Early 19th Century Studies: Fun for the Whole Family

How we hear music today is different from the far past. Two hundred years ago, if you wanted to hear music, you either sought out someone who could play it or learned to play it yourself. Both required effort. By contrast, today music can be had at the push of a button. Indeed, it’s often piped in to our daily lives with no effort on our part. This very effortlessness makes it hard for us to understand what music used to be. It was a rare and special thing, and those who could do it were admired.

By the early 19th century, music became something more democratic than an elevated accouterment for the nobility. More and more, ordinary people could reach a standard of living that made music a part of their lives. Well-heeled families could afford music lessons for their children. Musically skilled family members became the 19th century equivalent of a radio or stereo system.

In this era, music teachers thrived (at least modestly so). And they wrote and published music aimed directly at music students. Such music was seldom difficult or profound. Rather, it was approachable fare that could be learned fairly quickly, and once mastered was pleasant to hear.

With this in mind, I offer the following selections of early 19th century guitar studies. My goal is to transport you back to a time when hearing music was a unique experience to be savored. I’ve tried to reanimate the spirit in which this music was conceived. You’ll notice that I often depart from the written music. This is because early 19th century musicians were less rigid in their attitude to the printed score. Improvisation was a natural part of music making. We today would do well to revive this creative response.

Enjoy.

Carlo Domeniconi: Preludes, Op. 20 (Complete Recording)

 

Carlo Domeniconi’s Op. 20 Preludes have been in my collection for years. Yet for whatever reason, I’d never read through them. Nor have I ever heard them played by an established concert artist. That alone kept Op. 20 off my radar screen. But after playing the first Prelude, it intrigued me enough to look into the second. And then the third. It was like eating one chocolate piece—once I started, I had to finish the whole box.

Having decided to record all 24, I established a consistent equipment setup. My audio environment isn’t ideal. There’s no part of my house that yields an excellent sound. So I concluded that if my recordings of each piece couldn’t sound great, they could at least sound consistently okay. The finished recording of the 24 Preludes shouldn’t distract the listener with wildly variable sound. I bought a computer desk of about a meter in length and set it at the foot of my bed. It has room for my preamp, A/D converter, and MacBook Pro. A spaced pair of DPA 2011C mics is permanently hooked up. This saved on the wear and tear of repeatedly plugging and unplugging mic cables. I also experimented to find the best mic placement. Once I found it, I left the mics in place. Besides giving a consistent sound, this had the added advantage of convenience. When I felt like recording, I simply plugged in the preamp and converter, hooked up my computer, and was ready to roll.

Recording a set of pieces is different from recording one stand-alone piece. One has to consider how each one fits into the whole. This often affected how I played each piece. For example, Prelude No. 10 (“Sagra”) is a rustic piece. It needed a rougher, less pretty sound than the pieces flanking it. So I deliberately went for a thin and twangy sound. Would I do that for a one-off recording? Probably not, as listeners might conclude this is my normal sound. But in the larger context, the “bad” sound is apt.

What struck me is how recording an entire set affected how I played the last note of each piece. To me, the last note of one piece should set up the next. This especially affected how long I held the final note of a piece. Occasionally the composer dictated this—in three pieces Domeniconi marks the final notes staccato. Elsewhere, I tried to end each piece so that the next piece felt like a natural consequence. Most conspicuous is the ending of Prelude No. 19 (“Sonorità”). This piece seems a central moment of stillness in the entire set. So I let the last note fade out to inaudibility. I also allowed more silence before the start of Prelude No. 20 (“Quasi A la turca”)—while I wanted a jarring contrast, I didn’t want a Haydn “Surprise Symphony” shock. By the way, “Sonorità” is perhaps my favorite of the 24 Preludes. It’s also my only straight-through unedited recording in the set.

Of these 24 recordings, two of them fall short of ideal to my ears. In Prelude No. 16 (“A tre”) I inexplicably failed to make the glissandi audible. That dismays me, as I was sure I was doing them when making the recording. The ear, however, doesn’t lie. Most of the glissandi just aren’t there. I should’ve redone the recording, but other problems annoyed me too much to do so. The other shortfall is Prelude No. 24 (“Il mercato”). This is the one Prelude that exposed my subpar right hand. I always have trouble with fast arpeggios involving a. Further, throughout this project I had to work around a split m nail. In many of the pieces, I could avoid it. No. 20 was the conspicuous exception. I spent two weeks trying to whip my right hand into playing this piece acceptably. As the last one in the set, it had to deliver. My finished recording is acceptable. But I hear missed opportunities. What can I say? I did what I could.

