Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Petzold Minuet in G-Major. Please, help!

I do research on methods of teaching INTENSITY in nowadays schools and ability/disability of modern musicians to detect differences between different, opposite patterns of INTENSITY in MELODY (all the rest in music is out of my focus at the moment).

In the past it was impossible for me to post music along with my posts. So, all discussions were senseless. Now I have this opportunity and learn: how to communicate with other musicians on this topic?


How to play and sing "Happy Birthday"?


I am so frustrated with all this unexpected criticism that I forgot: how to play with both hands and all five fingers.
Now I study again and play with only one finger.

Please tell me: where my music is better, and where is worse:
on "A" versions or on "B" versions?

Thanks in advance!

Vladimir

https://yadi.sk/d/H8ODGg42DujdWg HP

https://yadi.sk/d/qii0SlGGmBUrqg HN

https://yadi.sk/d/5k3Ip0terBDr1Q LP

https://yadi.sk/d/JFLFrAEqCPjjgQ LN


https://yadi.sk/d/tl3dW9vNMrNt2w HN

Sorry, forgot letters in front of versions^

A1 https://yadi.sk/d/H8ODGg42DujdWg HP

B1 https://yadi.sk/d/qii0SlGGmBUrqg HN

A2 https://yadi.sk/d/5k3Ip0terBDr1Q LP

B2 https://yadi.sk/d/JFLFrAEqCPjjgQ LN


B3 https://yadi.sk/d/tl3dW9vNMrNt2w HN

I do a research. I need statistics on following topics: Do modern teachers know anything about INTENSITY or not? Can they detect and describe different, opposite patterns of INTENSITY, can they choose an appropriate INTENSITY for given kind of music and explain their reasons for their decision? And so on.


How to play and sing "Happy Birthday"?


I am so frustrated with all this unexpected criticism that I forgot: how to play with both hands and all five fingers.
Now I study again and play with only one finger.

Please tell me where my music is better, and where is worse:
on "A" versions or on "B" versions?

Thanks in advance!

Vladimir

A1 https://yadi.sk/d/H8ODGg42DujdWg HP

B1 https://yadi.sk/d/qii0SlGGmBUrqg HN

A2 https://yadi.sk/d/5k3Ip0terBDr1Q LP

B2 https://yadi.sk/d/JFLFrAEqCPjjgQ LN


B3 https://yadi.sk/d/tl3dW9vNMrNt2w HN

Could you, please, give us a chance to listen to your or somebody else proper performance of this Petzold Minuet in G Major?

Thank you in anticipation!

Vladimir

I tried to indicate in your first thread with the "work on the Internet" title that I suspected that you have a communication problem, and don't yet know how to communicate in forums with colleagues on the Net. This is why you are getting bad reactions which perplex you. In forums for professionals, the norm is honesty and mutual respect. Yes, there will be "hucksters" coming in selling their wares, like "snake oil salesmen" of the "wild west" but they don't get respected. You must understand this in order to communicate.

If somebody comes in saying he is a teacher, and has a hard decision to make about his students, then colleagues will believe this is a true and maybe urgent situation. They may drop everything in order to sincerely help. If it turns out to be a game: there are no students, there is no concert, there are no problems, then the trust of honesty is broken. The others were not playing games, and took you seriously. You must understand this.

Consider, also, that we are meeting from many cultures, countries, and languages. communication consists both of words and unspoken convention. It is important to write with as much clarity as possible. If you play games, then you add layers of confusion. It leads to misunderstanding and resentment.

Your "Bourlesque" thread is finally going in the right direction, in that you have defined what you are talking about, and what the goals are to your thread. This should at least minimize miscommunication. I don't know if you still have trust of the members here, due to the first misadventures.

I am not a teacher, and will be reading this thread, rather than participating for the most part. I will limit myself to the following:

I think that by "intensity" you are referring to something like dynamics -- one note being played louder than another note. I saw some of your old videos some time back. In one you refer to rules which I think are of the kind: 4/4 = loud soft middle soft, 3/4 = loud soft soft - which would create a very mechanical and artificial way of playing. In that video you liken it to a funny sounding sentence, if we did the same thing. Is this going in the right direction in regard to what you mean by "intensity"?


I see a possible problem here - there is no overall trend across the world, or even in any single (western) country. I know that in the former Soviet Union, there was one school (maybe two?) which had one standard, one norm, and in such a world one can see what the trend is. But if you expect a similar model worldwide, it may not exist. At best, you might find a variety of general patterns.

(leaving floor to teachers)

Here is my advice to you:
Stop pretending that you want advice.
If you want something, ask specifically for what you want.
If you are advertising your services, pay for advertising.

