March/April 2013

MARCH/APRIL 2013 CLAVIER COMPANION 1

4 Editor’s PageSay it with silence Pete Jutras

8 Winds of ChangeRobert Weirich

72 Questions & AnswersBest of Frances Clark

Columns

36 Jazz & PopDiminished seventh chords and,pardon the expression, half-diminished seventh chords in jazzand popular musicLee Evans

38 TechniqueWhat aspects of teaching pedalingdo you think are most important?Bruce Berr with Trevor Barnard and AnneMarie Olson

44 Repertoire & PerformancePiano study in twenty-first centuryChinaNancy Bachus with Gulimina Mahamuti

52 Repertoire SpotlightSolfeggio in C minor, by C.P.E. BachJoseph Smith

54 Adult Piano StudyHow do you choose repertoire foryour adult piano students?Michelle Conda with Pete Jutras, DianeHidy, and Kristin Yost

March/April 2013

Volume 5, Number 2Single Issue $9.95

Published by the Frances Clark Center forKeyboard Pedagogy

Companion

6 Letters to the Editor

7 Poetry Corner

58 First Looks

58 Expert wisdom on practicingand teaching

59 New music reviews

64 CD & DVD reviews

66 Pupil Saver

67 News & Notes

68 Keyboard Kids’ Companion

70 Advertiser Index

Departments

On the Cover: Dennis Alexander in his Albuquerque studio with Shelby.Photo by Vickie Fellows, Blue Sky Images.

12 An interview with Dennis Alexanderby Pete Jutras

18 Committed to record: An appreciation of Walter Leggeby Mark Ainley

28 2013 Directory of summer camps & institutesNational and internationalprograms for students andteachers

Nancy Bachus is a graduate of theEastman School of Music and has

taught for twenty-seven years at thecollege and university level. She is theauthor of Alfred Publishing’s “Spirit”

series: the Baroque, Classical,Romantic, and Beyond the

Romantic Spirit piano anthologies,and the Exploring Piano Classics

series, graded literature with a cross-indexed technique book at each

level. Certified as a Master Teacher byMTNA, she currently maintains an

independent piano studio in Hudson, OH.

This issue’s contributor:

A native of western China, GuliminaMahamuti received her D.M.A. degree

from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, studying with Dr. Robert

Weirich. She performs extensively inthe U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia

Minor, and China, including recentrecitals at Carnegie Hall, in Budapest,Istanbul, and across China. Her 2012

month-long invited tour to Chinaincluded concerts, lectures, master

classes, and radio and TV appearances.Her 2009 Clavier Companion article

was reprinted in Italian in theeducational journal Didattica. Dr.

Mahamuti was a full-time pianofaculty member at Northwest

University for Nationalities in China,where she owned and operated piano

studios in three cities. She is currently apart-time Assistant Professor of Music(Piano) at Ohio Wesleyan University,

a Nationally Certified Teacher ofMusic in the U.S., and the Piano

Workshop Chair of the Central EastDistrict of OhioMTA. For more

information, visit:www.gulimina.com.

Deemed the ultimate symbol ofWestern bourgeoisie and smashedto pieces by the Red Guards of the

Cultural Revolution, the piano was on theverge of extinction in China in the 1960s.Middle-class Chinese families, anxious toremove the so-called “evidence of musicalcounterrevolution” from their homes, dis-posed of the political liabilities by sellingtheir pianos as second-hand furniture.1 Yettoday, barely forty years later, China is theworld’s largest piano producer, Chinesepiano education is blooming, and Chinesepianists share the international spotlight.This dramatic reversal in our time has deeproots—political, cultural, and economic—that have resulted in thirty million Chinesepiano students competing for the 200,000places annually in top conservatories.2

With China’s new prominence on theworld’s stage of music and piano perform-

ance, it is important to understand theseroots.

First, with a rising economy and livingstandard, Chinese parents can now affordfor their children what they could notdream of for themselves two or threedecades ago: the opportunity to learn,

44 CLAVIER COMPANION MARCH/APRIL 2013

The Chinese phenomenon inthe piano world

Putting It All Together:

Repertoire & PerformanceNancy Bachus, Editor

Rep

erto

ire

& P

erfo

rman

ce

During the past twenty or so years,most professional pianists andpiano teachers have noticed the

influx of Asian pianists. They appear atpiano recitals and competitions locally andinternationally, often comprising themajority of the performers. The names ofYundi Li, Yuja Wang, and certainly LangLang are better known today than mostpast giants in our field. AlthoughAmerican-born, over half of the studentsin my own private studio are of Asiandescent, with most being Chinese.

