Two posts ago I reported on my success in the jazz grade three exam. Now it’s about time to start preparing for grade five, the top jazz grade, but I don’t much like the tunes. Should I still do it? I think I need to, because my practise has become rather aimless lately.
But one thing that has carried me through these last few months is my latest challenge. I’ve been learning a modern classical piece for solo saxophone, I Sleep At Waking by Ian Wilson. After all the jazz I wanted to tread some unfamiliar ground, to put my technique to the test, so a few months ago I asked my teacher for a through-composed piece in a modern style, and she made some suggestions, the most interesting of which was this damned thing I’m currently struggling with.*
It’s nearly five minutes long, it’s got lots and lots of notes (black page), no bar lines (therefore no time signatures), and no key (it’s atonal), and I have to play piano (softly), which is not really my forte. Partly for these reasons but for others too, it’s hard. It’s a classical grade eight piece, and now I’m thinking about actually going for the grade eight exam in 2009 or 2010, after some encouragement in that direction from my teacher. Eight is the top grade and I’d be quite well qualified to teach saxophone if I got it. But realistically I think it’ll take me two years to get up to scratch with the requisite sight-reading, my Achilles’ heel.
The piece didn’t strike me much one way or the other on the first few listens. In fact, it wasn’t until I started to play it that I grew to like it, and now, as I reach the half-way point months later (not very good progress for a two-page piece but I’m getting there) my affection is still growing. But this is slightly troubling. What is the point of such music? Is it for listeners or primarily just for musicians? If the former, can you expect people to make sense of it first time, or is it designed to be listened to over and over again? If the latter, then haven’t you left out what is essential about all good music, that it can speak to anyone who takes the time to listen?
As it happens I needn’t have agonized over it, because Laura, who is not a musician, liked it on first hearing and picked up on the emotional content; I had heard only a sterile exercise, which perhaps reveals my trepidation about trying to play it. And when first listening to anything I perhaps tend to want to hear some repetition, ostinato, metrical oddness, weird sounds, or simple soaring melodies. These are my hooks. But that’s obviously a laziness.
It’s a luminous piece of music, always seemingly on the edge of bliss and sadness, with a nice explosion of intensity in the middle, which is where I’m up to now. It’s the hardest part of the piece, so the next few days and weeks will be crucial.
*The piece can be found on the album Meeting Point, by saxophonist Gerard McChrystal
[...] over a year ago I published a post about my experience learning a difficult piece of music, I Sleep At Waking by Ian Wilson, for solo saxophone, which has lots and lots of notes. Well, the [...]