"Duet is Like A Garden" - A Student Reflects on His Experience

This letter was written by a 17-year old student of mine named Erik. He is an unusually thoughtful young man. Anticipating an insightful response, I asked him to reflect on his experience of improvised piano duet. I just received this:

"In duet, the intertwining notes and chords are almost like a garden. It grows, if you nurture it, and eventually it becomes this big full thing before you have to cut it all away or it dies down naturally.

(Here, you can listen to an improvised duet that Erik and I created.)

"Duets display the combined emotional and musical efforts of two people in creative growth. The music can spark something in everybody as long as the ear is open. As the notes and chords grow and come together, they become one sturdy piece of music, filling this invisible canvas like an aural painting. A colorful, musical expression. In that, they're just as essential, if not more so, than what's created with paints and brushes -- we all need our prized music collection anyway, not everyone has a prized art collection.

"Music reminds me of colors, and what I've been thinking of here, I probably would not have thought of if I hadn't been listening this week to the music of the group, YES. I've been studying their layers of music -- listening to lots of progressive rock bands like them. A lot of their songs and pieces tend to sound like these big things, but a lot of the time it isn't as big as the ear perceives...



"I don't think I can describe my emotional expression with music; it just is. I can just let it be, and let it happen. I can't describe how I play anything, I have no idea what I'm doing at the piano, I just go for it and what comes out is what comes out. I don't think I'm alone there. Steve Howe (the guitarist in Yes) can't describe how he composed some songs...

...and Neil Young has a fascination with recording things "in the moment", which I haven't heard him elaborate on, but I imagine it's probably because once the moment's gone, the emotion is gone, and the initial magic of the song is lost as well. And that's what I can relate to, I think.



"The point that I'm getting to is that, unless you know exactly what you're doing with your instrument, you can't over-think it. But who wants to know, or hear someone who knows exactly what they're doing, anyway? If the music is truly expression and art, it all has to spontaneously happen in-the-moment.

"I hope you've had a wonderful week, and I wish the very best,
Erik"