When piano teachers get together, theyoften discuss why and how this phenome-non has occurred. I have thought of theirony of Asian pianists in the forefront ofkeeping vibrant and alive the Western tra-dition of piano playing. The “Tiger-Mom”phenomenon, insisting that Chinese moth-

ers are better at raising their children thanWestern ones, has only increased interestin knowing more about Chinese cultureand the training of their children.

This year I have had the pleasure ofmeeting, and getting to know, GuliminaMahamuti, a pianist born and trained inChina who earned advanced degrees, andnow teaches, here in the United States. Sheis the first Uyghur from the province ofXinjiang, in Western China, to receive theD.M.A. degree in Piano Performance inthis country. Having studied and taught formany years in both China and the UnitedStates, she is eminently qualified to com-pare the two systems of music study andtraining, and to shed light on this newtrend in our profession. I find her observa-tions and insights fascinating, and feel cer-tain readers will agree. p

Piano study in twenty-first century Chinaby Gulimina Mahamuti

John

Hol

liger

Yili Normal University, College of Arts.Half of the audience is young children, mostyounger than age ten.

Photo of Gulimina Mahamuti by John Holliger, 2013. Used with permission.

appreciate, and understand music, and to beable to play an instrument. The piano is theright instrument since, in China, it is theYueqi Zhi Wang, or the “King ofInstruments,” with its over three-hundredyears of history, and requirement of method-ical training and sophisticated playing stylesfor mastery.

Secondly, the one-child policy introducedin 1978 for population control had an unin-tended consequence: Chinese parents spendmuch more time and effort than those inprevious generations to find the best oppor-tunities for their only child. Parents who canafford an instrument and the necessary les-sons for their child make the piano their firstchoice. Furthermore, the so-called “Lang Lang Effect” dominatesthe wishes of many parents and children, not unlike the dream ofbecoming a successful basketball player in certain segments of theAmerican population. To achieve this end, some Chinese parentsgo to the extreme of giving up their homes, jobs, and personal lives,and they use their entire savings to accompany their child, oftenteenage or younger, to cities far from their hometowns for pianostudy. The piano, like its basketball counterpart, is seen as a path toa successful life.

Thirdly, China is a nation of over 1.3 billion people, and compe-tition, by necessity, penetrates almost all aspects of Chinese society.As a result, many parents devote all their efforts to provide theirchildren with the best possible competitive edge. Kahn and Wakinreported that, “[Chinese] Children are being pushed to study aninstrument, both as a possible means of advancement in the coun-try’s hypercompetitive school system and as a way of creatingrespectable, well-rounded adults.”3

The piano has justifiably become an influential part of Chinesechildren’s heavy extra-curricular activities in the hypercompetitiveadmission process of Chinese schools, beginning with middleschool and continuing through high school and college. A studentwho passes the highest national piano exams and who earns per-formance certificates and competition prizes will have a betterchance of being admitted to good schools than those who do notplay the piano. These piano-related activities not only validate astudent’s performance ability, but also corroborate that student’sacademic excellence and will play a key rolein the admission process into middle or highschool. It is also well known that a liberalarts university with an orchestra usuallylooks for students who excel both academi-cally and musically, and will lower therequired admission score twenty to thirtypoints (a significant reduction) to attractthem. This is similar to some Americanschools’ admission decisions to attract foot-ball players.

Finally, for Chinese students, the culturalbelief of “no pain, no gain” means that onehas to work hard to achieve success in life,even if it means enduring an excruciatingprocess first. Chinese parents consider thearduous process of learning to play thepiano as the best way to imbue good habitsand to cultivate delayed gratification intheir children.

These four factors result in an unprece-dented demand for pianos and piano

instruction, in opportunities for lucrativepiano-related businesses, and in a specialrelationship among teachers, students, andparents that is not commonly seen outsideChina.

Today, piano production is exploding andthe piano is one of the hottest selling itemsin China. Two decades ago, there were fivemain piano manufacturers located inBeijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Yinkou, andNingbo. Between 1981 and 1983, they pro-duced thirteen to eighteen thousand pianosper year.4 By 2006, however, the number ofpiano factories had grown to 142, producing370,000 pianos and dominating world pro-duction.5 The manufacturers are constantly

concerned about production speed to meet demand now that manyfamilies can afford pianos. As a result, the number of piano stu-dents has also dramatically increased, creating a huge demand forpiano education and for private piano teachers.

Private piano teachers are mainly conservatory/collegiate pianoprofessors, conservatory/college piano majors, kindergarten musicteachers, and piano teachers who only teach at home. Since Chinauniversities do not award the doctorate of musical arts in pianoperformance, many domestically trained private piano teachershave either college or master’s degrees in piano performance or adegree in music education with a piano emphasis, equivalent to aB.M. or M.M. degree in the United States.

