Instruments make music. Stories about my piano tuner, Heifetz, and more
The topic of instruments making music.
Recently, I have felt an increasingly strong tendency to be guided by the piano while playing.
My piano is a truly wonderful instrument; it sings beautifully and is also my teacher.
Since the piano sings on its own, I feel like I am just playing along with it, so to speak...
It is a collaboration between the composer and the piano, and I am merely the bridge.
I do not want to get in the way of the composer and the piano.
I want to remove the colors of the stained glass and become a pure medium of transmission.
No matter how much I reduce myself to zero, as long as I am the filter, my personality remains.
I think that by letting go of my ego, rather than forcing my own way of playing or thinking, my true personality will emerge. In the sense that I am gradually approaching a pure archetype.
**
I was on a long phone call with my piano tuner again (laughs).
When I said, 'Mr. Matsumura said that many pianists are being made fools of by their pianos. I wonder if the commonality with large motorcycles is that they are both difficult to control,'
he replied with a feeling of,
'Ah, that's true.'
'When I listen to the sound of the piano, it sings on its own, so recently I have been playing along with it more and more.'
When I said that, he replied that he experiences the same thing.
He said it happens with a tuning hammer, too.
The hammer creates the sound.
Because the hammer creates the sound on its own, he cannot operate it as he intends. It doesn't become a tone color.
He said it took him half a year until he could create the sound he wanted with a certain hammer.
*
And then the story of Heifetz came up.
It is said that Heifetz used different violins for practice and for performances.
He used a Guarneri for performances and a Stradivari for practice.
Heifetz said that
with a Stradivari,
the instrument teaches you music. When you play it, the instrument tells you how to play. If you practice that way, the music naturally takes shape.
With a Guarneri del Gesù,
you can play the music exactly as you intend. You can play it just as you think.
Or so he is said to have remarked.
I see, that makes perfect sense.
***
Looking online,
>It is known that he owned two Stradivaris and one Guarneri del Gesù. Besides those, it is said he owned a Guadagnini (Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, 1711-1786) and a Dobretsovitch (Marco Dobretsovitch, 1891-1957).
↑ From this site.
The Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù used by Heifetz
https://www.chaki.jp/instrument_heifetz.php