A few months ago, while writing an article about Schubert, I flippantly presumed that there was no book called �musical composition for dummies.� I was making the point that a creative act does not lend itself to having an answer key in case you get stuck. It is not like 2 plus 2, with an answer that is knowable and identical for anybody who bothers to find out. The way you get out of a creative jam is you figure out what the answer is yourself, because each piece is different. There will, of course, be traditions to which you can refer, and great composers of the past whose works you can study; no piece exists in a vacuum. But any truly artistic effort will succeed on its own terms�the shape of the piece determined by what you are trying to say through the contents of the notes, and vice versa.

But I thought, while I was at it, I�d better look and see if somebody had indeed written a book called �Composition for Dummies.� Turns out, they had. Somebody had written a review of it, and they weren�t all that pleased. I haven�t read the book, but I imagine it does contain some of the simple, recipe-like formulas that I stated were not what creativity was really all about. The sorts of things that could allow just anybody to write music by learning a couple of simple ideas and then basically coloring them in. It is, after all, for self-identified �dummies.� You don�t start a course on �Math for dummies� with long digressions on Differential Calculus. First you have to be able to add.

The reviewer focused on some things that he felt were just plain wrong factually, and suggested, that if the book contained so many errors in things he knew, what else might be wrong in things he didn�t? These things probably will strike most non-advanced-degree holding musicians as picky, but I think they hold water. The first had to do with the book�s definition of the development section in sonata form. Quoting from the book (on page 148) he wrote:

"The development often sounds like it belongs in an entirely different piece of music altogether -- it is usually in a different key and may have a different time signature than the exposition."

A little definition may be in order here. Most Symphonies, Concertos, Sonatas, and so forth, contain several �movements.� To the uninitiated they may seem like merely a group of pieces, though they are usually related in a number of ways. The first of those �movements� usually is cast in �sonata� form. This means that it contains three sections, the first of which contains the composer�s melodic (and perhaps harmonic and rhythmic) ideas for the piece. The second, development section, attempts to expand upon, transform, pit ideas against each other or in other ways deal with the materials given out in the beginning section. It is not, in some respects, that different from a musical essay. Having told us what the composer intends to discuss in notes and phrases, the composer goes on to discuss it.

Our reviewer was unhappy that the book gave the impression that the development section was in fact not related to the opening section at all. It is after all much too easy to just string ideas together without any attempt to make them relate to each other. Did you see the end of that football game last night?

Just kidding.

Mr. Reviewer wanted to get things straight, terminology-wise, but he put his views online, which means they get equal time with anybody else, regardless of their manners or knowledge. A couple of folks rose to the book�s defense. The first tried to use a specific piece to refute his idea of sonata-form development in general�Beethoven�s so-called �Moonlight Sonata� has, he thinks, three parts which don�t sound related to each other at all, at least to his ears (it also happens to be a bad example of textbook sonata form; Beethoven knew it, too, which is why he labels the famed �Moonlight Sonata��which was not Beethoven�s title, by the way--a �Sonata like a fantasy� which is another way of saying that this is a Sonata that really behaves like a piece from a completely different genre, let�s say a science-fiction murder mystery. Or a fictional historical novel.)

You can tell from the post that English is not this fellow�s first language. Nor is music. He is polite, but he thinks that because the 2^nd and 3^rd movements sound, in his opinion, completely different from the first, that makes the first fellow�s case unfounded. He is confused about what sonata form is. As I said above, it refers to different sections within a single piece, or movement. The different movements are, in effect, separate pieces of music, which belong in a group, all under the title Sonata. The first movement is what usually contains a development section in the middle. Our reviewer tried to patiently explain this, and that was when he came under attack from some jerk who was probably trying to pick a fight by being as condescending as he knew how and telling the reviewer that he obviously didn�t know what he was talking about, using words like �foolish and pathetic� and �idiot� to describe him. It is not worth dwelling on his comments, since he used most of his time to deride his predecessor and none trying to make the case (except in the grossest generalizations) that he knew anything of the subject himself.

Let�s go back to the quote again. The reason I found this worth posting is the question it brings up when writing about music for laypeople, or amateurs.

"The development often sounds like it belongs in an entirely different piece of music altogether�"

I�ve italicized those words above because, on careful inspection, it doesn�t appear that the book�s authors are necessarily suggesting that there is no relationship between the opening section (the exposition) and the development (which, by definition, develops what came before), just that it might seem that way. Why would they say this?