Teaching standards vary considerably nationwide. In metropoli-tan areas, for example, where music-related activities thrive, onecan find better-trained piano teachers, whereas in smaller citieswith fewer cultural activities, piano teachers are less plentiful. Inrural China it is not possible, by and large, to learn to play thepiano.

The concept of private piano studios in China is very vague,because most piano teachers do not treat their private teaching as abusiness entity (with tax and zoning considerations, for example).Neither do they develop thoughtfully or legally written studio poli-cies as many private piano teachers do in the U.S. Verbal agree-ment, mutual respect, and trust between parents and teachers areconsidered more essential.

In large cities, such as Beijing or Shanghai with populations overtwenty million, a teacher could easily havetwenty to fifty private piano students. As arule, a teacher with a higher professionaltitle can charge higher fees and thus canteach fewer students, usually no more thanten. Their students are often prospective col-lege piano majors. In smaller cities withpopulations less than ten million, a teacherusually has fifteen to thirty students. Unlikethe U.S., where the length of a piano lessondepends on the student’s age, ability, andlevel, most teachers in China offer standardweekly one-hour lessons. Half-hour lessonsare rare, but forty-five-minute lessons aresometimes offered to young beginners.Many university professors offer only forty-five-minute lessons, but require two lessonsback-to-back each week.

Private piano teaching has become highlylucrative in China, as has the piano exami-nation process. It is common to see childrenstart piano lessons at age three or four since

46 CLAVIER COMPANION MARCH/APRIL 2013

In Urumuqi, the capital of Xinjiang,Gulimina performed to a full house, stand-ing room only. Xinjiang AutonomousRegion is approximately two and one-halftimes the size of France.

These piano-major students, age thirteen toseventeen, are from middle and high schoolsaffiliated with China Conservatory ofMusic in Beijing. Their repertoire alreadyincludes works such as Liszt’s Tarantella,and Venezia Napoli; Granados’s Allegrode concierto, op. 46; Ravel’s La Valse forpiano solo; and Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No.4 in F-sharp Major, Op. 30.

parents strongly believe that children whobegin piano study at an early age will havea better future. Most piano teachers billlesson fees monthly; a one-time paymentof piano tuition for a semester is rare.Since checks and credit cards are uncom-mon in China, lesson fees are almostalways paid in cash.

To put lesson fees in perspective, keep inmind that the 2011 gross per capitaincome in China was 31,616 Yuan.6 Incities such as Beijing or Shanghai, a pianolesson fee ranges from as low as 80 to ashigh as 1000 Yuan, depending on theteacher’s educational background and aca-demic/professional title. For a forty-five-minute lesson for young beginners, akindergarten teacher or private teacherteaching at home usually charges between80 and 160 Yuan. College piano majorscharge between 100 and 300 Yuan per les-son. Collegiate piano teachers, regardlessof titles, could charge from 400 to 500Yuan for a one-hour lesson. A teacher whoserves on an undergraduate admissioncommittee or who is a graduate advisor inpiano performance could easily charge 800to 1000 Yuan for a forty-five-minute les-son; as mentioned previously, prospectivepiano students are required to take twoforty-five-minute lessons back-to-backeach week. In smaller municipalities, pianolesson fees tend to be less expensive, rang-ing from 60 to 200 Yuan for a forty-five-minute or one-hour lesson, again depend-ing on the teacher’s educational back-ground and professional title.

In China, unlike the U.S., many childrenat elementary levels, and those between theages of three to nine, have an additionalteacher, the so-called “supervising practiceteacher” or “tutoring teacher,” whose prin-cipal duty is to supervise a student’s prac-tice at home. These tutoring teachers cometo supervise students at least twice a week,sometimes daily if necessary. In some cases,the tutoring teachers also attend their stu-dents’ regular lessons and take notes fromthe piano teacher. The fee a tutoringteacher charges varies but is usually one-third to half of the regular lesson fee inthat geographic area.

Along with the lucrative piano teachingprofession is the equally lucrative pianoexamination process. In the past twentyyears, more and more exams are offered bydifferent organizations in China, and theyare increasingly administered nationwide.These exams are viewed as the mostimportant tools for evaluating privatepiano teaching results and students’achievements. Each year, millions of pianostudents register to take these exams.Because there are so many different ones,

48 CLAVIER COMPANION MARCH/APRIL 2013

the organizations that devise them alsopublish and sell their own preparationmaterials. The most authoritative of theExtra Curriculum Piano Examinationscome from the Central, the China, and theShanghai Conservatories of Music; theChinese Musicians Association; and inrecent years, the Royal Conservatory ofMusic. While these exams have enhancedprivate piano teaching standards, concernshave been raised that they also shift thenature of private piano teaching frommusic-making into an exam-passing busi-ness, with teachers paying more attentionto technique and repertoire developmentthan fundamental musicianship.

