Very specific problems and solutions
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
Usually when you’re classical pianist it’s safe to assume that no experience you ever have is unique, which in many cases can be quite comforting. Everyone has a stage mishap story, a memory slip story, a “making the wrong impression in front of a venerated artist” story. Everyone’s played pretty much the exact same rep, so we all get it. If I mention “that expanded Alberti bass left hand figuration in Op. 90,” which I have many times, multiple pianists will immediately know what I’m talking about (without anyone having to name the composer!) and contribute their own stories about that passage. The other day I posted a photo of a large chord from the Bach-Busoni Chaconne on Instagram without naming the piece, and half a dozen pianists immediately chimed in with their personal experiences getting around that chord.
I am proud and perturbed to report that I am currently experiencing a very specific thing that I know I am the only person in the whole world to experience, and that is (no surprises) the process of relearning the solo Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel sonata for recording after having prepped and performed the wildly different concerto version for performance.
I know for a fact that I am the only person in the world to experience this, because 1) I am currently the only pianist in the world able to play the concerto version (and the cadenza, which I wrote myself!), and 2) there has only been one performance of said concerto, for which I was the soloist. There aren’t even that many people who are familiar with the original sonata and have performed it.
What this means is that every time I encounter a very specific problem as a result of crossed muscle memory wires between these two pieces, my immediate impulse is to hit up my fellow pianists—whether texting them directly, or posting to social media—to get that virtual fistbump of solidarity, before realizing that no one will know what I’m talking about because I’m the only person in the world this is happening to.
It’s both a cool realization to have repeatedly, and also quite a lonely one. Several times this week, while attempting to play through sections of the sonata, I found my hands veering off into the corresponding passages from the concerto and, unsupported with nowhere to go, felt like Wile E. Coyote frantically scrabbling in the air after running off a cliff. (The likelihood of this happening in the recording studio and me shouting profanities on tape is…well, let’s say it’s definitely above zero.)
It’s funny how I take for granted that basically every feeling I have about music has happened to someone else before; whenever I’ve had any kind of mishap, there’s been comfort in thinking “Well, this has definitely happened to hundreds if not thousands of pianists before me, and if they could get through it, so can I.” Right now when I think “Has anyone else had trouble remembering that it’s blocked eighth note chords there and not a rapid triplet figuration?” I have to remind myself that no, no one else has had trouble there, because no one else has ever done this highly specific thing before. I’M SO ALONE.
[sweeps side bangs over one eye and cues up Evanescence]
THESE WOUNDS WON’T SEEM TO HEAL! THIS PAIN IS JUST TOO REAL! THERE’S JUST TOO MUCH THAT TIME WILL NOT ERASE! This song is definitely about the plight of concert pianists coping with muscle memory confusion and not about, idk, a breakup or whatever.
That being said, I am finding one very freeing aspect of going from concerto to sonata (it’s basically musical osmosis, going from a higher concentration of instruments to a lower one), and that is [Lydia Tár voice] being able to control time. You can’t reeeeeally rubato too hard in a concerto (unless you’re Martha Argerich and you just bend everyone else to your will) so other than a few choice moments you’ve worked out ahead of time with the conductor, you just have to prioritize being very rhythmically steady and staying with the orchestra.
The funny thing is that I usually have a hard time being free with tempo when I play—so many of my lessons involved teachers begging me to please, please, please be less square and take MOAR time, luxuriate in the moments, etc. Now that I am no longer bound by the time-based constraints of an orchestra, though, ooh baby the shackles are off! I am taking so much time everywhere, just because I can and it feels amazing. Every apex, every modulation, every subito: I am delighting in the fact that I have total power over time [Tárness intensifies] and I am making the absolute most of it. There’s a very operatic quality to a lot of Fanny’s melodic writing, and I am having fun leaning into it and taking my sweet time pretending I am a vocalist who can’t count. (I will rein the excesses in before the studio session, though, because taste and maintaining the architectural structure of a large form piece blah blah blah.)
I want to write all my teachers and tell them, Eureka, I have found it, the solution to loosening up a square performer who doesn’t feel comfortable rubatoing. Just tie a composer up for several years orchestrating an obscure piece for piano and orchestra, assemble a board of people to oversee the project, solicit tens of thousands of dollars from donors to mount a performance and hire a conductor and ensemble, fly your rubato-shy pianist across the country to perform the resultant concerto, and then afterwards make them work on the original solo version for release! It’s so easy!
Yoga for pianists
This past week I was at a dinner with many pianists and one of them turned to me and said “Do you do yoga?”
We hadn’t remotely talked about yoga, so, baffled, I said yes, and she said “I can tell, your posture is amazing.”
(Now, if my posture was good before, it got even better in that moment, because my head immediately became so inflated that it could have lifted up even the creakiest spine like the balloons on the house from Up.)
She then asked how I do regular yoga as an active pianist (you know, as opposed to a dormant pianist; we’re like volcanoes) who has to protect her wrists, and I ended up dumping a bunch of piano-specific yoga tips on her. I figured I’d share them here since every time I talk about yoga or mention it on social, people have questions, which is hilarious because I’m objectively the last person who should be giving yoga advice. (I hate working out and I’m really only doing yoga because it’s good for my health.)
The first suggestion I give to anyone who needs to baby their wrists but wants to do regular yoga is to get a set of Yoga Paws.
