Tributes to Marvin Blickenstaff
Discovery homeSign up for email updatessubmit a question We would like to thank Drew Turock, Arlene Steffen, and Catherine Kautsky for these tributes to Marvin Blickenstaff. As we continue the season of gratitude and giving, we pay tribute to piano teachers from around the country...
The Hidden Life of the Humble Arabesque
Spring 2020; Vol. 12, No. 1
In a letter of July 1910 to Jacques Durand, Claude Debussy announced that, as an artist, he was “accustomed to living among apparitions.” Exactly what form those apparitions took is anybody’s guess, but some may well have appeared in the form of arabesques, and not...
Touching Debussy, Teaching Alchemy
July 2018; Vol. 10, No. 4
Sound is touch at a distance.Jad Abumrad, from Radiolab “Sound is touch at a distance.” I heard this quote at a recent talk given by Radio Lab creator, Jad Abumrad, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Over and over it repeated itself....
Piano Talk
September 2015; Vol. 7, No. 5
For quite some time, I’ve found myself noting the vocabulary we use to describe our peculiar life-enterprise as pianists. We steal from everywhere, and each theft seems to convey some facet of our identity. Some of those identities might best be discarded; others serve to remind...
Preparing an Audition Program
September 2014; Vol. 6, No. 5
As the conservatory audition season cycles in once again —as predictable as the ice and snow that always accompanies it in my neck of the woods—it has occurred to me that a simple checklist for teachers might be useful in preparing guileless students for what...
Ruminations on Musicality
September 2012; Vol. 4, No. 5
The conversion of a series of black dots into a piece of music is a magical process, but one all too easily derailed. The alchemy occurs in two steps: the first step—relatively simple—converts dots into audible pitches, while the second—far more complex— converts pitches into...
I Wish I Could Answer That
Spring 2021; Vol. 13, No. 1
Playing the piano can mean searching out middle ground, and that ground may be similarly ill-defined, well-nigh slippery, or even mired in paradox. Let’s start with the easy examples. I’m not sure that it’s particularly more difficult to play non-legato than staccato. But a portamento...