Finally, the rising living standard, theone-child policy, the competition among1.3 billion people, and the cultural belief inhard work have fostered an unusual rela-tionship among teachers, students, andparents. Teachers must push their studentssternly in order to be viewed by parents asgood teachers, and piano teachers see theirstudents’ technical development as one ofthe more important facets of successfulteaching. Because of that, technical exer-cises are a vital part of a piano lesson. Todevelop students’ technique, most teachersuse Charles-Louis Hanon’s The VirtuosoPianist in 60 Exercises, Ferdinand Beyer’sElementary Instruction Book for the Piano,Op. 101, and Carl Czerny’s Op. 599, Op.849, Op. 299, and Op. 740 in a progressivesequence for students from beginning,intermediate, early advanced, to advancedlevels. For advanced students, some teach-ers also assign Moritz Moszkowski’s fif-teen Études de Virtuosité, Op. 72.

Most teachers require students to learnand play all of the above exercises, especial-ly from Hanon, Beyer, and Czerny (Op.599, Op. 849, and most etudes from Op.299 and Op. 740). Each week, a teacherassigns a student three to five short etudes,

such as those from Beyer or Czerny’s Op.599, and expects the student to master allof them by the following week’s lesson.Because of the extensive emphasis onpiano technique, students develop strongtechnical skills at a young age, aided bytheir teachers’ repeated and meticulousinstruction concerning hand shaping.

For beginners, as late as a decade ago,domestic (Chinese) method series werevirtually non-existent, and teachers’ choiceswere limited primarily to John Thompson’sEasiest Piano Course or Modern Course forthe Piano or, more recently, to Bastien PianoBasics. Many piano teachers are still unfa-miliar with other good method series andrepertoire books from the U.S.; even NancyBachus’s “Spirit” series, which has beentranslated into Chinese and published byShanghai Music Publishing House for sev-eral years now, is available only in largercities. For repertoire materials, mostChinese teachers use only examination-related materials for obvious reasons, andfew selections are available from differentgenres, such as sacred, holiday, and ensem-ble music, or pop and jazz.

To ensure steady progress, teachersexpect parents to take responsibility fortheir children’s practice. Many parents,especially those with younger children, arerequired to be actively involved by attend-ing their children’s weekly piano lessonsand by supervising their practice sessions athome. One hour of practice a day is con-sidered normal for a child at an elementarylevel, with two to three hours a day forthose at intermediate or advanced levels.Children are expected to listen to bothparents and teachers, and to accept harshcriticisms sometimes in order to improve.

Comparing similarities and differencesbetween China and the U.S., many are tooobvious to state, but some are noteworthy.Even when music study and piano playing

are considered to be fun, educational, andan elective here, one still hears of studentswho never touch the piano again once theyears of lessons are over. In China, if stu-dents stop playing, they do so after passingthe top-level piano exams. In both coun-tries, one finds good and dedicated teach-ers instilling a love for music and thepiano in their students that is meant tolast a lifetime.

The explosive transformation of the roleof the piano and piano education in Chinaover the past few decades is a natural con-sequence of economic, political, and cul-tural forces that are still in effect today. It isgradually becoming clear that the expo-nential growth of the piano and piano edu-cation in China is not sustainable for atleast two reasons. First, the pool of avail-able students, however large, is stil lexhaustible because it is not as quicklyreplenished given the one-child policy.Secondly, the demand for musicians (andthe consequent justification for teachingpositions in academia and private studios)is not unlimited and therefore, saturable.Yet, it is equally clear that understandingthe causes of the non-sustainability offersfew viable alternatives to the inevitable col-lapse of demand—similar to the recenthousing market in the U.S.—sinceaddressing those deep roots are not eco-nomically, politically, or culturally popular.Just as in the U.S., what we musicians doas a profession is, after all, a reflection ofwhat society values. p

1Kraus, Richard Curt. (1989). Pianos and Politics in China:Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over WesternMusic. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 140.

2Kahn, Joseph & Wakin, Daniel J. (2007, April 3).Classical Music Looks Toward China With Hope. TheNew York Times. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nytimes.com

3Ibid.4Kraus, p. 183.5Kahn, Joseph & Wakin, Daniel J. (2007, April 3).

Classical Music Looks Toward China With Hope. TheNew York Times. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nytimes.com

6As of December, 2012 one U.S. dollar equaled 6.2354Chinese Yuan. Retrieved fromhttp://www.google.com/finance?q=USDCNY

50 CLAVIER COMPANION MARCH/APRIL 2013