Perhaps in an attempt to be friendly with the book�s readers. People often do not hear the connections which musical ideas have with each other, particularly over long pieces. We aren�t taught that in school, and it does not seem to naturally occur to people in music, although in another medium, say a Seinfeld episode on television, in which getting the joke depends on remembering something that happened ten minutes earlier, people seem to be able to pick up on it fairly easily. Most people usually listen to music that doesn�t function on this level because it simply repeats the same musical ideas again and again without changing them in any way, therefore there can be no relationships between various parts of the piece because they are either identical, or completely disjointed (like when it is time for the chorus, which then repeats its phrase several times). "Popular" music generally assumes you aren�t interested in connections between musical thoughts; so-called �classical� music challenges you to find them. With a little help from your friends, perhaps.

Last months� Music From the Yellow Room selection, incidentally, was deigned to do just that. The commentary and sound file examples there will help your ears pick up on the connection between various sections in the piece. Perhaps over time you will develop the ability to understand the musical narratives of many �difficult� pieces because your ears have been trained to understand what to listen for. This is no different than the fact that you can understand this article because you can read it, and decode the various words and word-relationships. You had to learn how. It didn�t just happen.

But if you are a self-described �dummy,� with a low opinion of how much you can learn with a little patient effort over time, or you are an author anxious not to appear too much of a snob by using terms like exposition and development, and want to relax your worried audience by making jokes and being entertaining, and by not dwelling on technicalities that perhaps can be saved for later, you might look at such a line as a good way to connect, never mind whether it�s accurate. Of course, the reviewer only quoted this one sentence. If the book�s authors went on to refine their statement, explaining that there really is a relationship between the exposition and the development (otherwise it wouldn�t be a �development�) than perhaps our reviewer is being a bit of a nitpick after all.

The book�s other reviewers were unilaterally lavish in their praise. Perhaps it is the very thing for the people who need it: speaking to them where they are, not shutting the doors to the halls of art or driving people away with too much technical precision or jargon. The question, though, is whether the book is playing too fast and loose with music as it is, or as it could be, sacrificing accuracy for entertainment, or truth for simplicity. I don�t know. The reason I want to bring this up is not limited to this particular book. Writers on the arts for lay audiences always come up against this issue. I often find myself wrestling with the same problem. This website was not designed for experts, but for those willing to discover something new. It (hopefully) doesn�t presume a lot of technical knowledge. Terms are defined, or left out, and jokes and generalizations are aplenty. Is that going too far?

I�ve read several things on the web and in books that I think do go too far. Trying to draw in the uninitiated always risks diluting your delivery, betraying your substance. Does it always? Can we have it both ways? Can we who know much about art and we who know very little but are willing to find out cut each other a little slack? If someone wishes to correct our statements, should we thank them, even when we think they are being annoying? Can the rest of us tolerate a few slips on the parts of those trying to learn, so long as they don�t fall in love with their own ignorance and tongue-lash anybody who tries to help them out of it?

What do you say: truce?

I owe some people a thank you. Most of them are too dead to receive it, but I thought I�d pass it along anyway. The first is the fellow who came up with the idea for a piano. His name was Cristofori. In about 1700 he invented a new kind of machine that allowed the touch of the player to determine the volume of the tone produced. This was a new thing for a keyboard instrument. It wasn�t an easy thing to do, either. Sure, it looks easy. Push a key down and it the other end goes up and hits a string causing its little ouch to vibrate at a predetermined pitch. But if you�ve seen the inside of a piano, you may have noticed that it is in fact an extremely complicated process. So complicated that Cristofori couldn�t think of it all himself. He had plenty of help. In fact, when you start taking the instrument apart piece by piece you start to wonder what he really did invent, anyway.

For one thing, we already had keyboard instruments, like the organ or the harpsichord, or the clavichord. In fact, the idea of striking keys to produce sound goes back to antiquity. All kinds of neat variations on this scheme were tried, including one that used waterpower to operate something that sounded like a pipe organ.

The idea of vibrating strings wasn�t new either. Besides violins and guitars and musical bows and arrows (less musical if you are on the receiving end), the harpsichord already combined the idea of a keyboard with struck (or in this case plucked) strings. So Cristofori�s invention didn�t even look new. It sounded new, though. Bach didn�t like it.