My advice to the forum:
Don't feed the troll.

Here is an obvious for me clash between the Western propaganda and the bitter reality in all known to me Western countries.

In Music they are much-much more totalitarian than in the former USSR.

Only one example (beyond the "soldiery" accent on beat "one" of ALL Western classical pianists and even of the majority of vocalists):

In Canada, there is only one for all of Canada, not at all PUBLIC, but an ordinary privately owned school - a monopolist, which is only allowed to conduct examinations throughout Canada. Why was this privately owned school given such a privilege, in what exactly is it better than any other school in the country?

When I wanted to rent a concert hall from them for my recital, the Deputy Director suddenly told me: "You will lose your money, if you rent our concert hall". I asked: "Why?!"

He answered: "Because everyone knows that our music is very bad and never will come for your concert in our hall".

I was very thankful for his warning and rented George Weston concert hall instead.

I think Daylight Savings Time threw us into some weird, parallel dimension, LOL.

Alexandr, I'll give this a try, and hope you'll give a try for understanding.

Suppose I'm in a new place and want to find out what their drinks are like. I walk into a paint shop, taste brown paint, and report the chocolate milk here tastes horrid and makes you sick. The wrong question in the wrong place will yield strange answers.

It seems that you have been looking for where there are central standards, central examinations, and you found one single one - I suppose the RCM. Some people want to go to a "standard" and so they work with this. But nobody has to go to any standard, and so the rest don't. Any knowledge I have is from direct experience. Of the people I know who got into music at the university level:
- One got educated in the far north, where one teacher took it upon herself to bring music to students. There were not central exams, no programs. He auditioned at a small university on one reed instrument, and was persuaded to enroll with another that he also played, because it was more rare - few students played this instrument.
- Another got into an arts magnet program by audition. University entry again was by audition. In that school, the RCM program was discussed and so I heard the opinions. Generally it was seen as impractical, and the theory part not reflecting the reality of music.

My own experience with music can be summarized as a big fat zero. How do you think I ended up trying to learn to read music, learning my "alphabet", in my mid-fifties, when I have had had a lifelong interest in music? When I taught public school in the early 1980's, I can't remember more than "appreciation" for music - having children sing some Christmas songs. Later with Harris' reform there was some token recognition of music. But I had to go on-line and hunt up a trombonist from some American orchestra to help the neighbour kid who got to lug home a trombone, but his "music teacher" had no idea how to play it. And then was asked to teach another neighbour girl who was keen on music, but the "recorder education" they got didn't go past memorizing fingers.

There is no central standard of any kind here. There are people with all kinds of backgrounds trying to teach, or trying to make a living teaching who have no business teaching, and some who actually know something. The students being "taught" by the inept teachers become the next line of teachers. And vast numbers of kids never, ever, have a chance for any kind of private lessons.

In regard to "Canada" - it is a vast country. In fact, Ontario itself could swallow up several European countries. Toronto has a way of appearing to be the center of the universe, and if you're there, you think it's all of Canada. Have you gone to the far north? Have you been out west, or in the eastern provinces. Are you sure that you know what is going on in this country - or more likely, just your corner, and the people you encounter.

For "propaganda" to exist, there has to be a central narrative that is officially put forth. There is NO narrative. If you seek to find a standard anything, then you are tasting brown paint trying to find the flavour of chocolate.

Correction to my last post- That should be Vladimir - not Alexandr. No idea how that came about, sorry.

There is Internet now and official info from RCM and educational authorities. So, I do need to travel across the Canada to know the situation with music exams.

If you want to get an extra credit for university you are forced to go to only RCM exams. Nothing else is recognized for credits except Oxford college (UK) but it is only one time a year and more expensive. If government wants to set standards then these standards should be set for teachers rather than for students.

In USSR any diploma of any school had officially equal rights and value. Of course, Diploma of Moscow conservatory made better impression on potential employers than Diploma of some unknown to them school. But no one dared to discriminate you if you had education credentials from some other school. By default it was meant that your personal ability to do job is above any Diploma and can be verified easily without paper work.

In 51 year since 1968, my Diploma with Distinction from Moscow conservatory was seen and read ONLY ONE TIME by the rector of the named above Conservatory Mr. Sveshnikov , when I asked him to give me some paper for Military service. Never before and never after. I never met any person, who wants to look at paper instead of listening to music.

This is for members reading the confusing "information" about Canada.

