Jeremey writes:

>Ya'll forget to include Chopin.  When many people hear a piece by Chopin,
>may say it is instantly recongnizable.

I have a wonderful book "Chopin's Musical Style", Oxford University Press.
I found it in the library and xeroxed it, all 115 pages.  I can't read
the author's name since the title page has faded (Xeroxed in 1979).  This
little book shows all of Chopin's tricks and harmonic effects and I studied
it rigorously, back then, so as to be able to improvise in his incredibly
wonderful style.  Since I am a pianist, he is my favorite composer.  For a
frail 90 pound weakling with TB, his music can be so bold and daring - ref
scherzo #2 & #3, and yet so poetically elegant.  The piano-forte is best
described as bravura-poetic for his music.

I also have a draft of his intended book for playing the piano which he
intended to call " A Method of Methods".  (How is that for meta-teaching?).
Though just a draft, it gives some insight in his approach to the
instrument and music.  These are just his rough notes but probably
represent the "first things" that came to his mind, making them perhaps the
most important to him.  I will quote just a few things for this thread on
style vs.  voice

   "It must be well understood that there is here, no question of musical
   feeling or style but simply of technical execution - mechanism as I
   call it.  ...  Words were born of sounds.  Sounds existed before
   words.  Sounds are used to make music just as words are used to form
   a language.  Thought is expressed through sounds.  An undefined human
   utterance is a mere sound; the art of manipulating sounds is music.
   An abstract sound does not make music, as one word does not make a
   language.  For the production of music, many sounds are required.
   The action of the wrist is analogous to taking a breath in singing.
   ...  In good mechanism, the aim is, not to play everything with an
   equal sound but to acquire a beautiful quality of sound and a perfect
   shading.  ...There are then many different qualities of sound, just
   as there are several fingers.  The point is to utilize the differences
   [in finger strength]; and this, in other words, is the art of
   fingering".

Oh that he had lived to write this book!

Bill Pirkle