Besides the shock of getting used to the sound and a new way to play the thing, there were a few �bugs� in it. It was called the �soft-loud� because that was the only way they could think to describe its unique contribution to the genus of musical instrument, but the marketers kept calling it a new type of harpsichord because they needed to reference it to something people knew. It wasn�t uniformly soft or loud across its register, and the sound was a little weak, though that wasn�t as much of a problem as long as it wasn�t asked to fill a large room. Mostly, it lived in drawing rooms and palaces for a while. Then they started changing the rules and asking it to give public concerts. New materials arrived, like iron, and tougher wooden casings. That gave the piano a chance to change its stripes.

Over the next century and a half an enormous number of things were done to the piano. Making the hammers come to rest so they wouldn�t bounce around after a heavy attack on the piano. Allowing them a temporary rest near to the string so the note could be struck again quickly. Reinforcing the strings in duple or triplicate so the sound would make it to row triple-Z. Making piano wire something sturdier so that that Beethoven guy wouldn�t keep breaking strings. Creating new kinds of pedals to add different affects to the sound, most of which, like so many ideas, died an early death. Building pianos into loveseats and curving the keyboard are just two more that didn�t last.

Each of these innovations cost somebody somewhere years of work trying to figure out the best way to solve a pianistic problem to improve the instrument. And some of those improvements were themselves improved by others following in their wake. The piano was most definitely created by a committee.

We don�t often think about it, but we are surrounded by things that people spent their lives working on�either to invent, or perfect. We don�t thank them; in many cases, we couldn�t. Their exchange with us is anonymous, their sometimes astounding influence on our lives unnoticed. Not that such innovations are always good. But for their benefit to humanity we hope they at least got some recognition, and maybe even got paid for it, which is humanity's anonymous way of making sure that people who have something to contribute feel the love, or at least that, no matter how self-interested they are, they don�t keep their thoughts to themselves.

If you need some light summer reading there is a book called "Men, Women, and Pianos" by Arthur Loesser which I read some years ago. It is filled with interesting characters and charts the various evolutionary additions and dead-ends with respect to the instrument itself and chronicles the people who played it. There have been an awful lot of folks who have shepherded this piano project down through three centuries, insuring that I�d spend a disproportionate part of my life seated at a box that makes noise. I ought to acknowledge them. Some of the results of this bizarre chain of causation are on your left, near the top (under the picture of the hands on the keyboard).

Enjoy!

[Note: those directions in the last paragraph above made more sense when this article was posted on the home page, but you can still access the site's recordings by going here.]

There's been a lot of talk this week, during the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, about precedent. This is the curious process by which a court, in deciding a case, checks to see what other courts and judges have said about the same or similar issues in the past. Anyone who is studying to become a lawyer can quote mountains of legal precedents, and so it is no surprise a judicial appointee at such a high level (she was a lawyer once, you know) has had her thinking practically saturated with them.

I referred to the idea as a curious concept because, if all you ever do before rendering a ruling is to go see what everyone else has already ruled on the matter, your job has pretty much already been done for you. In this sense, we are operating under a kind of legal peer pressure in which nobody wants to do anything that hasn't been done before. Of course, strictly following precedent is a luxury even the most conformist judge can't afford in real life, not the least because if everybody merely followed precedent (if this were even possible) then there would be no precedent to start with. No--Sooner or later somebody slips up and we get the sense that we are working with a live person with their own opinion, whether it has been 'informed' by precedent or not.

In Ms. Sotomayor's case it is wise to use the issue of precedent as a kind of cover. If you don't want to make waves you'll be sure to be able to say that you were just doing what everybody wanted you to do, or had already done. You'll assure people that you are hardly acting on your own in any discernible way, and that you are a responsible part of the system whose own particular biases cannot be pinned down.

If, on the other hand, you want to gain attention, the best way to do it is buck precedent. People will love you, or they'll hate you, in large quantities all around, but your visibility will command attention. I bring all this up because we have the same thing in music. Art music, anyway.

This is because it has a long history. Whenever there is a long history, people have the privilege of arguing about what that history is. Or ignoring it. At one time musicians were less 'burdened' with a vast past repertoire, but those days are gone. These days the wind blows in the direction of something known as the authenticity movement, and musicians who are performing music of past eras are expected to render their interpretations in conformity to what a vast network of musicologists and educated performers believes to be the manner in which said work would likely have been performed or interpreted by the composer.

