A Different Perspective
So much Christmas music! I am quite the stickler for not listening to Christmas music before the day after Thanksgiving, but alas, as a musician I am forced to make the music long before the season. I'm getting ready for my studio recital coming up in December, so I've got all my students working on their performance pieces, a larger percentage of with are Christmas carols. It's cheery and delightful, but it makes me long for the season - and for weather that doesn't even come close to 90 degrees.
In my next to last piano lesson of the day, we were working through Carol of the Bells. I was trying to convey the idea of thinking about the music as more than just notes on a page, but imagining the imagery behind it to help bring life to the music. (I doubt I sounded quite that stodgy about it though.) I was talking some nonsense about snowflakes whirling, bells over hillsides, that kind of thing, and she suddenly turned and said, "That's not what I see at all." When I queried as to what she envisioned, her response was, "I see the bell ringer dying at the end."
I choked, and began to chuckle, asking her to explain. In her version, he rings the bells madly, realizes they're probably going to kill him, tries to slow them back down and keep them soft, but they get out of control again, so he begins to pull back once more (yay for repeats!). Thinking he finally has everything in hand, the bell ringer turns to sigh in relief - and one last bell hits him in the head, knocking him down the stairs to plummet to his death on the floor of the tower many stories below. (That would be the last low "dong" at the end of the song - his death knell, as it were.)
I laughed, a lot. And now I may never look at the song the same way again. It's always intriguing to get a glimpse of the world through someone else's eyes, especially when they are creative and so diametrically opposite of yours. I sometimes forget how much I have to learn from my students. And I am thankful yet again that I have a job I so thoroughly enjoy.
In my next to last piano lesson of the day, we were working through Carol of the Bells. I was trying to convey the idea of thinking about the music as more than just notes on a page, but imagining the imagery behind it to help bring life to the music. (I doubt I sounded quite that stodgy about it though.) I was talking some nonsense about snowflakes whirling, bells over hillsides, that kind of thing, and she suddenly turned and said, "That's not what I see at all." When I queried as to what she envisioned, her response was, "I see the bell ringer dying at the end."
I choked, and began to chuckle, asking her to explain. In her version, he rings the bells madly, realizes they're probably going to kill him, tries to slow them back down and keep them soft, but they get out of control again, so he begins to pull back once more (yay for repeats!). Thinking he finally has everything in hand, the bell ringer turns to sigh in relief - and one last bell hits him in the head, knocking him down the stairs to plummet to his death on the floor of the tower many stories below. (That would be the last low "dong" at the end of the song - his death knell, as it were.)
I laughed, a lot. And now I may never look at the song the same way again. It's always intriguing to get a glimpse of the world through someone else's eyes, especially when they are creative and so diametrically opposite of yours. I sometimes forget how much I have to learn from my students. And I am thankful yet again that I have a job I so thoroughly enjoy.
Haha! Now THAT'S a narrative.
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