All universities anywhere in the world will have admission requirements - prerequisites - because without the necessary background, you will be unable to follow your professors or complete assignments. Typically for university music programs such as a performance degree, students will have to audition, their academic grades should be good, and "sufficient knowledge of theory" is asked for. The theory part can be ascertained through an exam. In fact, both people I know who were admitted to university for music, wrote a theory exam in situ the day of their audition. Imagine someone starting course work for a music degree, who cannot located C on a staff. Sadly, that is quite possible. This is only common sense, and I am sure the same everywhere.

There are high school credits (in Europe they are called ECs and seem to have become standardized), and the RCM exams do count as a high school music credit, which is unusual. However, it is not mandatory for admission to university. I did notice one Toronto university (York?) made RCM mandatory as admission prerequisite, but one institution does not indicate policies within one country or even province.

The "diploma" from the Moscow Conservatory would likely be considered a university degree --- the word "diploma" is often mistranslated. You cannot mix together credits counting toward university admission, and graduation from a conservatory being equivalent to graduation with a music degree. They are different things.

In terms to admission to such conservatories in Russia, it would be good to hear from people in that country (presently or formerly). I know that very often children were vetted very early for talent, and attended the "arts gymnasium" (a "gymnasium" is a special kind of public school in many European countries, tending toward more academic subjects leading to eligibility to study at university, rather than apprenticeships, or "technical colleges - arts gymnasium specializes toward the arts.). Having spoken to people from the former Soviet Union, even those who did not attend arts gymnasium seem to have had a much fuller education in the arts, including, music, then we have here. As I mentioned, I had a vivid interest in music from an early age, and was 55 years old before I learned to read music. In this country it is necessary to specify at admission that students have some knowledge of music theory, or you can indeed end up with applicants who, when seeing sheet music with one sharp, won't know that it can represent G major or E minor.

This has gone way off topic, but if information is given, it should be more or less correct.

-----------
Yes, you can get information about the RCM on the Internet. But if you are going to inform people about students are taught throughout a country, you first have to have an idea about this, and you will not get that on the Internet.

That makes no sense to me. Standards ARE for students. It's up to the individual teacher to do the teaching. Some teachers teach TO the standards (coverage only), and other teachers teach MUSIC, which will include the standards--maybe not in the prescribed order.


You need to get out more. Or maybe you should just enjoy your retirement.

While I am never one to oppose a good off topic tangent, in the case of this thread it seems particularly beneficial. In fact, I would say that the further from the topic of the original post, the better.

This is my favourite of all the PianoWorld forums, but I’ve never laughed so much with it as in the past couple of weeks. It seemed to start with Gary's "this place is really dead" post....

Could not agree more.

What does this have to do with you lying to us all in your original post about a couple of students going to a concert? I'm still waiting on you to give your opinions on the various songs you link, and start a proper discussion. C'mon, now.

I am talking not about the admission to Music department of universities. The parents of music students of school age are interested first of all in School Credits for university (any faculty) admission. If all the rest kids have 13 credits after their High School program, the music students, who managed to pass grade 8 have an extra credit, and for grade 10 - another one.

In this way, you can get 15 credits instead of usual 13 credits thanks to your piano classes. I had students, who immediately got scholarship, FREE accommodation at hostel and even two meals a day in USA just for their 15 credits.

[quote=Blague

What does this have to do with you lying to us all in your original post about a couple of students going to a concert? I'm still waiting on you to give your opinions on the various songs you link, and start a proper discussion. C'mon, now.
[/quote]

1. I used a typical language and style of textbooks for Math ('Two my friends went with me for fishing. Peter caught 3 fishes, John caught two times more than Peter, and I caught three times less than two my friends together. What is our summary catch?")
As you know, math was just PART OF MUSIC according to Pythagoras. And Math is substantial part of Music nowadays.

What is wrong in my way to suggest the same kind of test for colleagues of mine? Why I can not challenge them for a discussion in this TRADITIONAL for any science way? Why joke and humor are so unwelcome here?

2. You have surprised me with your words: " you to give your opinions on the various songs you link". i was asking for YOUR opinion on these links to start discussion because I am pretty sure that for many musicians rough accent on beat "ONE" is a norm. For me it is a "cancer tumor" in modern classic performing that diverted public from classical music.

The same people were standing many days and nights to listen to new oratorio by Handel or new opera by Verdi. I saw (and took part in it for small money - all students did it substituting somebody in a queue in night time) THREE YEARS long queue (simply on the street, without any roof and wind protection) for Cliburn's concert in Moscow. People can not change their mind towards great music so fast. But musician can and did it with this sad result.

Which kind of opinion do you want from me? I will answer ANY questions.