn't realize till after posting): Is there a Bel Canto school of piano playing? I believe there is though I may be it's only member. You're forgetting Horowitz.  
Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons.
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Funny you should say that, I play the Black Note just like he does - laid back and laughing! I'll make a video some day (in fact this topic can to me as I played it this morning and thought of him).
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 That's a great description of his Op. 10-5. Looking forward to your own rendition.
Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons.
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