This is not the same thing as tradition, which may have grown up independently of any reference to past styles or scholastically informed approach, or have its roots in a time when people where more concerned with getting those problematic works of the past to sound more 'up-to-date.' Too bad Bach didn't have a 300-piece orchestra. Well, he does now! Thanks to Wagner and Strauss who arrived on the scene a century later we have these massive orchestras with a hundred brass players in them and we don't want them to feel left out when we do a little Bach, so we'll 'improve' the old master. We're sure he would have wanted it that way. This sort of orgy of late 19th century practice--rewriting the performance styles of any other historical period in terms of the here and now had its heydey in the early 20th century, and has pretty much died off under the withering glare of academic research and opinion.

It's not as if everyone agrees with those assessments, however. There is plenty of debate about what constitutes historically accurate performance, and whether it is fair to assume that a composer would have passed up the chance to incorporate some more recent innovations in his performances. And that's where tradition, i.e. precedent, gets interesting. Just like in politics, there are people fighting over the proper way to interpret certain composers and styles, influencing one another in an attempt to gain the majority. Once a powerful and influential performance hits the market, it often becomes precedent. There is a power in that, and with a species that values herdthink, genuine risk in bucking that tradition, however it got there. But people do it, and they are usually the ones who end up getting the most press. Whether they are playing the music like they honestly feel it ought to be played or exercising their egos (or some combination), it is those players who end up setting precedent by being bold and different. Either that or the musical public and practitioners figure they are out to lunch and they don't make it into the record at all.

When I was a conservatory student I was often a captive of precedent. Sometimes my interpretation would be called into question because it could be shown I was violating the intention of the composer. If Beethoven put a crescendo beginning on the third beat and I begin to get louder on the second, I was just wrong. Any professor would have pointed out to me that Beethoven was a smart guy who knew what he was doing and exactly what he wanted to a T. He had authority--ultimate authority. But in a situation where there were no markings--say the tempo of a piece by Bach, or the articulation or phrasing--none of which was displayed on the page, I was also sometimes given to know that I was simply in the wrong. Often my professors did not feel the need to explain themselves; sometimes I did not push the issue. But I often felt that I was violating precedent. The current way to play a certain piece by Bach was different than the way I was approaching it. Some strong personality somewhere had set a trend and gotten lots of other folks to agree with it, whether that was based on the latest research, or a convincing sales job by an attractive personality, or seemed to answer an unconscious need in our collective psyche. It might have also been the professor's personal opinion, but if you've been at a conservatory you understand that there are certain norms that even the professors get in trouble for violating. If you want respect, you don't go out on your own. You honor the past, which is why a conservatory is so aptly named.

I think it was famed conductor Arturo Toscanini who said "tradition is nothing but the last bad performance." It seems safe to assume he wasn't interested in what everyone else thought you were supposed to do with a Beethoven symphony.

This seems to be where music and politics diverge, when a strong, charismatic figure decides to do things his way without caring what others think. It seems that way, anyway. But often, that individual is also appealing to precedent--if not to tradition, which may be as recent as yesterday or storied in the past, it is The Composer's Authority. That's because, like our political system, the assumption in art music is still very much that the composer is the final authority. One way to buck precedent without getting in as much hot water over it is to appeal to originalism, which is precedent raised to the third power. Bypassing the traditions that have 'corrupted' the original intent of the composer, the performer seeks to 'restore' (with or without the aid of a committee of historically informed musicologists) the true and proper way to approach the piece. On the supreme court, justices argue about who is realizing the intent of the founding fathers most accurately. But no one says they aren't interested in what the founding fathers think about the issue. They may find creative ways to justify what seem to be new interpretations, but justify it they do. And they accuse their opponents of being false to this tradition.

Much like the way harpsichordist Wanda Landowska settled an argument by telling a rival, "You play Bach your way, dear, and I'll pay Bach his way."

Precedent is a strange dance. There wouldn't be any precedent if somebody didn't create it in the first place. Once they do, it becomes a recognized authority in the age old attempt to check innovation by making it stand trial against its ancestry. Once it has been hallowed by time, its creators either develop reputations that can't be touched (what, are you going to try to tell me Washington was wrong?) or they are forgotten, and become that time honored, "they say..." and you know what they say...

Well, whatever it is, you'd better listen.