Domeniconi’s 24 Preludes are a unique confluence of fortuitous circumstances. They’re not well known, and I have a soft spot for neglected gems. Further, with the exception of No. 24, they’re within my ability to play convincingly. Considering my age and diminishing skill, that’s no small thing. Most importantly, they’re just excellent pieces. Work is easier when quality beckons.

So here’s my complete recording of Carlo Domeniconi’s Preludes, Op. 20. I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed playing it.

Perfection, With a Side Order of Flaws

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

― Vince Lombardi

Perfectionism gets a bad rap. And for good reason. After all, a musical performance can never be perfect. There are too many balls to keep in the air at once. One can’t help but occasionally drop something. So it would seem that perfectionism has no place in the practice room. After all, why chase the impossible?

But this is a misunderstanding of what perfectionism should be. It’s not a result. Rather, it’s a vital element to producing an admirable result. Perfectionism itself is neither good nor bad. It’s like fire: you can warm your home with it, or you can burn your home to the ground with it. The result depends on how you use it.

It helps to treat perfection as a malleable thing. For example, some believe a perfect performance is one in which every note is a polished diamond, dutifully in attendance at its appointed time. But that’s wrong. Hearing a meticulously burnished performance is like hearing a computer-generated midi file. It’s boring. A great performance is unpredictable. Things happen that throw a listener off balance. One can’t do this with notes neatly arranged like ducks in a row.

Some years ago a student of mine did a class with a virtuoso. He got to hear the player while sitting right next to him. Afterward, I asked my student if the virtuoso had an absolutely pristine sound. “No, he didn’t!” replied my student with surprise. “Up close, there’s a slight roughness to his sound. But he makes it sound great.” We discussed this, and my student realized that misdirected perfection is a black hole. When a player is too fixed on perfection, it scrubs the passion out of the music. There’s a delicate balance at work. Too much perfection is itself an imperfection. It’s a misunderstanding of what great players want to do. Great players are obssessed with an emotional effect. The closer they get to it, the closer they are to musically meaningful perfection.

Perfection varies from person to person. The perfectionism of a master isn’t appropriate to a beginner. But aiming to be perfect is apt for both. The master may aim for the nuances of a style that sound like no one else. The beginner may aim to keep a steady beat while playing open string notes. So while the individual goal varies, the standard is the same for both master and beginner. Each tries to perfect something suited to their level.

Some people freak out when trying to be perfect. They’re dismayed when they fall short. But dwelling on the shortfall is the wrong idea. When aiming for perfection, falling short is inevitable. That’s not what matters. What matters is that high goals make high achievement more likely.

In playing an instrument, no one gets exactly what they aim for. Making music is far too complex for that. What really happens is that we all fall short of our ideal. Even great players fall short of the performance in their minds. In a quiet moment after the applause subsides, the great player likely thinks: “Not bad, but I wish I had done that vibrato just the way I wanted.”

What great players know—and what all of us can learn—is that steady perfectionism during practice raises what we can do in performance. In the hurly-burly of performing, we need not be perfect. We just need to get close enough that the tiny flaws don’t matter.

In optics, there’s something called the “1/4th wave rule.” When making an optical lens or mirror, one doesn’t have to be perfect. Instead, one must produce an optical surface that’s accurate to within 1/4th of a wavelength of light. A lens or mirror that meets this standard will, for all practical purposes, behave as though it’s perfect. So the 1/4th wave rule is a threshold. Meet the threshold, and you’re essentially perfect.

Good players know this. They know they must strive for perfection as they practice. Then in performance, they turn off perfectionism and go with what they’ve got. If their practice was good, then their performance likely will be good. Yes, there will be flaws. But the good will outweigh the bad. Listeners will be happy, and the player will live to play another day. (“Hey, maybe the next performance will catch lightning in a jar.”)

Perfection is a moving target. The better the player, the more individual and varied is his or her definition of perfection. Among great players, perfection contains multitudes.