It's the routine of many piano lessons: Teacher sitting next to student sitting at the piano. One copy of the written music. Student and teacher examine it together. From time to time, teacher reaches over, or deseats student, in order to demonstrate details, or even phrases of the music. (In an unkind moment, I have called it "piano-teacher-position.") In an alternate version, the teacher occupies a second piano, demonstrating sound, techniques, … [Read more...]
Interior Decorator
Wrote Arnold Schoenberg (in "Problems in Teaching Art"): "Is technique a cause or an effect, a by-product? Expressive content wishes to make itself understood; its upheaval produces a form. A volcano erupts, the devastation makes an ornamental effect; a steam-kettle explodes, and the objects it strews around fall at points one could exactly calculate on the basis of relationships of tension, weights, distances and resistances. One can, … [Read more...]