I’ve previously written about Yoga Paws in this newsletter, but when I posted this photo to Instagram, someone responded “why are you wearing weird socks” so I am once again extolling the virtues of overpriced workout accessories.
As I wrote:
The big, big downside for me is that the combination of intensive piano practice plus regular yoga has been absolute murder on my wrists, which were simply not designed to take daily strain at these levels.
I bought myself a pair of Yoga Paws and have used them twice this week and…they’re great. […] The combination of generous padding at the palms, grippiness, and general scaffolding makes a huge difference and takes a LOT of pressure off my hands and wrists.
While the gloves do most of the heavy lifting for keeping my wrists happy, I’ve also found that the socks are extremely helpful for adding extra traction that results in even less pressure on my hands somehow.
Some notes:
You absolutely must get the “Elite” version, which is more heavily padded.
The gloves aren’t perfect; my biggest gripe is that as I get into my flow the elastic starts to dig into the webbing between my fingers, which doesn’t feel great, but isn’t unbearable.
If in doubt about sizing, I do recommend sizing down; I initially bought the gloves in the regular size based on the size chart, and they were too loose and ended up not helping much at all. The company sent me the smaller size free of charge.
My second bit of advice is that even with help from the Yoga Paws, yoga can still be pretty hard on the wrists; planks and down dogs aren’t a problem, but I can only do crow on a good day and side planks are absolute murder. There’s no way around it but to figure out which moves are unsustainable for you and just avoid the hell out of them.
I use Apple Fitness+ because it’s the most frictionless platform for me, a very exercise-avoidant person, to navigate, and in addition to allowing you to filter workouts by time, level, music preferences, etc., each workout has a quick summary of main poses/moves. I pretty much just don’t do any workout that has side planks in the summary, and that solves the problem 90% of the time. (The remaining 10% is solved by doing the move with one of the suggested modifiers.)
One fun thing I’ve noticed is that doing yoga first thing in the morning accelerates the warmup process when I practice afterwards. If I start practicing completely cold, it takes 45 minutes to an hour of scales and technical exercises to feel fully warmed up; if I do a bit of yoga first, it only takes about 20-30 minutes to get to the same point. More proof that being a musician is just being a secret athlete.
Heaven is a time today
In case you missed it, the “Planet of the Bass” video dropped, and they nailed it.
The moment the aliens showed up I was like, oh right, there was that weird sci-fi obsession that dance music had for a while, huh?
I will say that no part of the song quite matches “Life, it never die / Women are my favorite guy” in brilliance but it’s still on point and catchy as hell. The interview with Kyle Gordon in Rolling Stone makes for a worthwhile supplemental read.
I want to touch the magical extinct fabric
I was predisposed to enjoy this BBC article I encountered because I am a textiles nerd, but it’s really got something for everyone: history, biology, colonialism, technology, sexist political cartoons about women being dressed too scantily. (One of my favorite fun historical facts is that there was a 1700s trend of near-transparent, private-parts-revealing dresses among upper class women, which means people wringing their hands over modern women lacking modesty and saying we all need to return to traditional values, once again, simply do not know their history.)
I also want, so so so badly, to be able to touch Dhaka muslin, because it sounds incredible:
It was not like the muslin of today. Made via an elaborate, 16-step process with a rare cotton that only grew along the banks of the holy Meghna river, the cloth was considered one of the great treasures of the age. It had a truly global patronage, stretching back thousands of years – deemed worthy of clothing statues of goddesses in ancient Greece, countless emperors from distant lands, and generations of local Mughal royalty.
There were many different types, but the finest were honoured with evocative names conjured up by imperial poets, such as "baft-hawa", literally "woven air". These high-end muslins were said to be as light and soft as the wind. According to one traveller, they were so fluid you could pull a bolt – a length of 300ft, or 91m – through the centre of a ring. Another wrote that you could fit a piece of 60ft, or 18m, into a pocket snuff box.
The entire article is fascinating and I highly recommend reading it. If you find it as fascinating as I did, I also, once again, recommend Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn for all the reasons I listed here.
Feelings and modulations
I was musing this week today about how reserving your music-making for times when 1) it is ideal and 2) you have the ~feelings~ to pour into it is really actually a luxury. Cheesy Hollywood movies like to have big climactic scenes where, in the heat of the moment, the underdog protagonist digs deep and flashes back to whatever emotional thing happened in Act I, pours it all into their performance, and ends up getting the girl/impressing the mentor/winning the competition/etc. I don’t know if it’s this depiction of music, or if it’s that hobbyist musicians utilize music as a way to process their own feelings, but there seems to be this normie perception that professional musicians are just always digging deep like that.
I have a lot of unorganized thoughts about the whole psychological aspect of performing once you have to just be able to “turn it on,” but for now, just know that most of the time now when I’m pulling a lot of feelings out of the music, there’s just not a lot of drama going on in my head. Sometimes it really is just about the music.
Also, don’t underestimate the power of a really good modulation.
Snail mail PSA
August letters for snail mail subscribers went out this week and, spoiler alert, the stationery I used is extremely. cute. JetPens started carrying these adorable letter sets with full page designs on the back of each sheet, and I want to thank you, snail mail subscribers, for always providing me with an excuse to buy stationery. 🎹