wWhat music books can be for us?x
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I did a first presentation of Gillock's music at my house last Sunday. If I could have one or two piano teachers that will be fine I thought. But I could have four guests like as when I started the meeting of Gillock Association in Japan. Long time ago one of my friends who worked as a part-time art teacher MIKA drew a picture-story show "Grand Father Kobutori" for me. And my Quebecois friend translated this story into French. And after three years, finally it was played in public. Gen, who is the piano teacher and my friend read the story with picture-cards and I played the back ground music, which were of course Gillock's. The scene of "It started to rain when Grand Father Kobutori was descending the mountain carrying firewood on his shoulder and trembling the lump on his cheek. " I played Gillock's "Oriental Market Place", imaged foot steps of him and raindrops by left hand staccato. |
| The scene of "the party of demons" I played "Indian Dance" of Miller. The scene of "Grand father Kobutori and the demons danced the night away", played "Carnival in Rio" |
| The scene of when the demon tore off the lump on Grand father's cheek, Grand father was very happy feeling very light on his cheek without the lump, played "Clowns" which sounds a lot of staccato. It was very fun to play the back ground music with a emotional story teller. Of course the audience joined and enjoyed with playing percussions. Then I played some more Gillock's pieces and we changed our opinions for the education in Quebec. My first surprise was that everybody talked their opinions actively and sometime they spoke very fast as if they could not wait their next turn. It might come from the different habit or culture from Japan. Often I had to ask them to speak slower otherwise I could not understand their French. Everybody found that this meeting was so meaningful that they wanted to continue. And next time we decided to bring "Fiesta" by Gillock to play and listed to the different interpretation and discuss about the staccato. And we have to bring one more piece which we can learn more staccato. One of the participant Ma asked Gen "May I copy your music Fiesta?" Gen looked at me worrying and I asked Ma "Did you say you want to copy Gen's music Fiesta?" "Yes" she said. "Why don't you buy for your own" "Because, after I used this book, I can't sell it as I don't have the student of this level. And by sight-reading I don't have confidence" I was so surprised by her answer and said "To have a music book is for you, not for your student. You are going to study with us, the person who use this book is you, not your student. And it is forbidden to copy music." Then she decided to buy the music unwillingly. The other participant O said " Everybody knows that it is forbidden but we can't stop. Besides we know that students have much better attitude with music, with copy they cannot be serious" Then Gen said " In the music book, maybe there are some pieces which we don't use, but we should have a book because when students start to read music, they would try to read other pieces by themselves, this motivation is very important for them." Each piece has own story and scene. For example the staccato sound has different nuance in different pieces. It is very important to play different kinds of music to experience and create different sound quality. Gillock has written a lot of short pieces for providing a lot of experience to the beginner students. I thought even when we prepare a piece for the competition, we need always to have another space to enjoy and experience other related pieces for cultivating our mind. Music books should be our dear collection. It was a day that I though about what music books can be for us. |
Hillock 2006 February
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